Seems like game scores are kind of arbitrary?

[fupa]

I've had this happen on several occasions. I make the perfect game - management is perfect, I hit all correct categories for the Topic/Genre combo and put all my best devs in their appropriate categories on the game. I balanced worker usage and made sure everyone on the team is utilized. I even have a game Genre that is currently popular in the market. And yet, the game comes out and it's all 5/6s? It really feels like there's some gamey logic with regards to when a game will be successful. I'll make a game that should otherwise be ♥♥♥♥, and suddenly it's making millions and I'm ready to move into the next office... it's like, ok? Did I do something right or was the game just ready to boost me to the next level? It really feels like decisions are meaningless and scores are pretty much arbitrary. Anyone else agree?

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

Source code of the game disagrees

Yeah sorry not sorry Green Bay Packers or whatever you're called, I reverse engineered your game

[fupa]

Originally posted by Lord Nickington:

Source code of the game disagrees

Yeah sorry not sorry Green Bay Packers or whatever you're called, I reverse engineered your game

Post some source then, I'd love to see it so I know what the game actually looks for.

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

When I get home I'll see what I can do

[AnimeTiddyFan]

If it's not arbitrary, can you please explain why I get 9+12 bubbles for one game and then 12+17 bubbles for my second game when I:
- Start a brand new game in the garage and make only these 2 games
- Both games were "space" topic and "action" genre on the "G64" console.
- Didn't use any mods
- Since it's in the garage there's no employees, fatigue, special investments etc.
- Both games had random names with made-up words to avoid real-life game names, swear words etc. that might effect the score positively or negatively.
- Used the same technologies and the same 3 tech/design option percentages for all 3 stages of production.
- I didn't level up any skills since it was only the first 2 games.

I think I agree with the first poster. After playing the game a bunch of times, there's a lot about this game that seems arbitrary as hell (e.g. I think there's a point in the garage phase when the game just decides it's about time that the next game will be a hit no matter what) and feels very unrewarding because the direction of the game seems almost totally out of your own hands because there's all these things that happen regardless or despite of player choices.

[Coach Nut]

Originally posted by Lord Nickington:

When I get home I'll see what I can do

How long does it take to get home to post some sources, unless you're spouting your usual lordly bullmanure

[AnimeTiddyFan]

Some say he is still coming home to this day.


... Dad?

[Playzr 🐵]

Yeah it's disappointing when you get more design and tech points and the game says "meh it's ok I guess". Also it sucks that when you release what would be a good game but at the same time a new graphics version comes out and suddenly your score is lower. Timing and luck is key. The adaptive scaling difficulty prevents you from having hit after hit unless you can make the game like 10% better that the last one every time. I suppose if you artificially made slightly bad games you'd be in control of the rate they increase but then you'd reach maximum. I kinda wish the game just let you be good, instead of moving the goal posts to call you average. Maybe the difficulty could scale within a limit so it was possible to stay ahead of this curve rather than the game matching you after every game. One of the few times you get a 10/10 twice in a row is probably when you're in the garage and you start another game before your score comes in for the first 10/10 game. Usually it's possible for lightning to strike twice in that case because the minor increase in skill and design/tech points is more significant. Sometimes it just feels like we're rolling dice and simply putting some spin on it and believing it was down to that technique, but it's all very random.
I suppose there are mods that would make it easier to gain skill, like the learn by doing mod I think it's called. That would help a little but the game would still scale itself to match that.
Hype game? How would I know, but it seems beneficial to do this anyway considering the few downsides. Is the game still fun when you realise it's very RNG? Well it must be because we keep coming back to it, but when we first started playing it there was some mystery and we thought our choices have consequences.