Game Dev Tycoon

A fun, if dated, game about (you guessed it) making games. There are a few quality of life additions they may want to consider in a sequel (such as indicators along the slider bars) but all in all, a very fun game. Looking forward to their next game!

Honestly this game is really fun but i would LOVE for Game Dev Tycoon 2 since GDT is almost 13 years old and gaming changed a ton since

Great game, seems simple but it goes much more in-depth.

certified classic by now. Simple, but deceptively deep, rewarding, and casual.

making your first game is a matter of five minutes, including creating a character and naming your studio and the basic tutorial, but the game largely lets you get on from there, aside from the basic tutorial extending to sales, fans, and post-release research, as well as engines, and when they come up much later, for new employees, office spaces, or console creation.

making a game is as easy as picking a genre, a concept, an engine, and a system, before dialing some sliders and waiting. you WILL however chase the ideal combos of each slider and hope you matched the concept and genre. sales will be dictated by fans whom will always buy the game, as well as reception by the reviewers and the overall market share of the system(s) chosen, which generally follows a truncated version of history from OG Atari through to the PS5 i think, including handhelds.

missed opportunities
-generally too easy, its not hard to stay afloat as a company, even you release a bunch of duds
-no porting or remakes (save some random contract work). While it lets you make sequels, it doesnt let you take your own games and port them to other systems once released, nor does it let you remake a game and tweak its original sliders and details (you can "remake" it by just naming a new game a remake with the same stuff, but you cant START from the original.
-criticism is limited. you'll never get called out for making the same game over and over, or for exhausting employees (which DOES happen), and theres only like 10 total lines the reviewers say. side note, the devs DID creatively call out pirates by uploading the game themselves to torrent sites, however, this version would cause you to fail about halfway through since pirates would get everything for free.

This game is so much fun. I still keep coming back a whole decade later to play again and again with awesome workshop mods. Thanks for being homies Greenheart.

This game was brilliant back in the beta versions. Now it's laggy, the screen flickers in full screen. If you get a lot of technology and desine point spam it becomes really laggy. This game works perfectly on phone. It's a shame, that the phone version is superior to the PC version

Very fun gameplay loop

As a former pc game dev myself, I really hope it is this simple to make a hit... that said, it is a good game but some of the genre combined should really work wonders, it's the execution, not the idea itself, that most of the time what makes a game good.

I want to like this game but it has issues

the algorithm doesn't really work after a while cause your just competing against yourself so if you create a 10/10 game expect to make 4/10 games for a while

I tried to get all achievements in this game I got all except turn it up to 11 which i'm convinced is impossible if anyone would like to tell me how to get it feel free cuz to me ITS A FUCKING MYSTERY there is no way 11.6% of players have this achievement

One play-through everyone knows the rules:

Beat it from the garage, because taxes.

12 Hours, 9 Bucks- You get what you pay for<3

Scored: 7.8

This is a little cute simulator you can play for a couple of hours. It isn't overly complicated, in fact it's quite minimalistic, but fun nonetheless. The only problem is the reviews. It shouldn't be THAT luck based. But overall it's a great game. 8/10.

Good game. Easy to learn and play!

If you get 9/10, it means your game is worth 9 points. But if you get 10/10, it's just because 10 is the highest the scoring system can go.

Best tycoon game for me. Easy to understand and worth the money<3!

I HATE YOU ALL GAMES I WANT MY 11 ALREADY AHHHHHHHH!

Easy to play but very addictive

Fun game with incentive to replay. It is in a way a puzzle, as you need to figure out the best way to make money. That can happen in a number of ways.

прикольно честно) как 10 лет назад так и сейчас чисто залипнуть на пару дней отличная штука

Pretty fun way to try to realise your ambition about making games.

Very fun management sim game, creative and quirky while having a solid gameplay loop for those who enjoy management and creative-themed content. Has aged a little and multiple incremental and idle games have much deeper content/challenge but for when this came out and today it's a solid recommendation for people who want to simulate a video game studio for fun.

Plus how else will Dark Cloud 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 2 ReTowned and the grid-based SRPG, Dark Tempest: the Darkening ever get made?!?!

This cute little game dev simulator lets you start your own studio and roughly follow the history of the industry through generational hardware releases and trends that somewhat match how video games evolved over time.

