Game Dev Story is a charming iOS game that has had me hooked for the better part of the last week.
In the game you run a game company, and your goal is to succeed in the competitive world of the game industry. You choose which games to make (style and genre) and which system to make them for and then release them and hope they succeed! With success comes money and the opportunity to hire more and better staff. Eventually you’ll be upgrading your offices, making sequels to hit games, winning industry awards and even releasing your own console.
The above shows the first console I developed, the strikingly named Satan Engine. This was 17 years into the game, and in real-world-equivalent times this 64-bit Blu-ray drive monster was going up against 16 bit offerings from ‘Senya’ and ‘Intendro’. Obviously I wiped the carpet with them, quickly gaining 26% of the market. (The slightly blurred graphics are because I am playing an iPhone game at double-size on the iPad)
This was helped of course by my launch game:
Since Acrosatan X I have released a few other games, including a ‘music’ style game in the genre ‘cuties’ (called Pantsu Dreaming) that scored 40/40!
Even so, it was the long awaited sequel to Beating Jesus (BS: I expect a comment on this) that would be my first Game Of The Year. I guess those F1 Driving fans are more numerous than I thought?
The game is very cute and light-hearted, and one nice element is that there are certain… unusual staff members that can periodically be available for hire. The best is this guy:
Yep, Grizzly Bearington the legendary bear-producer. At his job interview, he said he had left the woods in search of honey! He’s perhaps not the most skilled employee I have, but he certainly brightens the office with his presence:
I’ve sunk many hours into Game Dev Story, and considering it was only $1.99 (on sale from $3.99) it’s well, well worth the price. There are few enough Japanese developed games on the US App Store, but considering the quality of this one (and the Cave shooters) I can only hope we’ll see more in the future.
