Post by seb11614 in Game Dev Masters comments

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Hello,

Thanks for the shoutout. Glad to be of help to your project.

I made another "sucessful" run. I lost after switching to the bigger office. I didn't quite get what happened, but i had more than 200k. Bought the new office, recruited 2 more workers and all of a sudden i was at -50k. I guess my cash reserve weren't enough...

But in the meantime i managed to make a few sucessfull games. My ratings have improved and most of my games reach between 8 and 9 even after the 1st couple of years. I managed to make two 88 games in year 3.

I feel after year 3, it s almost mandatory to switch to a bigger team because of the bubble inflation. Even if you game the delay to reach the required amount, it s starting to become burdensome to delay for more than 6 weeks. 300 bubbles is a lot for a lone worker

So here comes a new batch of suggestions/comments :

- When i take trend visualiser as a starting perk, i would like to see the trends of the topics. It s nice to see the trends of all the genre and of the topics i have acquired. But it would be nice to see which topic i should acquire based on trends. I don t think it s necessary to see all the trends but maybe top 3/5 would be nice. Not a huge hindrance, but maybe a nice plus for the perk. I ran most of my games with that perk and i ll try the others if i run more tries.

- Another small hindrance that could be changed : I think it would be nice to have the 3 starting topics and the starting genre to match. Maybe not systematically great, but good and above garanteed would be ok.

- There s a glitch with the contracts : once the contract is done, if i go to start a new contract before the payment pop up appears, the contract becomes failed. Not a big deal if you know it s coming but sometimes you re into the game and forget it.

- I managed to use the crunch, the way to make it work is a little bit clunky, that s why i messed it up. The issue i had was that the drag and drop of the crunch icon is too precise, so i kept thinking i wasn t doing the right thing.

- I did some tries and the marketing costs are not included in the total cost of the game when you go into the previous game panel. I tried to use the max advertising option and the 25k doesn t seem to be there. I might be wrong though.

- The bank saving bug is still there. I wanted to double check. When i start i put 90k into saving due in 3 months after 3 months the pop up appears the money do not, i even let one more month run and still no money

- Last issue i have is a rather serious one : sometimes RNG fucks the player when designing the game. Let s say i have a game where optimal balance is 70 design and 30 tech, and where the sub part balance favors heavily tech, you can t finish the game with a good balance without delaying. Sometimes it can be a good thing because you didn t reach the necessary amount of bubbles for the current year and you want to delay. Btw it would be nice to know when you start designing how many bubbles you should make to keep the pace.

-What stats determine the speed of producing green bubbles for the contracts ?

So another big long rambling post from me. I hope it s helpful and don t hesitate to ask if i m not clear. I saw the vids of the new office, they look very cool. Tell me when you plan to make a new update, i want to see if i can reach medium sized softwares without imploding...

Hulgarth4 years ago

Fantastic post as always and some good ideas as well..

I do agree that it does start to become difficult to hit bubble minimums in later years with just the 1 worker. I do want to encourage you to move to office 2, but I don't want it to feel forced. I think I might make the min look at the number of workers you have and dynamically set the requirement you need to hit. Of course what you can produce wildly changes with engine features / workers skills / higher tech / design stats.. I also like the idea of showing the user what kind of minimums they need to cross to make a perfect game I can def add that in. I always find myself doing the quick math as well would make sense to just show it clearly I dig transparency.

You probably didn't cross this at year 3 but when a topic / trend hits > 50% there is a breaking news notification like.. "after company xx latest release people are going nuts for more games with the genre xxxx" I used to have them making trends go up to quickly so its a lil slower now so it may not occur until later years. Theirs also a notification if something crosses 100% and begins to over-saturate the market and the trend is going down. I don't want to make trend visualizer to strong or it will feel like the only choice of manager perks on new game.

The idea of giving you decent matches on your first 3 topics isn't bad but that would require me to kind of tweak there match to your favorite (starting genre) and maybe set them up if they are terrible / bad level. Every topic has 3-4 GREAT matches including the 3 topics you start with, as to what genre they match with that's random. I might just check for terrible matches and move them up I don't know ill ponder / consider this.

The contract glitch is new and I checked on my end as well there def a sneaky glitch here like you said, but this can be easily fixed I just wont turn the buttons on to start more work until your paid. Great catch on this one I never tried to start next that fast before. Also contract bubbles are based off of your research stat for the size of them and chance to make them is focus. Confusing how its research right? Ya I def need that to be told to players via tutorial cause its a lil wierd, but I didn't want it to be based off tech / design stats.

The drag and drop of skills can be confusing I will likely switch it to a just right click to slot the skill or something you aren't the first person to mention this so clearly it can be an issue for some and needs addressing.

Your right about marketing not adding to budget of game I never thought of that but honestly makes total sense. This will be added in next update for sure. Same for long term bank bug, I already have that fixed in my current development version and will be in next update soon.