While reaching the end of the game is pretty easy, the way games are rated can feel nonsensical and random at times. It is very unlikely to have two hits in a row, but there is an almost scripted successful game that is bound to happen to push you to unlock the second studio office. The options to tinker with which aspects of the game you want to focus on and which features to include is limited and oftentimes very similar games will receive wildly different ratings. It does kind of reflect how video games are received in reality, since timing and luck play a huge part, but in a video game that comes off as random and does not offer you useful information on how to improve. You are encouraged to make new theme and genre combinations even though many of the most successful studios release very similar games back to back. Ability to make sequels or have multi-platform releases comes rather late. The game simplifies the process of game development quite a lot to provide smooth and accessible gameplay.

There is a Pirate mode that significantly ups the challenge. Your games are heavily pirated and you have to actively work against it by developing anti-piracy protection in your engine. Also, investor companies start to appear and offer money for a big percentage of your sales. Messages by “fans” who pirate your games start to appear. It’s a bit too on the nose, but inclusion of that kind of mode is understandable. You can use a cheese strat where you collect around 3M and AFK in the Garage until the game ends, since the monthly rent is very cheap.

Overall, the game has its charm and constant references to real companies are fun to encounter. The gameplay is very simple and starts to get repetitive, since you are mostly just interacting with the same set of sliders all the time. The campaign is just short enough to avoid getting too boring, though.

still the best tycoon for me.
recommended to who want to learn how game developed. :)

Simple gameplay loop, yet I keep finding myself coming back every few years to play it again.
Definitely worth the $10 in my opinion.

This game is really fun and 100% worth the money. If you have a couple spare dollars, definitely give this game a go. But you should also probably understand the fundamentals of business first and don't make stupid in-game transactions and choices.

Very good game, should be helpful, if it was easier to get resource points.

Pros

Fun
Always wanting to play just a little more

Positives, but not for me

Some video game satire

Cons

Some of the achievements that popped in the game didn't save to my steam account
Could have done with more genres, could have done with less topics

It's super fun to imagine that you're in the 80's and you have a small company in a garage building games for different consoles.

this is a fun little game, especially for the sale price. unlock technology, learn what players like best when it comes to genre and theme combinations (it's intuitive, just think about successful real world games), and name your company and games silly things for fun. i particularly liked the little flavour bits dealing with fan games, old game engine release requests, and in one game mode, trying to stay afloat despite absolutely wild levels of player piracy.

(it's really funny how 'pirate mode', initially existing only as a way to make things spicy for players who pirated the game, was so popular it was made into a regular game mode, or whatever the reason for doing that actually was)

oh yeah, and experience with their support staff was pretty good tbh. seems to be a theme for small studios like this.

Due to Spiffing Brit back in 2022. I bought this game and have recently played it. Currently doing a run to get all achievements!

Probably best game like this too bad it doesn't have my time played on my phone as well. Game is hell addictive.

I have always loved this game. I feel like it's a game of chance for success but that's what makes it fun.

Greatest simulator game I've ever played. So much replay ability and the mod support is insane.

You make a bunch of games and decide how to focus your attention, then you get reviews and earn money. Or lose it! Fun to make decisions and see if your judgement is accurate. Anyway, would recommend buying Game Dev Tycoon. Be sure to look out for my new hit Vocabulary Causal Game that I made here, "HOW TO NOT USE CAPS??", coming to PC in the year of NEVER.

This game fulfilled my dream of releasing Do You Like Horny Bunnies 3.

A solid 10/10.

Fun old-school sim game with alot more micro-managing then I expected.

Can be a pain to get to late game.

This is good game, overall is good but it more good if you(developer) add speed up time so we not wate a time of creating game

its a fun simulation game making games 2 get cash to make better games.

it's a nice time killer, but too much based on random factors. a game's success is almost completely random

Very fun game! It has a unique concept and it is one of the best, if not THE best, game-maker video game! This is worth your money and would love to see new features!

Relatively fun for the price, EXTREMELY 2013 game design though, so its actually super dated in that aspect. There is little to no explanation and if you go into it blind without looking for sources on the web, you will be basically running experiments and have rough results your first couple playthroughs.

