Talk:Game Development Based on Experience/1.4.3/@comment-66.177.148.5-20130506171134

After playing this since the day after release, and following this ever changing wiki page closely, I've noticed that the your MAIN goal in getting good reviews is the ratios between your tech and design. For all the people only worrying about the sliders and trying to put them in the perfect spot for that 10 game, you're stressing yourself out. You need to learn that each slider (Gameplay, A.I., Level Design, World Design, etc.) is either a design factor, or a tech factor in your game. To figure out what factor they are is common sense to me, Level DESIGN is a design factor, go figure. Also, if you've read this page you'd already know that the slider is determing the amount of time you spent on that aspect of your game and you should really be paying attention to the bar at the bottom and not the sliders themselves. So now you understand each slider and if its going to add either design, or tech to your game, now you need to understand the ratio for each genre.

Page to Find Ratios:

http://gamedevtycoon.wikia.com/wiki/Raw_Data_for_Review_Algorithm

After reviewing the page you should notice that the ratios aren't far off from being 60% - 40% in every game, except Adventure which is 70-30 and Casual which is slightly different than Adventure. So now you just need to remember which is the dominate stat, either tech or design.

Now you know that each slider effects either design or tech, and each genre of game needs either design, or tech to be dominate, line up your sliders accordingly. If during your development process you find that your dominate stat is slacking, cut down on other stat during the next stage. Now it is important to remember that each genre also needs certain sliders to be more than 40% (of the bar at the bottom) twice during a game development. If you've read this page, then you should already know this. This is a common sense factor to me as well, RPG needs dialogue and world design? Who would have guessed?

Now you understand everything about the sliders, and where they should go depending on what genre of game you're making, now you need to understand the importance of game engines (at least in my experiences). Game engine features give a boost (to my understanding) to the stat it belongs to. For exmaple, A.I. companions would boost tech, and better dialogues would boost design. Now before you go making game engines with every feature you have, hear me out.

Your game engine features are basically the only "different" thing you can add to each game. Because of that, the game holds you to a standard when you make games with features. Knowing that information, you need to make game engines adding one feature at a time. Yeah, I know realistically it's the best thing in the world when a game comes out with 10 new features, however, when you do that the game expects even newer things with the next game release. Now, I see that the main complaint about game engines is that you don't have the ability to "edit" the previous engine therefore making you purchase a brand new engine even to add one new feature, which could be expensive. Here's how I do my game engines, I only make 2 different types of game engines, design and tech. Each game engine has features that ONLY benefit the stat that it's titled. For example, my design engine would ONLY include features that boost design (open world, better dialogue, etc), and vice versa for my Tech engine. To avoid confusion during gameplay, I only research one new thing every time I'm about to make a new engine (after every game eventually), therefore I know what I've already used in my engines and what I haven't. If you only include the features that boost the stat you're looking for, making game engines really isn't that expensive. I know when I first started playing I would make game engines that had every feature I had, and if I didn't need something I'd just uncheck it. Bad. Everytime you get a new feature, make a new engine, New feature and a new engine really help reviews.

A couple tips to remember, stay in the garage until you get about 6-7 million dollars. Gives you more money to mess up (if needed). As soon as you move out of the garage do nothing but publisher contracts until you hit 100k fans. I know it might not be something you want to do, but thats life, and you'll stay succesful even with bad games. The publishers sell so many copies that you'll be profiting even off a 5 game. Another important tip is to ALWAYS train after every game once you get in the office and get crew. As soon as I moved into the office I hired 3 people, one had lots of tech, one had lots of design, and one was in the middle like your main character. Having 3 people and developing nothing but publisher games should keep you afloat quite well and easily. So all in all, know the stat for each slider, know the ratio for each genre, put the sliders accordingly, SLOWLY research, (it doesn't benefit you to get 3 new features at once, it just adds confusion when making game engines), add one NEW feature at a time when making game engines, and always train yourself and crew (once you can).

I hope this information can help someone.