''Game Dev Tycoon'' is a business

simulation video game Simulation video games are a diverse super-category of video games, generally designed to closely simulate real world activities. A simulation game attempts to copy various activities from real life in the form of a game for various purposes such ...

developed by Greenheart Games released on 10 December 2012. The player creates and develops video games. ''Game Dev Tycoon'' was inspired by the iOS and Android game ''

Game Dev Story ''Game Dev Story'' is a simulation video game developed and published by Kairosoft for Microsoft Windows, iOS, Android (operating system), Android, and Nintendo Switch. It was released for Windows in April 1997, on iOS and Android on October 9, ...

'' (by Kairosoft), and many critics find substantial similarities between the two games. ''Game Dev Tycoon'' was created by Greenheart Games, a company founded in July 2012 by brothers Patrick and Daniel Klug.

Gameplay

The player starts out in a garage in the early 1980s during the

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with no employees, limited money, and limited choices for the first game. As new games are created, new options are unlocked. When the first game engine is built, the player's game development skills improve. New consoles will also be released, and the player will be able to buy licenses for certain consoles, such as the GS, PlaySystem, mBox, Vena Oasis, TES, and grPad which parody real life consoles and devices with different names due to trademark regulations. As the player progresses through the game further they have the opportunity to move to new offices and hire staff. After that further expansion is available, with players given the opportunity to open an R&D lab when reaching certain requirements that host major projects, allowing the player to unlock things they wouldn't be able to otherwise, such as MMOs and online game shops similar to

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etc. The player may also open up a Hardware Lab to create consoles and devices.

Mods

The game supports mods written in

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with the gdt-modAPI. As of 23 May 2022, there are 860 mods on

Steam Workshop Steam is a digital distribution service and storefront developed by Valve. It was launched as a software client in September 2003 to provide video game updates automatically for Valve's games and expanded to distributing third-party titles in l ...

. They range from simple, such as adding new consoles and topics, to making new libraries like UltimateLib. One of the most common ways people make these mods is with a

Third-party software component In computer programming, a third-party software component is a reusable software component developed to be either freely distributed or sold by an entity other than the original vendor of the development platform. The third-party software component ...

called Ultimate Module Editor (UME).

Release

The game's developers implemented an anti-piracy measure for ''Game Dev Tycoon''. Patrick Klug, founder of Greenheart Games, knowing that the game was likely to be torrented extensively, purposely released a cracked version of the game and uploaded it himself to torrent sites. Gameplay in this version is identical except for one variation, that being that as players progress through the game they receive the following message: Eventually players of the cracked version will gradually lose money until they do go bankrupt, as a result of pirates. Some players complained on message forums about this piracy feature, unaware that it only appeared because they themselves pirated the game.

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released a mobile version in March 2024 that is free for their subscribers.

Reception

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, ''Game Dev Tycoon'' received mixed reviews on Windows and positive reviews on iOS and Switch.

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.greenheartgames.com
The Best Anti-Piracy Measure Ever - "Game Dev Tycoon - shows players the effects of piracy in-game, too..."
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