Succeeding in Game Dev Tycoon without memorizing sliders and combinations

This guide will help you reach the third stage (R&D and Hardware lab stage) without presenting any slider combinations, genre/topic combos, or anything else that simply tells you how to play the game. You will still be in command.

Introduction

This guide aims to help you succeed without spoiling the game for you. There are many guides that will simply tell you what do: do this genre/topic on this console with these slider settings with these features with this marketing campaign at this specific time in your career. These guides are excellent ways to quickly get 10/10 games, but you really aren't even playing the game. I want to let you pick your play style, and play the game according to what you think is reasonable, not what the coding of the game says is the best. Don't think it will work? I got both a perfect (10/10) game and the 11/10 achievement without using any guides. This is what you will be trying to do.

Selecting more than just a Company and Player name

So you've already done your homework in selecting you company and player names, but have you decided what kind of company you will be? You've probably noticed that quite a few game development companies (in real life) have become specialized in certain kinds of games. This is how you will best succeed. Because you will level up engine, graphics, world design, etc. based on how often and how much time you put into them in each game, specializing in one game genre (simulation, RPG, etc.) will allow you to level up the things that count the most frequently, allowing you to use the improved graphics, engine, etc. levels in the next game to its maximum potential. If you are a bit confused, do not worry. I'll help to walk you through this. The first thing you should pick when you start your company is which genre you want to focus on throughout most of your career. I selected simulation games because I like to play them. Select a game genre, and create your company.

General strategies for the garage

Once you create you company, obviously you will proceed to create your first game. Select a topic that will work well with the genre that you previously selected (or select a genre based on what topics the game gave you). Alternatively, you could keep restarting the game until the game gives you topics favorable to your preferred genre. In my case, I selected Simulation as my genre. So, I will select a topic that is favorable to it. Most of them make sense, but if you want, you can look up a table of good/great combos to verify your choice. Go ahead and create your game (an optional section will show what I use for sliders in games without game engines, since this guide does not want to give any spoilers to those who do not want to see them).

So after you create any game, you should create a game report on that game. If you are newer to Game Dev Tycoon, this will help you learn what to focus on in your games (engine, graphics, sound, etc.). But it also gives you free research points, so doing these at the beginning are key.

With your first game created and game report finished, try to continuously create games that have the same genre (for me, I create only simulation games). There is no penalty for continuously repeating genres as long as you change the topics. research new topics if necessary, and as you level up everything, you'll find your games to be doing better and better in ratings.

After creating several games, you need to research game engines and features to put into your game engines. Let's pretend that gameplay is very important (+++) for your selected genre. It would be wise to research game engine features under the "gameplay" heading because these will help your game more than something with a ++ or even - or --. While in the garage you probably won't run into too many instances of overloading your game with features (having an x% completed for, say, gameplay), but if you do, I'll outline what to do in the upcoming sections.

Following these tips, you should be able to create some decent-scoring games in the garage and maybe even a few hits. You should never move to the next stage when it allows you to (1M), because you will be very sad as you go bankrupt shortly after. Instead wait until no less than 5M, but if you can, 10M will allow you to put more into finding staff. Personally, I waited until I had 12M before I moved.

Keep playing the game and leveling up your skills until you have between 5M and 10M in cash. Then, (I suggest saving the game before moving in case you do go bankrupt), click that button to move to your new office.

Games without Game engines (spoilers)

My genre is simulation. So, what do I do with my sliders before (and generally after) I have game engines. Well, Simulation games have a +++ for gameplay, ++ for engine, and - for story/quests.
So, I set all of my sliders for all games and all development stages to be as follows: +++ sliders are maxed out (all the way to the top), ++ sliders are at about 80%, and the - or -- sliders are at zero (at the bottom). This seems to be a strategy that works for me. Is it perfect? Probably not ideal, but I'm using this late-game with AAA titles and have gotten a lot of 9+/10 ratings, so obviously something is working.

The new office (2nd stage)

This is where, if you will go bankrupt, it happens. The 2nd stage can be brutal if you go too early or screw anything else up. So, let's play it smartly. If you waited until at least 5M (preferably even higher at 10M), you should have enough capital to invest in staff and make a few games. The game is harsher on ratings at this stage, so you need staff. I suggest you just hire all 4 staff right off the start (this is why I suggest having 10M). It's expensive, but can really help you out. You can invest up to 2M into staff, so I suggest investing as much into the 4 staff as you can while still have around 2M left. I had 12M going into this stage, so invested 2M into all 4 staff and had 4M left over. Make sure you have a balance in your staff (have 2 design and 2 tech, or something similar, depending on your genre). Train all of them with the "staff welcoming program" and wait it out a bit. Since I had a lot of money (and 2M should be enough), I waited until all of my staff's fatigue (the bar by their characters) filled up and went away before I made a new game. To keep money coming in, they did contract work while they "rested". You could research new game engine features or make a new game engine as well.