RnG can and will fuck you over. Some balances are harder to reach than others, but overall I think RnG creates a good experience. For myself if I hit a genre that I find is tricky to hit balance for while respecting sliders I just research diff genres but I do get what your saying. I have some ideas how to refine my procedural weighting system to be a little smarter when it comes to design balance. Try to avoid having very high on all the wrong sliders you want etc.

Thank you so much for the feedback and I will def get to work on these issues as well as others. I am currently doing some advanced visuals / art for the game but will be working on re-doing the bank system and some fixes followed then by large office / large games soon

seb116144 years ago

I made another and i found a big bug. My first medium game, i go to make a sequel of a previous game, with a brand new engine, when i land on the 1st slider screen, i can t click on the begin button.

Another smallish issue is that when i make a sequel of a sequel the new title is named XXXX 2 2.

Tell me if you want the bugged save. I would join the bugged save but i can t find the save game folder.

Hulgarth4 years ago (1 edit)

did you have your 3 workers set on the sliders? You can not begin design of a medium game without assigning a worker to each slider. When it comes to naming a sequel I can't really check if the name is xxxx 2 and then make it xxxx 3 I am just adding a 2 to the end of it, but of course you can manually change the name. I do agree this is weird but theirs a bit of a technical issue when it comes to sniffing through a string to find a number at the end I might be able to do something about this but not 100% sure I can. I could maybe trach if you are making a sequel of a sequel and add a 3 / 4 etc but removing the 2 is tricky cause if you changed the name from xxxx 2 to xxxx and then I take the last entry to the name off it would chop your word. I would need to verify its numeric etc which is kinda tricky.

Hulgarth4 years ago

your save for the game is in your user/name/appdata/local/gdm/saved eventually way down the line when the game is ready and I move to steam I will tap into steam cloud saves but for now your local save is there.

seb116144 years ago

You re right. It wasn t a bug, i didn t do the thing with the sliders. Maybe a text in the UI saying what to do would help ? Like instead of workers, say "assign the following workers to the priorities" or smtg like that.

Anyway thks for the answer, my run is busted, i ll retry another day. Still can t do a medium game...

Hulgarth4 years ago

It might currently be a little on the hard side. I might up sales a bit to make it a little easier. It was recently a bit to easy in ver 6 but I might of gone to far the other direction, but we can turn all kinds of knobs until the right balance is found. That is a big part of why I have this open demo style of developing cause I need people like you to give me there feedback. I am also collecting your data via leader-boards and on my end I have it ver sorted so I can examine peoples play through to help me decide where balance needs to shift.

I totally agree about the lack of instruction moving to medium I totally get why you were like hmm its not working cause its not obvious to drag drop workers onto sliders unless you have played game dev tycoon which I based game-play around for small / med games. My plan to solve this is to offer a tutorial when you buy the second office and make it a choice to view. That way on subsequent plays you wont need to sit through it, but when needed I think a short guide explaining about drag dropping workers onto sliders and how they then take those workloads and how going over 100% workload on a worker will negatively impact your game, and also explain how endurance is the stat that directly affects how much workload you take from sliders. Training endurance isn't needed for medium although it makes it easier to set workers to sliders without hitting >100% , but it will be necessary for large / AAA.

seb116144 years ago

To be honest, it s not that hard. I failed the switch to medium twice because i m a dumbass... The 1st one, i only had 200k saved and didn't notice the medium office has to be purchased and not rented, so here goes my 200k. Add in the cost of making medium game i m -200k.

The 2nd one, i managed to save 700+k by year 4, purchased the office. Then i tried to make the medium game and "failed" 2,3 times, so i alt tab and forced exit the game. But with how the save system works, i m forking the 200k to produce the game each time. So - 400k...

Both failure were avoidable and i was on good tracks to be sustainable.

I kinda like the hard side. And i think 700k, with level 2 engine fully functional is a good milestone in year 4, i don t know the economics of the medium game industry. But small indie is OK ish. But to be frank, i was producing games lots of games 9/10 games with gross profit averaging 120/150k.

All that seems ok to me, but i m used to those kind of games. Maybe the setting should be sink or swim, the player has 4/5 years to make the jump to medium before drawning to the scaling. 4/5 years looks comfy enough. You ll see hardcore gamer making the jump in the 2nd year with a loan...

I might try a 3rd time to reach medium games but not tonight, cause it s night night time.

Hulgarth4 years ago

right on man and honestly any good tycoon game you want to be able to have that idea of how you could of done better for a replay, and I want it to be strong enough so that you are like ok lets do a replay. If I can get people to enjoy the experience and want to replay to improve then I am doing something right. Balance will def be shifting though as we continue to develop and test the game, and I truly appreciate your help.

