Game Dev Story: how to succeed on the App Store without even bothering to resize the graphics

or: goddammit Walt Sidney if I'm paying you $280k to create graphics for Lord Doo-Doo 2 I expect more than +10

i wannit
i wannit
i wannit

My company is slowly cornering the market on Bookstore Simulations with its bestselling "Fuck a Kindle" franchise.

As far as I can tell the key to the game seems to be getting that first Hall of Fame game... it all falls in place after that.

I just got lucky w/ some good breakthroughs on one game and sold a shitload of copies by accident, then used the profits to fund a chart-incinerating architecture DS sim (the illustrious Anus Landlord as mentioned in the other thread), and from there it's been nothing but smashes ever since. it should be said that the game essentially becomes challenge-less in the NG+; eventually the only fun comes from seeing how well your vile titles sell (which, tbqh, is still pretty fun). that being said I've probably played this game for 10+ hours since getting it on Friday just to get to this point, and I'll be playing it at least one more time just to see what else I can make happen (for instance, still have never gotten a 40/40 in Famitsu).

motherfuck a power outage though. got one right after having a 30+ point breakthrough and paying the expensive freelancer $280k for a shitload of graphics points.

lol is this ONLY FOR iPHONE?

it should be said that the game essentially becomes challenge-less in the NG+; eventually the only fun comes from seeing how well your vile titles sell (which, tbqh, is still pretty fun

It sorta becomes challengeless as soon as you hit the first hall of fame game. Despite blackouts, I haven't had a non-HOF game since.

But yeah, still fun and very much worth $3.99.

I am still cackling like a loon over 'Anus Landlord'

Finished my company's 20 year stint. Finished with just over $1 billion capital, and developed 2 consoles. My bestselling title was Dragon Poo 6 (online fantasy RPG) which was just shy of 40 million units. I won 2 Grand Prizes at the yearly award show, but never did get a 40/40 review for a title. And yeah, once I got the first HOF games, everything after also made the HOF, and I just worked at developing my staff into a crack team of hackers.... think my payroll was pushing $20 million a year by the end.

the fact that i'm now taking extended bathroom breaks to play this while at my ACTUAL JOB AS A DEVELOPER is super weird

that being said Dong Collapse was a really big hit

uh oh, i've started playing this

wish I could take credit for this one:

http://i55.tinypic.com/iontw7.png

Got several HoF games, developed the top console and portable, now i'm just playing to bump up all the stats

Yeah I'm on like year 30 or something, just trying to level up all my employees. Francoise Bloom is pulling in $44 million a year at this point.

the fact that i had to go on gamefaqs to find out how to get a hardware engineer didn't help, tho

After 20 years, I ended up with 4 game of the years, top seller of 44 million units, around 800 million in the bank. I'm probably never going to play it again, to be honest, but I got around 8-10 hours of really enjoyable gameplay out of it, spread over a week or so, for $3.99, so I'm really happy. would recommend to anyone who hasn't binged yet.

lite version now available, if you're still on the fence about this game then (1) fuck you and (2) go DL it

on it

is there an android version?

(yes I h8 myself)

I've been playing this for a week and I feel like I'm not doing something right. How come it only ever offers up the same 2 of my staff to do graphics and proposal, when I have 5 staff? One staff member gets ignored completely for any job. What's going on there?

Almost missed my tram stop this morning thanks to this damn thing. I'm trying to aim for educational puzzles and sim games on the handheld for kids at the minute.

so I dl'ed the demo just to see what the fuss is all about. I got a game released, it didn't do so well, but I reckon that's ok. But what I want to know from those of who who've played through further: how much do I need to sweat things here at the start? My problem with sim games is that it can take a long time to realize you're doomed because of early bad decisions. Is this game that way, or is it pretty flexible wrt bad decisions, so that if you're dumb when figuring things out it'll just take longer for your company to succeed (if/when you do eventually figure things out)?

