Impressions: Game Dev Story (Android)

I’ve been staying at my parent’s for the last couple of weeks so I haven’t had my PlayStation to play games on. This has meant I’ve relied on my laptop (and the fantastic Steam sale) as well as my Android phone to give me my gaming fix. Earlier in the week I wrote about Spaghetti Marshmallows and now I’ve got another great mobile game that I’ve been playing like mad.

Game Dev Story is the name of this little gem, a game where you attempt to lead your company to the top of the charts, whether that be by Rockstar-like quality or Activision-style mass production. You’re in charge of every part of the development, from the game’s genre, style and even the console.

It’s a little sketchy looking with its Pokemon-style graphics. Weirdly the game doesn’t use all of the screen, leaving large black lines above and below the window. I can only imagine this is due to the conversion onto the modern handhelds. It also means some of the menus are hard to hit, but it’s not a massive problem.

Despite these small issues, it’s surprisingly addictive, though it’s hard to pinpoint why; you’re mainly sitting and watching your employees and waiting for development to complete or checking your sales figures go up (or not), rather than pressing buttons to actually complete tasks. This doesn’t sound particularly exciting, but there really is something compelling about it all.

You get to hire staff, train them up to higher levels (meaning they can make better games) and if they’re rubbish, fire them. Once you’ve got your staff you can begin development on a game. Here, you can choose to either develop on the PC, a cheaper option, but if you’ve got plenty of capital you can apply for a console licence.

There’s lots of references to real world companies and devices which’ll make you chuckle: Senga and Intendro to name two. As you play these companies will introduce new consoles for you to develop on, meaning you have to stay up-to-date with the latest console to remain popular.

Once you’ve decided the platform you can choose your game’s direction. This includes applying points to various parameters like “cuteness” or “niche appeal” with pros and cons to each. You unlock new genres as you train up staff and complete projects.

When development is complete you can do things like release it without fixing any of the bugs (looking at you, New Vegas) and it’s quite nerve-racking when the reviewers score your game, calling it horrible things and giving in low scores. Equally, it’s great selling loads of copies even though you know your historical robot racing game is rubbish.

It’s a very fun, very addictive game that despite not sounding that exciting really drags you in. I suspect that it’ll grate after a while, mind, especially because there’s just very little that you actually have to do – it’s watching stuff happen. Some sort of minigame revolving around production would be fun, but you’re playing the executive, not a programmer.

Despite longevity issues (and this is mobile gaming remember), it’s really worth a play. Perhaps it’s just people involved in the industry who’ll enjoy it, but there’s something quite cool about seeing the other side of videogame production.

As a bonus (and incentive), the game’s also quite cheap right now on both Android and iPhone, but that special offer may be over in a matter of hours, so be quick!