You can carry over your "hints" from "game reports" to new games so this is built a bit like a rouge-like (maybe wrong term) where future playthroughs would actually be set up for success. I would say a basic playthrough takes anywhere from 4-6 hours if you arnt rushing and meet the various required benchmarks.

It is incredibly easy to run and pause/save so this is something i like doing when I am working on something else because i can come back to it, or go in and out.

At this point though, in 2025, this is extremely dated and while I recommend this game, i also agree with the 68 meta critic score, as its only slightly better then your average idle game.

Fun Sim, you need to manage several aspects of a Software studio, starting like Gates or Jobs in his garage!

I bought this game for free and they kept developing it long after selling it to me for ten bux. Now that I have 657 hours playing it, I can surely say it was worth it. This is a very simple Build Your Game Dev Company title. And it works so long as you mute the extremely repetitive music. You create games, release them, and wait for the publishers to sell them. Along the way, you develop new genres for games as well as technologies. If you make enough profit, you can move out of the garage where you start and hire team members in your new office. It's a LOT better than I make it sound.

Pretty fun but the game would be more fun if they add more content and made the knowledge points easier to get

Game Dev Tycoon is a simulator game where you are a company, creating hit games. I love managing my little team and having to care about my money and my game ratings too. The game is more complex than it looks, with many metrics to look out for if you want to make a good game. I thought that the game was too hard for me initially, but as I played more, it got really easier and then the game just took off from there. It was relaxing and I really had fun, recommended!

Its pretty clear that if you bought this game that the joke is on you. There aren't any good instructions to this game, so you try and do a few different things and the Dev basically laughs at you while you fail time and time and time again. There was a time where I did a contract job and I was ONE SINGLE UNIT from finishing, and the time just kept running out, my dev wouldn't finish the contract, so I had to pay another penalty. Absolute BS. I don't know why you would waste your time on this garbage.

This is a great little game. It's kind of a guessing game that requires a little intuition and it doesn't require skill so much as management ability. There's a real-time aspect that comes into play and makes it slightly more difficult, but overall easy to play.
Over time you'll get more and more insight into what games work within the game system, and how but the variables are numerous enough that it should take some time to "solve" the game for all possibilities, so it has a high replay value for a low price.
Suffice it to say I repurchased it on Steam after I lost the purchase code I bought directly from the developer.

What do say? When this videogame came out, I was in High School. At that time, I did not what to study after High School, and after playing this, and imaging how could it be the process of making a videogame, and growing until the point of getting a whole company, was incredible. I know that it sounds ''bruh'', because the videogame over simplify the concept, I know that is not that easy.

After playing it, smile with the reference, and all the stuff, I was certain that I must study Software Development, and yes, I did pick that to study at the university.

Nowadays I am not a videogame developer, but I am in the IT area, working as a QA Automation. I keep playing this in the Nintendo Switch, my smartphone, and my computer. Before this, I was capture by GameDev Story, but this was a further step that I still play almost everyday, and keep smiling as the first day.

I love the fact it makes you think as to how to make a game, honestly I cant find any faults this game is FANTASTIC

I bought this game after I heard the Dev/Publisher uploaded a "cracked" version of this game to the pirate bay themselves. In that pirated version your games would be pirated. And so people who pirated the game started posting online how piracy is ruining their company in Game Dev Tycoon.

Absolute brilliance.

Also the game itself is a fun simulation of the modern video game industry and it's history. It's an addictive game that will have you thinking about what is important for specific genres and types of games, though this can feel like a guessing game early on before you learn what does and doesn't work. However, one may find what the game says is important in a game might not feel reflective of reality, such as the importance of some gameplay and engine aspects in regards to specific game genres.

I'd recommend.

After revisiting this old game, I remembered why I put it down in the first place. What is on the surface a fun little tycoon game, is in reality a frustrating time sink with obtuse game mechanics that punish ignorance and mastery with equal measure.

The early game is pretty forgiving, and you start to lift the veil of the games mechanics, but then it gets increasingly difficult without sufficiently explaining how anything actually works.
So you go online for guides, craft a few "ideal" games and use "ideal" strategies and get a boost. Then that too stops working since you cannot improve on "perfection", and you begin your slow decline into likely bankruptcy. Unless you get lucky, of course.

It was flawed back then, and hasn't aged well since then.