I finally got a chance to test what happens if you lose all of your lives in Tomba! You die and it’s game over, pretty much. After a reload, I decided to be more careful and went on to fight my first boss.
Tomba! [5] – The Evil Green Pig
Category: Platform
Pixel Dungeon [1] – First Impressions
Pixel Dungeon is another Android game I’ve been playing recently. It’s a roguelike made specifically for this platform, so the interface makes it very playable. Is it good, though? I think it is, and there’s plenty I can say about it.
Might and Magic Book One [3] – Dying in Sorpigal Wilderness
My two choices were to either take a look at what’s outside the city of Sorpigal, or to give the leprechaun a gem and teleport to some other random city. Technically, I could also use the portal in the dungeon, but the cave it leads to was still too dangerous.
Might and Magic Book One [2] – The Dungeon below Sorpigal
With Sorpigal fully mapped and a level gained, it was time to try my luck with the dungeon below it. Might and Magic doesn’t lead the player into the “next area” at all, but I figured the dungeon below the starting town should be OK for a level 2 party.
Tomba! [3] – Tying up Things
Only a week passed since I last played Tomba! this time, so I wasn’t as lost as I was in my previous posting. Since I was only able to play for about half an hour, I took the time to tie up some loose ends.
Might and Magic Book One [1] – Dying in Sorpigal
I actually had trouble figuring out how to start playing Might and Magic I – that’s how old the game is. Eventually, I managed to make a party and enter Sorpigal, the first town. It was time to die, a lot.
Might and Magic Book One [0] – The Secret of the Inner Sanctum
I bought the Might and Magic Six Pack from GOG.com ages ago, so I figured it was finally time to give it a try. I was extremely worried about this and I was postponing it for months? Why? Because Might and Magic Book One: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum is almost as old as I am.
Game Dev Story [5] – Character Data
I’ve been playing a lot of Game Dev Story over the past few days and actually managed to get to the end of my second game. Suffice to say, I’ve beaten my first attempt by a long shot. I also wrote down a lot of things, gathering a lot of data about the game.Continue reading
Gothic [17] – Uriziel, Ore Armor and a Finished Game
I was back outside in Gothic now, so It was time to get my gear ready for the final confrontation, while Xardas was figuring out how to fix Uriziel.Continue reading
Game Dev Story [4] – Good Combos, Bad Combos
Muffin Co. is in their sixth year of existence and they’re rapidly starting to grow. I’m not completely sure, but it’s very possible I’m way ahead of where Sunny Studios was at this time. I started picking out good combos more often, to keep the snowball rolling.
All of this happened between May 14th and May 16th of 2013.
I used boring Combinations.
I decided I should try to play it smart this time, so I picked a few combos I knew worked and started switching them around to make hit games one after another. The two combos I used most are
- GOOD COMBO – Robot Shooter
- GOOD COMBO – Animal Life
I also used one extra as my last game and that one ended up getting into the hall of fame. Guess what it was?
- GOOD COMBO – Dating Life
Yup, the first game I’ll be able to do sequels for is a game about dating life. Great!
30 points isn’t enough for Hall of Fame, but 33 is. The range is getting smaller.
Outside of that, I also encountered some bad combos as well as some neutral combos, but I was too lazy to write them down, so I can’t remember any of them now.
I invested into Staff Training.
Quite a chunk of my money went into advertisement, but most of it went into staff training. Most of the profit I got, in fact, went into hiring and training. I used the Anime training on each employee until they stopped getting points in at least two of the four stats. Once that was out, I used the cheaper types of training until those became worthless as well, so now most of my staff has all of their stats around 100.
A lengthy training session unlocked a bunch of new genres and themes.
This means the games are getting better and better.
I was wrong about Direction Points.
It looks like I was wrong about direction points. It seems that every time you level up a genre or a theme and that genre or theme somehow matches up with the game’s focus, there’s a chance to gain two direction points. I still get two points every time I get a genre or a theme to level 5, but I also sometimes get points for any level up.
Apparently, the more points in a category I accumulated, the better the boost.
In any case, I now Cuteness, Approachability Simplicity, Game World and Polish maxed out and I’m focusing points into Innovation from now on. I’m not sure but I think direction points affect how the four game stats end up developing. Right now, most of my games seem to have a lot of points in fun, with a moderate amount of points in Graphics and Sound. Creativity used to be low, but it started to get higher now that I have Polish maxed out and started putting points into Innovation.
I can’t find any conclusive information about how it really all works, but stack exchange has a few pointers on how direction points might affect the mechanics in Game Dev Story. Some of the guesses include:
- Direction points affect level up chance for genre and theme
- Direction points affect the spread of the four game stats during development
- Direction points affect the amount of points in each game stat during development
- Direction points need to fit the genre and theme for the game to be more popular
- More direction points in total seem to provide better game scores
I bought the Game Kid License
With the Senga Exodus getting close to the end of its life, I ended up buying a Game Kid license, since it was the most popular console on the market. It was worth it because once I started making games for that one, I started making millions. My Dating Life game was developed for the Game Kid.
Robot Shooters and Animal Life games – it works so why change it?
It also might be that, since it’s a portable console, my fun, polish and cuteness-oriented game direction might positively affect the popularity of my games.
Game Dev Story might seem like a simple game, but I have plenty to discover yet. For instance…
I want to get the Unique Employees
Apparently, there’s a unique potential employee roaming the world of Game Dev Story sometimes. When that happens, there’s an event, such as an article in the newspaper or something that tells me this.
This will be my next game. I’m thinking another Hall of Fame entry.
Sunny Studios managed to hire Mister X, Grizzly Bearington and King Ackbar last time I played through Game Dev Story, but I ended up firing them because they honestly weren’t that good. This time, I decided to at least try and stick with them. I’m hoping that, since the game seems to portray them as unique, it might be somehow worth it in the future.
For now, I hired Mister X and King Ackbar. I had to fire a decent producer for King Ackbar, so now I’ll have to spend more money to train him back up to those levels. Mister X was hired early in the game, so he was never a downgrade, but he doesn’t seem that powerful either. I’ll see what happens when I train both of them further.