Game Dev Tycoon Review (Glue)
Overall, I had fun while playing this game, but I can't really recommend it because the actual gameplay mechanics are paper-thin.
On my first playthrough, I did well at first, but then my games kept getting mediocre reviews and I eventually went bankrupt. I then looked up a guide and it turns out that the mechanics behind reviews (which are directly linked to how well your game sells) is simply that your new game has to score more points than your previous best game. Knowing this, I slightly ramped up my employee's training between every game development cycle and never had a badly reviewed game again. While it was satisfying to see my game company grow larger and larger, it was also disappointing that things I had previously put thought into, such as whether a specific game needed certain features, were largely pointless.
There's no complexity to figure out; there's one way to succeed in the game. The lack of detail in the mechanics means that it also doesn't work that well as a simulation. A key element of developing a game is deciding what features (such as story, graphics, AI) to prioritize. Which features are important is only set by genre (such as action, rpg, simulation), but completely independent of topic (such as fantasy, farming, cyberpunk), which gives you some strange results. It makes sense that a casual rhythm game would not focus on story and dialogue much, but a casual romance game would probably rely on dialogues quite a lot. But it's all the same in Game Dev Tycoon. Due to the way researched features work, you could also release an AAA game without the ability to save without generating huge backlash, or you could release a game boy game with advanced 3D features and an orchestral soundtrack if you unlock these features quickly enough. There isn't much story-wise, which is fine, but what story there is in form of reviews and interviews you can give is extremely sparse and repetitive. More variety and detail could make them a lot more fun.
The UI has some hiccups such as opening two menus over each other that are a pain to close and some elements getting cut off when playing in windowed mode. While the game is good in English, the German translation seems somewhat messy, so beware of that if you want to play the game in a language that isn't English.
Despite this, I still had a pretty ok time with the game just because pretending you're a game developer and coming up with your next title, imagining what sort of game you'll make and seeing huge sales numbers is fun even when the mechanics behind it are lacking. If you want to just have fun imagining yourself developing games and taking over the gaming world with your creations, I can recommend this game. If you want a challenging, in-depth simulation, I unfortunately can't.