I think it's pretty flexible. It kinda follows a difficulty arc where it starts really hard but by the end of the game you're winning all kinds of awards.

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2010/11/analysis_narrative_exoskeleton.php

I played Game Dev until almost three in the morning last night.

How come it only ever offers up the same 2 of my staff to do graphics and proposal, when I have 5 staff?

They have to have the right job title. If you play long enough you can buy job title changes from the salesman guy.

this game is great but man is the save-state/multitasking/save game function broken

I finished 20 years and only had one hall of fame game to show for it. :(

i lost momentum in this game when my attempt at a new IP, Glans Warriors, took a critical drubbing, and then the same year I was forced to release a buggy pre-gold version of Final Pederasty 6, the series' first foray into a new console gen, to make the holiday release deadline. Let down a whole generation of fans who had been with us since Rectal Hordes.

also it's retarded how much you have to level up your workers to unlock the new job titles. Why does a hacker have to first prove himself as a world-class sound engineer?

I never even considered releasing a buggy game. Is there a good reason to do it?

panic and desperation iirc

man errybody know Final Pederasty's been shit ever since they switched from cartridges to discs

Trony Legacy soundtrack makes this game sound incredibly dramatic, especially when the orchestra's reaching a crescendo and two of your developers are engulfed in flames.

I'm on fire this time round, I'm raking in millions, my company Borad Digital's specialty is sims and RPG titles - our best sellers and HOF titles so far are the Petz! franchise, and critcally acclaimed title OlderScrawls (Olderscrawls2 has just had a release and its roaring up the charts). I think I might even win a grand prize trophy if I keep this up.

Fuck if I can get my staff to level up/retrain well tho.

Final Pederasty made a shift from 2d dungeon-crawler to 3d immersive fps/rpg as an an exclusive launch title on Fart Magnet Studios' Bitchbox console without losing any of its fanbase i'll have you know

you guys sold out to cater to the hardcore. REAL Final Pederasty fans who've loved the series since the beginning don't give a shit about side quests or 3D graphics. who engages in pederasty out in the open anyway? FART MAGNET STUDIOS IS SCREWING US AGAIN!!!1!1!!!1!!

we felt that what hardcore fans may have felt that they lost in our improving the game's casual playability they gained in the detailed, high-res polygon-based 3D immersive pederasty mechanic that had been so often requested from the series

the pederasty just felt so sterile and focus-grouped in the later games, whereas the first few had an intoxicating childlike innocence

although I do have to admit that the Kinect integration was handled v. well

We appreciate the feedback! Look out for DLC character skins, coming soon: the first pack contains Lou Pearlman, Gore Vidal and the Adam West Batman

god dammit that Gore Vidal skin was supposed to be a GameStop exclusive; if I'd known it would eventually be available separately I would have saved my money and held out for a price drop. FART MAGNET STUDIOS IS SCREWING US AGAIN!!!1!1!!!1!!

Arse Biscuits made a small profit despite middling reviews. I think Harry Cockface Studios might have alloacted too much $ to sound for a board game.

Other notable failures: My foray into dating simulators for the 8-bit market, Lonely Too Fat, was far ahead of its time, and I overestimated the demand for the town simulator Fuck Your Face 3 and rushed it prematurely into the marketplace near the end of its console's lifespan. The golf arcade game Cup My Balls was greeted with confusion in the press, and the cool reception City of Pubes received in the same season nearly did me in until I had a surprise cash infusion with the one-off bookstore simulator Fuck Cunt Book, and the rest is history...

Ah. I'm still struggling. Gnome Rimming is top 10 but Harry Cockface is still a bit sore after a poor showing for Joustbang.

Gnome Rimming is a waggle game i assume? or is that the DS version of Gnome Waggle?

And here I am with innocuous titles like BALLZ and Petz and Olderscrawls and my Fantasy title He Poos Clouds. I think I'm doin it rong.

