Weekly post

The game I’ve been playing for this week is Game Dev Story for the iPhone. The main point/goal of the game is to successfully manage your own game company. Taking place over 20 years, you must decide who to hire/fire, whether to develop a game or do contract work, which systems to develop for, how to advertise your company, and managing your fan base. What I find interesting is that it bears a lot of similarities with companies and consoles in real life. For example, Sony is Sonny in the game, while PlayStation is called the PlayStatus in the game. After successfully completing a game (or unsuccessfully should you decide to ship it before completion), the game is rated by 4 people assumed to be “experts”, and then the game goes on sale. The sound in the game is nice in that it has some 8-bit as well as more modern sounds. The graphics also have a bit of an 8-bit feel to them in certain parts of the game. The game is easy to pick up and play since everything is pretty much menu/option based. All the user has to do is select the desired option, which means its rules are fairly ‘enforced’ and is not more ‘relaxed’ in terms of allowing the user to go wherever they want in the world and do whatever they please. Although fun to play through the first few times, the game easily gets repetitive as many events are almost predictable. For example, a gaming event happens every year where you are allowed to purchase a booth to showcase your games, a salesman comes along every few months and offers you items that boost your company, and once you know the options in the menus there is really nothing that can surprise you.

Here's a gameplay video:

For anyone interested, I believe the game is still on sale for $0.99 (75% off if I remember correctly)

For my GDW update, some of the functions in the particle system need to be re written since they “don’t work” very well. Also, minor changes are being done here and there to make the system easier to work with/integrate into the main game. Also, work has begun on the game pitch. Controls, background story, enemies, power ups, achievements, and other parts of the game are starting to “come together” and are being added to the pitch. The group is planning to have 2 modes for the game, 1 where it is a “race” and first one past the finish line wins while the other is a more team based version. Using power ups or any other methods, players on the same team must try to stop others from the other team from crossing the finish line. The first player to cross the finish line will bring victory to their team. In terms of art, it is planned to be ‘Tron-style’ where everything is lighted up. The vehicles will have a futuristic look to them. The game is titled Illuminate, which is intended to hint at the look/feel of the game.