Game Quicky: Game Dev Story (Android) ~ Still Updating

Wikipedia article

Before I started this blog, I used to write my reviews in Dutch on another blog. On that blog, I reviewed this game. Since I started this blog, I was convinced that I reviewed this game, but it turns out I was wrong. So, that’s why I’m going to review my first ever game I bought for my smartphone. Game Dev Story, I don’t remember how I found this game, but I do remember that I played this game for hours. But, what do I think about it? Let me tell you in this article. I have chosen for a game quicky since this game doesn’t have much else going on besides the basic tycoon gameplay. In a game quicky, I list all the things I like and don’t like about the game and then write a conclusion. So, as usual, feel free to write a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article. 

Introduction to the game

In this game, you are the boss of a game development studio. You choose what your team works on, a new game, a console or a contract. You also choose which employees work in your company and what training they have. You are also in charge of the advertisement campaigns. Each year you can attend GameDex (which is E3) and each year there is “Best Of” awards show.

This game is released for Android, iOS and in the summer of 2015, a Windows Phone port has been made. There is a Japanese version created for Windows computers. More details about the game can be found in the Wikipedia link at the top of this article.

The bad

In all other Kairosoft games, you have more than one save slot, but in this game, you only have one save slot. So, if you want to restart your game without losing your almost finished studio, tough luck.

The music is pretty good, but there isn’t too much music in the game. That’s a darn shame since the music gets repetitive quite fast.

There is a lot of downtime in this game. There is nothing else to do when your team is working on a game or on a console. Besides managing your advertisements and training your team members, there isn’t a lot to do. But, the game is paused when you are in the menus…

On my phone and tablet, the words sometimes cut off unnaturally. This happens when the word doesn’t fit on the screen. It’s a detail that annoys me to no end. I don’t see this happening in other games from the developers, so why this isn’t fixed in this game… I don’t understand.

I think it would be interesting if you can split your team in two and give them separate tasks. For example, one part works on a contract to earn money and the other part works on the new game. That would make the game more interesting.

I haven’t tested this too much, but I think this game drains a lot of battery in some cases. One time I fully charged my tablet and I played this game on the train to work. It was the only app running in the background and my WiFi and such were all off. After my workday, my battery of my tablet was almost drained. But, it doesn’t happen every time, since a week later I tested the same thing and my battery was at 95% then. So strange.

The good

This game can be challenging if you make too many risks. Sometimes I got lucky with my reviews and sales, but other times, I paid attention to what combinations worked and made my money that way.

This game is fun in short bursts but is really addictive in my opinion. I had play sessions of this game that took over 2-3 hours without a break. I’m so happy that this game has an autosave since I would forget that this game has a manual save button.

This game has some random elements, so the replay value of this game is very high. I have replayed this game several times and I enjoyed each and every playthrough.

The writing and humor in this game are amazing. There are a lot of pop culture references and some are really funny. I’m not going to spoil them but if you know a bit of gaming history, you will enjoy the humor as well.

Visually, this game looks adorable. It has the Kairosoft charm all over it. This game was my first introduction to their games and I don’t regret it. If you enjoy this style of gameplay, you will most likely enjoy all their other games.

The demo of this game provides the first years of the full game. But, the full game is rather cheap. I bought the game for 3€ and you get your monies worth!

There is a screenshot button built in the game that you can let it share with your Twitter or Facebook accounts. That’s such a neat addition to the game.

It amazes me that this game is over 10 years old but still gets updates from time to time. The last update was 25th April 2017.

Conclusion

This game is an amazing casual game. If you enjoy tycoon games or just enjoy games in general, I really advise you to give this game a go.

This game isn’t perfect. It has same flaws, but hey, who knows what future updates will bring. Maybe new gameplay mechanics get added and make the game more interesting.

But, I honestly advise you to buy the full version since it’s so worth it!

That’s all I wanted to talk about in this game. Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day!

Score: 4/5

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Review: Beastie Bay (Android) review ~ Let’s go exploring.

Wiki page of this game

Alright guys, let’s go for a game on a platform I never expect to create reviews on. I wrote a review on this game before, but that was rather summing up the good and bad parts in a list. But I’m going to expand on my forum review of this game, and I’m going to give it a proper full review now that I played it even more. This game is free on the Android Market and the App Store and is made by the Japanese developer KarioSoft who is also known for great games like Game Dev Story. This game really took me many times back to my tablet. Is this game my guilty pleasure or is it actually good and fun to play? Let’s dive right into Beastie Bay.