For me without the unfailing delight that comes with a popup telling you how much everybody's talking about Dog Cock Billiards in the gaming press, this is just a management grind with a shitty interface.

this is just a management grind with a shitty interface.

― antexit, Wednesday, December 1, 2010 8:08 PM (9 minutes ago)

i said this upthread or perhaps on another thread but feel a lil "umad" @ the people repping this game!

shitty pretzel covered in shitty chocolate makes a delicious treat beloved by all. one of the mysterious alchemies of taste. Like my VirtualBoy flight simulator, WTC Smackdown! Still probably fetching big money on eBay

You prob hate simcity too rite shasta?

sure, if you hate a resource management game with a sucky backwards interface and lazy backend production values throughout, you must hate a gamechanging classic resource management game with one with one of the best user interfaces ever in history

yasssssssss
http://www.appbrain.com/app/game-dev-story/net.kairosoft.android.gamedev3en

lol android

:( truth bomb

just don't think the public were ready for sexy golf 2

cunt puncher studios resumé to date

quim story 35,335
quim-to-mania 55,724
finger fantasy 118,945
killathon 95,240 (innovative "marathon"/shooter crossover again not sure the public were ready for my vision)
sexy golf 69,308
sexy golf 2 50,998

I'm always excited when a new quim game is released.

if you're as entertained as I am by giving profane, offensive, obscene or ridiculous titles to mundane objects, it's a godsend. this is basically a little bit of game holding a mechanic together which allows me to make myself laugh with my tourettey jokes- without alienating my loved ones by telling them something objectively unfunny that i can't get out from laughter

Yes - this thing functions as like a surrogate girlfriend to me, in that it provides a means for me to make unacceptably shit, offensive jokes without needing to have a "woman" there that I'm all "in a comfort zone" with to the point where I have "no filter".

I paid $800k getting a renowned children's artist in to devise an art style for my romance simulator. I then titled it "Shrub Rapist". It shifted 4.9 million units. This game is Japanese, right?

The 14 character limit is kind of a drag though, if there was a bigger limit you could get cracking mileage out of making up lots of pretentious modern game names with colons in them, instead of not even being able to fit the "2" in when you make a cash-in straight-to-DS shovelware sequel.

Yes - this thing functions as like a surrogate girlfriend to me, in that it provides a means for me to make unacceptably shit, offensive jokes without needing to have a "woman" there that I'm all "in a comfort zone" with to the point where I have "no filter".

I don't mean to imply here that I've been playing this for longer than a day, or that I will still be playing it on Wednesday.

of sexy golf 2, the critics remarked "cash-in straight-to-DS shovelware sequel"

I wonder if some generous spirited Brit tinkerer could pull this apart and edit it so that the Famitsu Death Panel is replaced by injoke spouting 80s Spectrum/C64 magazine subhumans? It'd be kind of apposite; I kept getting grandiose visions of the games I was spending thousands on, then realising that I was putting them out on the game's euphemised equivalent of the c.1987 Brick Gameboy.

While they were at it, they could also add "impenetrable text-based football management", "shit naked poker" and "politically incorrect Native American rape simulator" to the available genres.

Just thinking aloud. In text.

maybe save the rape jokes for the game?

Sorry, that was an oblique, disapproving reference to Custer's Revenge. It was a different time.

Custer's Revenge is really something.

sexy golf 3 feat. lake balls

New studio Thrush Cream just doesn't have the same traction as Herpes Enclave. Fantasy MMORPG World of Sperm (& sequel World of Sper2) aren't even hitting 20 mil, the Bumming Puppy animal life games are our best sellers, but still only so-so (tho' one got game of the year). Some of it's bad luck with power cuts, but I think Fran Bloom has a lot to answer for. Totally unreliable. 'I worked really hard on that'. No you didn't. You're capable of 100+ scenario work; regular mid-30s hackwork is just lazy. Thank god for Mr X. He's a trooper.

