On August 7, a board game about building a gaming business appeared on sale. It’s called Game Dev Sim. One of its authors — Vyacheslav Utochkin — prepared for App2Top.ru material about the project.
Vyacheslav Utochkin
Game Dev Sim is a strategy whose participants are tasked with making and releasing a video game in six gaming months.
It is not easy to achieve this: the game constantly generates various situations and difficulties. They have to be solved with the help of available resources.
In addition to the in-game task, Game Dev Sim also has an educational task: to show in a playful way how the game is being developed, to introduce players to various situations that occur in the industry.
Since the game copes with this quite well, we are already using it to teach our students in the course “Management of Game Projects” at the Higher School of Business Informatics of the HSE.
Game stages and tests in Game Dev Sim are very similar to those from real life. I asked Dmitry Svetlov, the head of the studio Odd Meter (VR game Sacralith: The Archer’s Tale), to compare the gameplay of the Game Dev Sim with his development experience.
Sacralith: The Archer’s TaleOffice
Game Dev Sim
The game has the ability to change the office. There are several options. They differ in price and characteristics. These characteristics are the capacity and morale of the team.
The capacity depends on how many people will be able to work indoors, and on morality — how well the team works.
In addition to office employees, you can also attract freelancers working remotely, but they spend a separate game resource — control.
Game Dev Sim Playing FieldOdd Meter
Dmitry’s team moved from the factory rented premises to an office on the Arbat. This really lifted the mood of the current employees, and also increased the interest in the studio from the candidates at the interviews.
Staff
Game Dev Sim
At the beginning of each gaming month, cards of specialists (producers, project managers, programmers, game designers, artists, marketers, testers and HR specialists) randomly appear on the labor market.
There are two types of specialists in the game — ordinary and elite. Ordinary people do their job for a modest salary, elite ones are more expensive, but they have unique skills. It will not be possible to hire everyone because of the limited budget.
Specialist cards Game Dev SimOdd Meter
Dmitry agrees that there is a division in the labor market according to the skills of applicants, but you always need to look at the current needs and opportunities of the project.
For example, Odd Meter had the opportunity to hire an expensive marketer to promote in the Western market. I would have had to fly to Los Angeles to meet him. Given the unpredictability of the VR market, the investment might not pay off. Therefore, a choice was made in favor of domestic specialists.
Situations
Game Dev Sim
During each game month, you have to deal with game situations. There are only two types of them — problems and opportunities. Situations require either finances or a specialist’s working time.
If the problem is not solved, it can damage the project. If you take advantage of the opportunity, you can get an advantage.
Game situations in the game depend on the stage of development. There are three of them in Game Dev Sim — pre-production, production and release.
Situation Cards in Game Dev SimOdd Meter
Real game development also always generates both problems and opportunities.
For example, while working on Sacralith: The Archer’s Tale, the team had the opportunity to purchase a real 26-pound bow, go to classes with a shooting coach. The developers took advantage of this chance, they needed to take into account all the nuances on their own experience in order to create an authentic gaming experience.
But there were also problems. At the final stage of development, Odd-Meter encountered a problem in code optimization. Fortunately, she was lucky. How to fix complex bugs, she was prompted by the guys from the friendly Sobaka Studio.
Investment
Game Dev Sim
At the beginning of the game, all players sign a contract with an investor who will allocate money for development needs every game month. The amount is fixed, but during the game it may change depending on the relationship with the investor.
Game Dev Sim can be played both alone and with friends Odd Meter
Dmitry has been the head of the architectural visualization studio 3dmode for almost 10 years. So the funding was internal, and the development was independent. But to decide to put the game into production, it took a long time to work on the vision and plan of the project.
End of the project
Game Dev Sim
When six playing months have passed, the game ends. Participants count the winning points to identify the winner.
Odd Meter
In reality, development takes longer. It took a year and a half to create Sacralith: The Archer’s Tale.
Special attention was paid to testing and debugging the game. Testing was outsourced to BYTEX. The first round of testing was conducted in the middle of development, and the last ones were near the end. This made it possible to eliminate a huge number of shortcomings.
Before the game was released, the team was worried. The goal was to sell 5,000 copies of the game at a base price of $20. To date, this goal has been significantly exceeded, while the project has 93% positive reviews on Steam.