What is this game?

Saying that this is an adventure game, I would tell you that you are correct. You would be right too if you said it’s a simulator. But I would also agree if you say it’s an RPG. This game covers multiple genres quite nicely.

The gameplay is extremely well and is actually pretty deep for a mobile game. At the start you get the basics explained and from there you can discover the game on your own. I love it how games do that, leave things up for the community or you to discover.

But one complaint I have is that the controls to place buildings are a bit uneasy. Even the cursor pad you get doesn’t help that much since it can get annoying to work with. You have to play the game to understand what I mean here, but the controls are the best they can get, but they don’t 100% work.

But for a mobile game it’s impressive how they get all these controls on a touchscreen without cluttering up the UI too much. I’m blown away that I feel like my complaint is such a nitpick that you actually can overlook it.

But back to the gameplay. You need to survive. It wasn’t too clear at the start to me that you needed to place your farms close to your allies and other villagers, or they don’t get harvested. Did I lose a lot of wood because of that? And here comes one major complaint with this game.

When your island grows, you can set shops for villagers of nearby islands to come and buy things. But if that villager finds wood, it doesn’t go to your resource pile. Nope, it goes to their shop. For that reason, I have to recruit a lot of new allies to just surround them with tree farms. This is something that the developers easily could improve on.

Explore the seven seas.

I like exploring as much as the next guy, but in this game, it’s extremely limited. You actually give orders to the AI to explore a certain area. And actually, it works. When you encounter an enemy you can start fighting the enemy in a sort of Final Fantasy-ish battle.

This is extremely fun and adds more depth to the game. But here we bump into the “not so free” part of this game. To remove level caps in the game, you’ll need a lot of golden coins. You barely ever get them in the game, sometimes by just playing, but you can get a lot by actually buying them with real hard cash.

But if you are in for some grinding, there is a way how you can get many coins easily, but that’ll take up sometime. And I’ll leave that up to you guys to figure out by yourself.

The story is actually not present in this game. You are stranded on an island together with your ally, and you go and explore and try to survive. And somehow, this game doesn’t need a story. This game is pretty fine how it is.

The gameplay might be simple, but it’s not easy. Some dungeons and area’s will get difficult really quick.  Also, some parts of the game really made me scratch my head in confusion since I didn’t understand how the game wanted me to do.

How good is it really?

With KairoSoft, I notice a sort of tradition. The graphics are extremely well done. They are borrowed from their other titles, but it’s how you recognize them.

But then the music. I swear that there aren’t more than 5 to 6 tracks in the whole game, and you need to listen to one track over and over again. This gets old extremely fast. The sound effects are over the most line the same for many actions and something’s could have used some sound effects in my opinion.

Also, the shops are crazy expensive and the game has so many menus you easily get lost, and you might have to make a to-do list.

In addition to that, trying to capture creatures is a big guessing game which bait they might like. In addition to that, it’s so rare that they actually like that bait, you end up with almost never recruiting allies.

The day and night cycle is actually a pretty nice touch. It made me often rush to a dungeon since I wanted to try to catch a certain creature or defeat one since they gave a lot of XP.

The game is pretty lengthy too. You won’t finish this game in one sitting. I actually advise you to play this game in short bursts, like no longer than an hour or two. Since playing this game for long times can get you bored. This is a game meant to be played in short bursts.

So, I have been talking for quite a while about a mobile game, it’s time to wrap things up before I go running in circles.

Conclusion

The good:

+ Addictive gameplay.

+ Very varied.

+ Extremely well-made controls, with some slight flaws, but they work.

+ This game can be hard here and there but with dedication you will get there.

+ Amazing graphics.

The bad:

– Music and sounds.

– Grinding.

– The difficulty goes up way too fast.

– Sometimes the game is a bit overwhelming.

– Most upgrades and shop items are way too expensive.

Final thoughts: 

This game isn’t for everybody. It’s a game with some flaws. Plus, you need to be able to look over ads. It’s a great game and surely worth a play in my eyes, but it isn’t a big game you would be putting your PS3 down for.

Yet, this game is excellent to play while on the road or waiting for the doctor. You easily see that the developers put their hearts and souls into this game, and they deserve your download.

And that’s everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I want to thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in a future article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 70/100