Maybe I'll just become a mini-skirt trivia shovelware studio.

whats up with mr. x and the king? do they level up hardcore or what? they always look like ass to me.

Mr X never gets huge numbers (300ish range), but he seems to be really reliable: the hackers with mad stats (some 900+ if you level them in everything) are a bit flaky, and knock out too many 'that'll do' efforts for proposals/sound/graphics to be really trustworthy. But apparently if trained in the right direction, they become more reliable? Might be true - Dexter seems to perform solidly as a sound eng, but Fran has screwed me over as a writer, designer and director before now (but her stats so good I don't dare sack her, even though I think the Chimp and Bear might be brilliant).

just cracked a 10-9-10-10 for my pirate mmo booty world 3. sup now.

dude, if i paid you 2.4 mil you don't get to say "i don't know if i'll do well this time"
in good news, the Toot Toot harbor motion franchise is in definite bloom

Im starting to enjoy this game less, mostly because my staff is being a bunch of cunts and I cant come up with funny titles anymore.

it's definitely a game where you burn out quickly but those 10 or so hours where the game has its hooks in you are a magical blur of whimsy and profanity

Exactly.

somebody's angling for C+P quotation

only in every post I make on this board

I keep playing this on the train and I dont even know why anymore.

I keep playing this on the train and I dont even know why anymore.

^^^ new board descript

I keep playing this on the train and I dont even know why anymore.

Really. Dutiful, flat & laboured swearing ('Pong Twat, I'll just call it Pong Twat'), being repeatedly let down by hackers and contractors, comfortable progression into 20-30 million sellers, 37/40 over and over. What am I aiming for? Nothing.

('Pong Twat, I'll just call it Pong Twat')

Hahahahahahahahaha!

Exactly. I think I hit that stage about a day before I finally quit for good.

Kairosoft's new game, wherein you manage a volcanic springs spa(onsen), is slightly more Japanese:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWh_I3eI2Kc

It appears that the CEO and exec asst from GDS have parlayed their millions from the "CuntFarter" and "Womb Maider" series into a new venture.

I wanna play that. :/

http://toucharcade.com/2010/11/30/game-dev-story-2-coming-to-ios/

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-01-04-game-dev-story-companion-out-in-japan

http://toucharcade.com/2011/02/28/kairosoft-launches-hot-springs-story/

Neat game! Much more to unlock.

9pm: Hmm, I don't like this game as much as the other one.

...

2am: Uggggghhhhhhh fuck my liiiiife.

Haha

Two new Kairosoft games are out on iPhone:

Grand Prix Story and Oh! Edo Towns. Bought them both immediately.

how is the school one? i've heard good things about it.

ie: is it better than the spa one? bc i tried to get into that a few times unsuccessfully. the ui was a little too unfriendly

The spa one is my favorite. It took me a while to get into it but I love it.

Mega Mall is probably the one that is easiest to get into but it's also TOO easy.

The school one is harder than the the spa one, I'd argue.

By "favorite" I mean second favorite. Game Dev #1.

are these all the same? do they change at all during the game or is it just like game dev's endless same same?

Grand Prix Story actually has you watch your guys race around in the cars that you do the stat increases on. Other than that, same sorta dynamic. Different that Hot Springs or Academy, tho, and more like Game Dev, since you're working on improving a product over time that goes into competition, rather than laying out landscape tiles harmoniously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOsHzk7MbIo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCeHGghkgbU

And here's their sim city:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unyhqwzXxps

Have quite a bit of fun with O Edo Towns, I must say. Moreso than grand Prix story.

grand prix is a buck atm, go get it

Epic Astro Story finally out for iPhone. I like it. Graphics have a weird scaling thing, tho.

what's the theme?

SPACE

more like game dev / grand prix, or more like spas / stupid building games?

You build shit, but there's not the heavy reliance on combos and co-location like the onsen/schooling ones. You bump up the stats and kit out your dudes to go hunt for monster/mob fights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWRWXGhP8EQ