Mad Games Tycoon (PC) (2016)

Overview: A resource management game where you manage a game development studio. Develop games, produce games, and even make game consoles.

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Starting off simple.

20190904:
To break even on my purchase of the Humble Strategy Simulator Bundle, today I decided to play Mad Games Tycoon.

Steam Game Time: 7.8 hours (total game time)

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20190905:
The game is addicting and today I continued to play it.

Steam Game Time: 13.2 hours (total game time) / 5.4 hours (session game time)

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20190906:
The game remained addicting and this morning I read several guides prior to playing.

90 percent rating!

However, I eventually decided I had enough with the game.

Gameplay Log:
I decided to organize my employees using the group feature as follows (with even numbers training to be in the odd numbers): #1: 100 in all four game attributes (gd, programming, sfx, gfx), #3: 100 in both game design and programming, #5: 100 in graphics only, #7: 100 in music only, #9: 100 in office work, #11: everybody else

Steam Game Time: 20.0 hours (total game time) / 6.8 hours (session game time)

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Thoughts:
Pro:
+ Many aspects of game development simulated in the game

Neutral:
~ References to actual games and game systems
~ Tutorial suffices for getting up and running

Getting things done!

Cons:
- Difficult in a bad way. I used guides to help play the game reasonably well. Without guides, one could easily spend hundreds of hours trying to figure out how to make good games. I suppose one "solution" is to only ever publish a specific type of game (e.g., adventure games) and become proficient at it; however, the game does not say anything about this.
- The game doesn't explain much about itself
- Terminology and game mechanics lack transparency

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Summary:
I played HunieCam Studio (HCS), a resource management game like Mad Games Tycoon (MGT), about a week ago. While it was a shorter, simpler game, HCS surprisingly did several things well in the genre compared to MGT. For example, HCS explicitly informs the player of the fan base breakdown. In contrast, MGT only gives a total fan count. It's possible that MGT only cares about the total fan count, but I came across a guide which expressed doubt in this mechanic. That is, it's possible that the fan count does break down into different genres.

In any case, I had some fun with MGT, but my own experience was too dependent on guides. Perhaps I could have had fun without using guides, but I couldn't see that being the case for me without spending my valuable time. As such, I would recommend the game to those who enjoy putting many hours into strategy games. I would give some tips for a reasonable experience:

1) Skim some guides in order to understand some game mechanics, but don't refer to them while playing: Guide 1, Guide 2
2) Many guides list the perfect settings for each genre and their ideal markets. Instead, stick with one genre and perfect it organically. Note that finding the perfect settings for a genre can be done in at most 11 iterations of the genre, but likely faster by listening to feedback and smart changes in the settings. Determine what is perfect by running a report on the game.
3) Start off playing Easy. Leaves more room for experimenting and error.
4) Spending time early game doing development contracts and production contracts is a great way to earn income and sustain the business.
5) One focus on getting better ratings is getting a star in each aspect of the game (gameplay, graphics, sound, and technology). Earn a star by exceeding a threshold which increases based on the current year. According to a guide, this formula is number of years since 1979 times the difficulty (easy is 35, normal is 55, hard is 65, and legendary is 70). For example, if it's June of 1980 on normal difficulty, the threshold to exceed is 82.5=1.5*55.
6) There are some interesting ways to conserve space. For example, four desks can fit into a 4 by 4 room.

The awards!!!

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Mad Games Tycoon (PC) (2016)

Relevant Links:
Mad Games Tycoon (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
Mad Games Tycoon (Steam Store Page)