Note for hiring staff:
Complex Algorithms = technology focus
Game Demo = balance between design and technology
Showreel = design focus

So, onto creating your first 2nd stage game. With 4 staff, researching medium games is a must. So, create a medium game (do contract work to get the research to unlock it, if necessary) and adjust your sliders and add in your features. Later, you may notice that x% appearing next to a heading in your features list (we will use gameplay in this example). This means that you have too little time invested into gameplay for the number of features you selected. You have a few choices:

1. You could just leave it as it is. Note that all the design and tech is multiplied by this number when you make your game. So 84% means that you only get 84% of the tech and design you would normally get from gameplay. At 99% or 98%, it may not really matter, but below 90% could cause some problems.

2. Invest more time into gameplay. If you increase the gameplay slider or decrease other sliders, that percent will increase.

3. Remove some features. This will increase the percent based on how time-consuming the feature is. The more expensive a feature is to add, the more time it takes to add it as well.

Note: when facing the percents, always try to favor when is more important. +++ deserves a higher percent than --

And this leads us to another topic: which features to add when you have to make the decision. Later in the game, you will have to simply choose what features to add and what features not to add. Think about it logically; this has worked for me. Suppose I am making a Game Dev Simulation game. For World Design, I can only choose one of the following: Day/Night Cycle or Virtual Economy. Which would you choose? I chose Virtual Economy because this seems like a business-like game. I don't know if this actually affects the game's ratings, but it seems like it should, so that's what I do. Plus, it adds some variation into the game.

In terms of marketing, I find the 500K option best when you can't afford the 2M one. But if you have the cash, do what you can afford.

You can really move to the 3rd stage whenever you want; click move as soon as the game offers it, or wait a little bit longer. By the time the game offers it, your skills in the important aspects of your genre should be so high that you've made at least a few hits by now, and you should have enough cash. So I'll see you at the final stage.

The last stage (3rd stage)

This is where the game offers you the most freedom. For starters, though, I suggest hiring those last 2 staff, dumping 2M into each of them. Again, wait for them to rest up while they do contract work, research, or create a new game engine. Once they are ready, go ahead and make a few large games to get some research points.

Once your staff level up enough (level 7) they can become specialized in certain aspects of a game (AI, World Design, Graphic, etc.). The requirements can be seen in the training window. These specializations are essential in AAA games, but also help immensely in large games. train your staff from time to time in the areas necessary for specialization. Note that you can only specialize in 7 areas (6 staff plus your character). There are a total of 9 areas you can choose from. This is where genre specialization really shines. If you've done mostly one genre, you should know by heart what is important and what is not. Focus on specializing your team in what is +++ first, then do ++ next. Since genres will have one really bad thing and 2 better things in each development stage, you technically only need to specialize in 6 things, one less than you can do. So do those six areas first. Then, when you have the cash and research points, pick a seventh area to specialize in. It really doesn't matter; perhaps pick the - over the --. This will help your ratings a bit.

Note: AAA games take a long time to make. I suggest sending all of your staff on vacation before making one, then starting one right after they get back. You'll see that they get tired not longer after you finish your game.

After specializing, you are good to go to make AAA games and MMOs. Create a console when you have the cash, and just have some fun. If you want, you can try diversifying your genres a bit in this stage. Creating a seventh sequel is great, but there's no harm in trying new things. Don't expect a 10/10 in it, but a modest 7 or 8 /10 is not bad and within reach.

And this is where this guide really comes to a close. You can do whatever you want in this stage. If you need more cash, just make more games of your selected genre. They should do pretty well. Do contracts to get more research if you are short by only a few points for that extra feature in your game engine, and, if you do really well, you might accidentally get that 11/10.

[Yolosaurus Rex]

What %rating would you set categories that have a single +?

[Soldier's Fortune]

Fantastic guide! Only thing I would add is the importance of timing contract work. Typically it works best in the mid-game to send fatigued staff on vacation immediately after a game is finished, assign one staff member to generating a game report, assign research to other staff members, and then select the appropriate level of intensity contract work for your remaining staff members to complete while the others do their thing.

Don't know how much sense that actually made... but hey, great spoiler-free guide!

11/10

[malenfantm]

Massive disagree on moving out of the garage when you have $1M. Do it immediately. Hire two staffers and put out two deliberately imperfect games to get rid of their "new employee" negatives. Then try for a hit game. The objective in this game is to make every game 15% better than the previous one.

[Scout Professional]

I do this already

[TheOlive]

hi and thanks

[Alban2408]

Probably one of the best guide i've seen.

[maks]

Thank you for the amazing guide. Really helped me a lot. I would also like to add, that while trying to accumulate the 10M/12M at the first stage, after every game you publish, complete all the contracts. It doest matter if you finish them or not, the research points you get will be helpful for your endeavours along with generating game reports. Make sure that you're profiting from your games so that the penalty for long contracts dont affect you that much. Those research points were a bummer for me until I realised about how much contracts actually offer, worth the price.

[RasayaCat]

This is super helpful. I've played the game twice, this second time around using what I've learned here. Not needing to remember slider combos is great, since I don't have time to read or memorize those (day job lol). Thanks!

[Bananabuns]

Great Guide! I finally have some fans.

[[GHZ]lewis_gamehunter]

how do you make consoles