What I would like to see in City Game Studio

[Francisco]

Hello Devs and Community,

Gaming nowadays doesn't occupy half the time it used to. Work, family and other priorities are more important and playing a computer game is something rare for me nowadays. Other that a few rare games that captured my attention and dedication, games nowadays usualy are either boring or fun at the beggining and then boring after a few hours.

Game Dev Simulations were amongst the rare that captured my attention. I think is the nostalgia that they bring, I don't know. Or making smash gaming hits is just fun for me. Doesn't matter, what matters is that I had fun with each of these games and found that each of these games had features in common unique interesting features that I wish that others had too, and unique problems or mistakes that made them frustrating.


After all the Game Dev Sims that were released until now, I'm anxious to know if City Game Studio is going to gather all the good things of the previous releases and correct all the bad aspects. I certainly hope so!



First of all, the biggest problem that I found in all Game Dev Sims before was lack of depth. I don't know what you define as gaming depth but for me a game without depht is a game that quickly becomes repetitive. A Game Dev Sim without depht is Game Corp DX: You hire staff, train staff, make games and see the scores. Done.
I want so much more in Game Dev Sims. Making one great game feels good, but when you make 10 and the process is basically the same, it becomes repetitive. Concentrate your efforts more on the process of making the game, don't narrow it to choosing on what will your team concentrate on. Questions and events should arise during game developing. Sudden ideas. Inspirations. Problems as well. Make the game unique and not just a title in your portfolio.

And after the game is made, more events should happen. In other Game Dev Sims the game is shelved and never heard from again. Wrong! Depending on its popularity, it should have fan letters, fan base, requests, mods, re-package (simpler than mad games tycoon). It should be mentioned in magazines or websites later, or serve as inspiration for other games or game developers, or a book, or even a movie, or imagine you have such an inteligent / creative game developer that his ideas for a space simulator game served as foundation for breakthrough ideas in space exploration (Ok, this last one should have something like a 1% probability of happening). Those rare unique game gems should set a new gaming trend. A hollywood blockbuster or real life events like wars, popular sports or fashions should also dictate trends.There was a period when games had much more success when they had movie rights. And remember how Doom changed how the industry saw violence in games?

The World, Society, the Gaming Industry should react to games and vice-versa.

What I'm saying is to be creative and MAKE GAME DEVELOPING MORE UNPREDICTABLE. Something that still surprises you after months of playing the game! Because that's the problem of Game Dev Sims: they get repetitive. Don't make that mistake.


Second, staff. In other Game Dev Sims all they have is their skills, preferred game genre and a couple of traits.
Staff are the brains behind your games. They should also have a favouite / influential game that influences how they make their future games and what ideas and suggestions they give (remember Wasteland? it inspired Fallout, remember the movie Mad Max? It also inspired Fallout. Recently Atom was released on steam, do you know it? It was inspired by Fallout. And so on...). More than a favourite game: a favourite book (good for writers) or a favourite movie.

Also, they should have a current interest that should change along time (example: last year I started playing the guitar, this year I began doing gardening, etc etc etc. Of course, some staff are more interesting than others), a background knowledge (engineering, military, gardening, house building, architecture, medic, teacher, etc etc etc etc).
And then how do they react to each other? Staff relationships should be managed, some staff work better together and some not at all. All this, together with their skill, should add to what contribution they give to games. Basically: MAKE STAFF MORE INTERESTING.


Third, Time. Time passes by way too fast in other Game Dev Sims. Let us savour each game making process and each gaming era. Maybe take it day by day.
This is connected with the game making depht that I mentioned above because you will put much more time and effort into each game. Savour and feel true achievment as your games evolve.
Plus, the role of the player should change as the entreprise grows. Micro-management and hands-on-approach when smaller, and direction / decisions with macro management when larger.
Also in time, give us an option to choose between real consoles / hardware companies and fantasy consoles / hardware companies. By fantasy consoles I don't mean Vega Drive or PolyStation. I mean a complete alternative reality each time you play. And again: more depht for consoles ( good / bad policies, scandals, etc etc).


Fourth, Marketing. Just like the role of the player, it should be limited when enterprise is small (may depend on the player / team characteristics) and more autonomous when you have a dedicated team. I think that Mad Games Tycoon made a mistake by letting the player micro manage Marketing too much even on a large company.
Again, a little depht can be added here as well. When you grow, your marketing executives can have their own ideas (black and white manuals to save money, free merchandising inside the package, new modern game packages); they should also provide market feedback together with costumer support (which btw should grow and evolve with enterprise size and era - example: fan letters in the beggining and internet forums later in game) and manage merchandising.



And then some loose ideas that don't fit in any of the previous topics or are too small to dedicate them a title:

- Retro trends later in game like pixel art graphics games.

- Games dedicated to handheld devices.

- That's all I can remember now.



Thank you for reading this. Let me know what you think.

[Binogure]

Hello Francisco,

I'm glad to see your excitement about City Game Studio. I'm a solo dev on this game, trying my best to make the best game dev simulator.

In City Game Studio, there are Indie games, normal games, big games and finally AAA. Obviously you start by creating Indie games. Once you've become good at it, you move on to normal games, then to big games and finally to AAA games. However, when you create normal or larger games, you have to manage your employees, some of whom will go on vacation during certain stages of the game development. So you're gonna have to be careful with who to send on vacation and when.
Also, hiring staff is important. To make quality games you absolutely need a team that is able to produce as many design/development/polish points. So the staff are interested in game creation techniques, but not in game genre they create.

