Post by Hulgarth in Game Dev Masters comments

Viewing post in Game Dev Masters comments

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.

seb116143 years ago

Hey,

Thanks for the credit. Helping you with your project is a nice experience for me. I think all gamers dream of creating their ideal game, so it s nice to have a (small) hand in one. Btw, exchanging with you has given me an idea and i d like to pick your brain for it. Do you mind if we exchange by mail to talk about it ?

Hulgarth3 years ago

not at all hit me up at ryan_d_saunders@hotmail.com just make sure you put seb or itch or something in the subject so I don't confuse it with the ridic amount of scam mails we all get per day :)

seb116143 years ago

Hi, thanks for agreeing to my request. I ve sent the mail. Tell me if you didn't receive it.

itch.io

Viewing post in Game Dev Masters comments