Gaming is integral to my everyday life, but admittedly, sometimes I don’t have the energy to commit to a full gaming session. That’s why casual mobile games appeal to me. My Game of the Week is Game Dev Tycoon. Coming off the high of the Philippine Game Dev Expo (PGDX), the gameplay immediately pulled me in. I didn’t expect much at first, but now I spend several hours a day playing it—it’s just good fun.
Game Dev Tycoon is a business simulation where you start as a solo developer in your garage during the 1980s and build a video game empire. Along the way, you’ll research technologies, launch consoles, move into offices, hire staff, and even fend off piracy—all while trying to create blockbuster games. The game was developed by Greenheart Games, a company founded by Patrick and Daniel Klug. You can download this game via Netflix, but it’s also available on PC and Nintendo Switch.
Gameplay and Mechanics Highlight:
- Evolution from Garage to Megacorp
The journey begins with you in a small garage. As you release games, unlock research, hire staff, you slowly evolve into a corporation.
2. Strategic Game Development Interface
Choose your game’s topic, genre, platform, and allocate focus across gameplay, story, graphics, AI, and more using intuitive sliders.
3. Research Systems & Labs
Accumulate research points to unlock advanced tools such as your own console (parodies like TES, mBox, Vena Oasis), R&D and Hardware labs offering bigger projects like MMO.
4. Anti-Piracy Easter Egg
The developers preemptively uploaded a “cracked” version. Players using it face inevitable bankruptcy caused by in-game piracy—an inventive statement on DRM and piracy.
5. Modding Support
Active Steam Workshop and mod API allow user-created content—new topics, consoles, and enhancements. You get to try different combinations to make your game a success.
What stands out to me in this game is the witty parallels between in-game technology and real life, such as the console parodies: MBox (Xbox), Super TES (Super Nintendo), GameSphere (GameCube), among others. While the game can get repetitive, I believe the built-in challenges are enough to keep it interesting. All I can say is that I’ve gained a new respect for actual game developers. After interviewing some of them, I realized that games truly are works of art—each one captures the heart of its creators, or the team that built it with passion, offering it to us with the hope we’ll enjoy it. I think this game is well worth playing.
Matcha-fueled shoujo heroine who loves gaming.