When I was recently browsing the offers in the Switch eShop, I came across a game I hadn’t read about in a long time. It was one that I was occupied with late into the night more than ten years ago. Laid in bed, earphones plugged into the iPod, music on and developed one video game after the other in Game Dev Story.
What can I say? It’s just as addicting today as it was then. And that despite – or because of? – the relatively simple game concept. Hire developers. Select genre and topic. assign tasks. Waiting. And hope that there is no device or power failure in the middle that costs you valuable points in your game.
After that, bugs will be fixed and the game released. Press reviews follow, and ultimately you see how well your game is doing in retail. Of course there is also an award ceremony where the best game and one bad game are honored. My pirate puzzle games were never well received by the philistines at first, but now the tide has turned.
Overall, it’s a simple gameplay loop with no long wait times. There’s no comparison to other mobile games that deliberately factor in the waiting and sometimes let you shorten it for money. One game follows the next, new devices appear and require new development licenses. At least until a certain point in time when the game stops with the release of new consoles, but you continue to develop games until you don’t want to anymore.
Which, as mentioned, doesn’t stop you from perfecting your game development. It gets easier and easier in the endgame and the challenge gets lost a bit. As little as I otherwise spend my time with mobile games – except for Pokémon Go – that’s how captivated I was at the time. And now back to the Switch. I like the theme, the charm and the retro look of the game. The perfect combination, if you will.
So far I haven’t managed to get the perfect 10/10/10/10 combo from the press, but I will! One of my goals before I dedicate myself to the project to develop my own console and throw it on the market. I can do what Nintendo not!
The game shows its age a little – it originally came out in 1997 – of course, but it’s still fun these days. Individual aspects could be worked out more, such as the competition or the PR work, but well, it shows that it’s no longer the latest. I would like developer Kairosoft to go back to Game Dev Story and develop a sequel. I would definitely be one of the first to buy it.
However, it can only be recommended to you if you have even the tiniest interest in the subject. You can get the game in the Switch eShop until April 12, 2022 for 6.50 euros instead of 13 euros.
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