App of the Week - Game Dev Tycoon

I know that many of you dream of becoming a famous game developer working on the next blockbuster. Why not start to practice now?

This week’s app is “Game Dev Tycoon” as very fun and addictive game where you start as an independent game developer in the 80’s working in your garage.

When you start you already have certain skills, you can program different styles of games for different platforms. When starting to develop a new game you must choose what you will prioritize: gameplay, story, engine etc. You have to make the right choices and fix all your bugs before publishing the game on the market and wait for the game reviews. If the reviewers love you, you will sell a lot of games and make a huge profit, if not you might risk lose money and go bankrupt!

After developing new games you will earn more experience and money to afford making research. You can for example learn how to develop new types of games or target for a specific target group.

As the years go by, new consoles come out and you will have to adapt if you want your company to grow. If you make the right choices you will be able to move out of your garage to fancy offices, have a huge fan base and open secret labs!

I really enjoyed playing this game. It has a very simple gameplay but yet it is complex and you must be fast if you don’t want to fall behind. As you can see from the screenshots, my first game was terribly bad, but I quickly learned and adjusted ;-)

The demo version lets you play the first five years of your career so you can test the game before buying it which is pretty cool.

Let me know what you think about the game in the comment! Do you like this kind of simulation games?

The App of the Week blog category is an initiative of your local Microsoft Student Partners in Switzerland. Feel free to contact us, send us your proposals for an App of the Week or drop some lines below if you want to share ideas, feedback or just want to comment.