BTW when I was watching "The amazing race" earlier while on a break I had the idea of how to fix the manager perks to be stronger choices in the early game. I will just have separate rules for them based on game size. Like for the cost reduction on small we can take 50% off making 14k go to 7k which could be a valid choice. Then we reduce that to 40% 30% 20% etc etc whatever math lines up to feel right. Same for game sales we can set that to be different based on size. I will run the numbers on what %s to get these at I guess selling anything more than 7k on a small would make it a better choice than the cost reduction however if you make a shit game it would be worse choice but with a good game its likely a better choice. I don't know how it will end up, but I think this idea could help refine the skills to be more valid options. Ideally I want someone to really struggle with this choice, that's why its locked in. I would like it to feel like something you ponder.. "should I have taken more sales".. "what if I could see these trends" etc etc

At the end of the day I am aiming for an interesting amount of player choice that lends well to replay's, I am hoping that + leader-boards could really help me find a player base that stays interested. If I can achieve that I would love to do all kinds of stuff to keep it fresh both with visuals / balance and fresh leader-boards. Still a ways off from that state, but well get there. Thank you again and I hope you get the urge to play more in the future, your insight has really been helpful.

seb116144 years ago

But i don t see any way that RH perk can be worth it early on or even later.

You don t like the boost fans perk idea ??

Another thing : my main issue with those kind of games is that once you ve mastered the growing loop, the game lose interest to me. Mainly because the AI competition is basically non existant and thus not a challenge. Basically you re competing against yourself, the ruleset of the game and the scaling. AI companies are there in the background to "populate" but not really to compete...

You never have a though year because a couple of AI companies made blockbusters saturating the market. Or a breakthrough year because you re the blockbuster maker. Real life companies have long time trends (up or down) but have short time wild variation that can overturn a long time trend if mismanaged.

I don t know how you planned to face that. Or even if i should ask you to face that since bigger game studios can t handle it. I was just curious as it s an issue i see raised by a lot of tycoon enthusiast.

My 2cts

Hulgarth4 years ago

A boost fans perk is a pretty solid idea. I could see adding that as an additional choice. I think having one perk be end game only is ok as well Ie the lower wages perk has no use at first but when you have 5+ workers at high lvl that reduction could be great. Although if your making bank at that point it might not be worth I will have to try to get that in line somehow to feel worth.

As a big tycoon fan myself I totally agree about how stale the game can feel when you have mastered the loop. I have a few ideas how we can tie the Ai companies in to a more real experience not just the background. I have a few ideas on paper, but I am not 100% sure how they will feel when implemented. I was thinking about stuff like if you release in the same month as a top company and your using the same genre if there game is better than yours you would lose sales and vice versa for them if you made the better scoring game. One of the ways I already am tryign to tie the Ai into the experience is the dynamic trends / genres based on ai sales, but I want to bring more dynamic realism to the Ai / game I just have to be careful I don't go to far to make it feel like a hindrance. This is why I haven't tried stuff like that yet, but I will.

My next update after the visual work I am currently doing will focus on fixing the cash and adding some of the stuff we have discussed followed by large and then AAA games / offices. Once we reach "end game" then it will be a little easier to examine the math and try to balance perks and add some of the other ideas for Ai. Still got a ways to go, but I am very happy with the current state of the game. When I get some of the more end game ideas and Ai stuff in I very much look forward to getting your feedback / suggestions.

I didn't want to put this anywhere on the game page cause I don't want feedback for the wrong reason, but I plan to have a credits section in finished game where I give thanks to amazing contributors like you and a few others who have been in major conversations with me and have helped guide development in the right direction.

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seb116144 years ago (3 edits)

Regarding the trend thingy, i was talking about trending topics (medieval, cats and such) and not genre (RTS, MOBA etc...). I do see notification for trending genre, but i don t see for topics.

I do agree that the trend perk seems the strongest by a mile, maybe some tempering to do there :

The cost reduction is insignificant a the beginning when you need it most. The sales bonus is ok, i m running with it now for a change. And the RH one is useless right now with so few workers, i don t know how big you plan to make the teams so maybe stronger in the end.

The thing is with those kind of game you want perks/bonus to be strong early on. Late game strong perks are generally useless, because you ve either snowballed into a monster and don t need it or failed to an early game over because you didn t took the early perk. So i suspect that most player will go with trend perk or sales perk.

BTW if you compare sales perk VS cost reduction. The difference is quite obvious early on. Game dev cost around 20/30k, so 10% is 3k. Sales reaches around 100/150/200k, so 5/10/20k. No brainer there...

Maybe a perk to boost marketing/fans would be good. Decent early and very strong late game since fans keeps adding on. idk

BTW, there doesn t seem to be a RPG genre, unless i missed it, that s weird.

Hulgarth4 years ago

First you will see the notification if a trend goes over 50% the issue is there are 160 topics so the Ai companies are increasing different ones each time and nothing crossed that 50% mark yet for you but they will..

I was thinking about what you said and I think your right about the end game vs early game. I was thinking the dev costs - would be great late game when making multi million dollar AAA titles, but at that time it wont be as important as the right perk is early on. I think I need to re-balance the perks to be more viable early game I think that's a really good point your making. I will have to do some calculations, but I think I can tweak it so that they are better early game options and maybe reduce there power in late game etc

If I didnt include RPG that is an oversight obviously RPG should be there I thought I had role playing but if I don't I will def add it.

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