Then, over time, game creation becomes more complex. New types of games are unlockable, and new gauges appear with new technologies. In 1976, we had to manage nine gauges, but in 2000 we had to manage 15. The gauges appear as they are used.

About evolution with time, for example, from the 1990s onwards, it became possible to buy servers and to create games online. From the 1970s to the 1990s, game ratings were received by magazines. From the 90s onwards, it was websites that gave the scores for the games.

Marketing in city Game Studio is complex. There are pre-production marketing and post-production marketing. Pre-production is simple, just decide when and how to announce the game. Post-production is more elaborate. There are seven different marketing campaigns to choose from that have more or less impact on sales. This number is changing, we start with two types of campaigns in 1980, and finally in 2005 we have 7 different campaigns. In addition to this, there is the possibility of participating in conventions and of organizing conventions. Be careful, it is not enough to go to a convection to be seen. You have to be sure that the type of game corresponds to the convention at which you are going to show the game.

There are many ideas that you've mentioned. There are several possibilities. Either the implementation would make the game too complex, or it would be too complex to implement it now. City Game Studio is on steam, and I'm going to provide an API to make mods (via the workshop steam) to implement new ideas.

You can follow the progress of the game development here:
https://github.com/binogure-studio/city-game-studio-i18n/projects/1

Thank you very much for your interest in City Game Studio.

[Francisco]

Hello. Thank you for writing back.

Much respect for you developing a game on your own. I wrote such a big list of suggestions because I didn't know you were by yourself.

Still, my enthusiasm for this game hasn't changed and I look forward to trying the game.

Good luck and good job!

[Ulthar]

Do you find that your game accurately simulates what it is like for you to develop and market the game?

If not, would you consider making the experience a little more like that in one campaign? Obviously not in 1976, but if we started in a campaign for 2019 - posting on the forums, ignoring the forums, etc kickstarter, etc for indie game would be great.

[Ulthar]

BTW - here is what I would like to see.

Anyone interested in this has probably already played the software tycoon games where you have to pick the right % of graphics, sound, story to make the game for that genre combination.

So while I suggest keeping it in there, I would recommend some events.

Example would be based on the type of game, you could pull random events:

Strategy Game:
"The Strategy Game sounded good on paper, but now that you've played it the RNG algorythm you are using seems to create more fails than wins and it is very frustrating. Youve checked the source code and done everything properly but the game just isn't fun or satisfying"

A) Leave it, this is RNG and working as designed. It's probably just luck of the draw.
B) Create a more Gaussian style of RNG where people will have more mid-range rolls than extremely high or extremely low scores.
C) Go back to the drawing board and replace RNG with some mini-game.


All these quesitons some asks themselves.

They don't even have to be coding problems. It could be:

"A random idiot on the Steam forum who you never heard of suggests your name $gamename doesn't make him want to play it or make him think of that genre of game. What do you reply to him on the forum?

A) STFU N00b, I name the game. (no change)
B) Great Idea, what do you suggest? (system pics random $gamename)
C) I'll run a contest and pick the top name (system pics random appropriate $gamename)
D) I'll type in a different name and see how that goes (enter new $gamename)

Other events could be conflicts between employees where one has an idea to improve the game that is radical but everyone else says it was already done in this other game, etc.

Siding with them improves their morale and changes the direction of the game.

Could even be office romance - do you forbid it, fire them, warn them or ignore it..etc.



I could help with this and you could add mod support to create more events.

[Binogure]

I have plan to add random event based on the game you've made. For example, if you've failed the network gauge, you are going to have bugs related to the network. But what you are suggestion is really good. I do want to implement it, however the feature list is quite long atm (tbh).

Your suggestions are good, and I liked them, but Im afraid that people are going to get used to those questions, and after a while they are going to get annoying more than funny.

Maybe, after the 00s you can hire a community manager that handle it

[Francisco]

Originally posted by Ulthar:

BTW - here is what I would like to see.

Anyone interested in this has probably already played the software tycoon games where you have to pick the right % of graphics, sound, story to make the game for that genre combination.

So while I suggest keeping it in there, I would recommend some events.

Example would be based on the type of game, you could pull random events:

Strategy Game:
"The Strategy Game sounded good on paper, but now that you've played it the RNG algorythm you are using seems to create more fails than wins and it is very frustrating. Youve checked the source code and done everything properly but the game just isn't fun or satisfying"

A) Leave it, this is RNG and working as designed. It's probably just luck of the draw.
B) Create a more Gaussian style of RNG where people will have more mid-range rolls than extremely high or extremely low scores.
C) Go back to the drawing board and replace RNG with some mini-game.


All these quesitons some asks themselves.

They don't even have to be coding problems. It could be:

"A random idiot on the Steam forum who you never heard of suggests your name $gamename doesn't make him want to play it or make him think of that genre of game. What do you reply to him on the forum?

A) STFU N00b, I name the game. (no change)
B) Great Idea, what do you suggest? (system pics random $gamename)
C) I'll run a contest and pick the top name (system pics random appropriate $gamename)
D) I'll type in a different name and see how that goes (enter new $gamename)

Other events could be conflicts between employees where one has an idea to improve the game that is radical but everyone else says it was already done in this other game, etc.

Siding with them improves their morale and changes the direction of the game.

Could even be office romance - do you forbid it, fire them, warn them or ignore it..etc.



I could help with this and you could add mod support to create more events.

I only saw you comments today.

Liked the ideas a lot. And regarding the Dev's answer, I don't think it would get repetitive if there are LOTS of events and do not happen in every single game that you make.

Again, I think these simple things could add a lot to the game and make every game you create unique.

And then I remember that it is just one person developing the game :)