Review – Game Dev Story

Growing up I had an ambition to be a developer. Amazed by fantastic NES games, I decided this is what I wanted to do in life. Of course as I grew up various factors prevented me from achieving that goal and so I settled for writing news and reviews for video games and listening to chiptune music. Now, thanks to developers Kariosoft, Game Dev Story gives me a chance to live out those ambitions without the hassle of real-life game developing such as funding, crunch time and studio politics.

On the surface of Game Dev Story there is a simple game that seemingly doesn’t offer much. But dig deeper and there is a game that is not just well executed but insanely addictive.

In Game Dev Story, your aim is to take charge of a video game studio (which you get to name) and make as much money as you can in twenty years by creating games (duh!), taking on contracts and – if you’re good enough – creating a console.

For a game about…Game developing, Game Dev Story isn’t that deep. After round an hour of playing you’ll get use to a routine that involves deciding what console to develop your game for, what genre and types to pick, whenever to advertise, whenever to use items and what to call your game with the tight 14 character limit, seeing how well it does and then rinse and repeat.

It may sound like then that Game Dev Story is a repetitive game that is a missed opportunity. But Game Dev Story has one hook that will keep you playing through – the high score. Admit it, a game like Tetris wouldn’t be as addictive without the high-score feature and competitive games like Call of Duty series would be so popular if not for letting you allow to brag about your kills and streaks.

Game Dev Story doesn’t just have one high score but several – Your profit, the amount of sales you’ve made and the reviews scores for each of the games you’ve developed (the latter two go cover up to the last 32 games). Hell, you could count winning awards as a high score aspect to. And achieving the absurdly hard to get “game of the year” award

It’s here that you become addicted as you discover more ways to get your scores higher and higher and each new playthrough you alter the way you played last time in an attempt to better your last game. Even though it’s not a complex game, that doesn’t mean you’ll be breezing the game, winning trophies, designing your very own console and getting huge profits.

If you are thinking of going through several playthroughs, I will advise you to write down what the results of the genre and type combination are as they don’t carry over to a new game as well as when consoles are released (and taken off the market) and how much they cost.

Of course you could always play past the twenty year point (though your sales stop being updated) but it’s more enjoyable to begin fresh and apply what you’ve learnt.

In terms of the games presentation, it’s simplistic and the music is catchy at first but it loops so much that it can become irritable. The graphics on the otherhand always retains their charm, whenever it’s your staff member working hard in developing to the miserable guy hosting your studios games at an expo and seeing new consoles being revealed.

Game Dev Story is a fantastic game that gives you a simple concept and hooks you in with that one more go factor (in this case developing a new game to see if you can better your sales) and potentially offering longer playability that more in-depth games and commercial games seem to lack – something even more amazing when you consider the low price for Game Dev Story.

Game Dev Story
Developers: Kariosoft
Platform: iPhone(version reviewed)/iPad/iPod Touch

The Good

• Addictive high score chasing
• Excellent value for money
• Replayability is huge
• Awesome charm and small touches

The Bad

• Music can become repetitive
• Presentation is pretty basic