My first game that I’m marking down as completed for 2011 is the fantastic “Game Dev Story” on the iPhone. Straight off the bat this game reminds me of the old school “Theme” games from the legendary publisher “Bullfrog.”
The premise of the game is simple, you have to micro-manage a team of developers in order to make big money producing games. It sounds quite easy, bit you start with a lowly office with just a few workers and a handful of resources, it’s until you start getting the big sellers churning out does this game truly shine.
I finished the game at Year 26 (the game itself stops tracking the high scores at the end of year 20 but it pays to play on with your franchises!) At year 26 I finally became a billion dollar company, with 70 titles under my belt, most of which were Hall of fame/Award winning sequels. That’s when I hung up my hat knowing that whoever takes over from my “EAesq” empire would treat my titles with respect.
This game is great in small doses but addictive enough to lose hours on end on. I would say that until Kairosoft decides to create a sequel this will go down as one of the defining simulation games on the iPhone. Well worth a couple of quid of anyones money.
