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Game Dev Story gamenav iconGame Dev Story Guide

Creating Games Genres and Types Employees Careers Training Items Consoles Companies Achievements Magazine Reviews Transcript
Endgame / Replay Bugs & Cheats Manual Tips / Walkthrough
< Prequel


Game Dev Story was Kairosoft's first mobile game. In it, you run a game company and create games with the attributes Fun, Creativity, Graphics, and Sound. Many other factors also impact how popular a game is, how well it sells, how large your fan base is, and whether your game can have a sequel.

While your primary goal is to make great games, there are many aspects to work on to make this possible, such as training staff, building a console, and unlocking new genres and types.

Office Upgrades[]

After every upgrade, you unlock new methods of training, Advertizing, and hiring methods, as well as 2 more seats.

  • First Upgrade: Upgrade event raised first time after developing one game and obtaining $1,000.0K after year 4 [Confirm], and cost to upgrade is $600.0K.
  • Second Upgrade: Upgrade event raised first time after obtaining $ 3,500.0K , AND/OR winning each 1+ trophies(Best design, Best music) at the Global Game Awards. But from year 4 month 12 to year 6 month 12, both required. OR form year 7 to 9, either one required. OR after year 10, not required. And the cost to upgrade is $2,500.0K.

Development[]

Making a Game[]

Games are what make you money and let the game progress. There are many factors in how popular it will be, such as consoles, employees, and luck. If a game is really good it could potentially have a sequel.

Sequels[]

Games that enter the Hall of Fame are eligible for sequels (a game enters the Hall of Fame when its total critic score is 32 or higher). To make a sequel, enter the Sequel screen and choose the Platform (a sequel does not have to be developed on the same platform as the original), the game you wish to create a sequel of, and the development method. At that point, the sequel will be made in the same way as any other game. The advantage of making sequels is that they start out with extra levels in Fun, Originality, Graphics, and Sound. However, if a sequel does not make the Hall of Fame on its own, no more sequels can be made in that franchise.

Contracts[]

In addition to making games, your company can also fulfill contracts for others. Contracts are available from the same menu through which you make new projects and are available from the start of the game. Contracts are useful in the beginning phases of the game as a relatively easy way to generate money and develop research points. During the mid- and end-game, contracts generally do not pay enough to be worth the effort.

While the particular story behind each contract is different (translate a game into a new language, develop a new game engine, complete special effects for a movie, and so forth), the mechanics of each contract are identical. All contracts include:

  1. The amount of money to be paid upon completion of the contract, ranging from $100K to over $1,000K. Larger contracts become available as your company expands.
  2. The amount of time in which the contract should be completed (usually between 6-13 weeks).
  3. The various categories the contract involves (Fun, Originality, Graphics, and Sound). Every contract will involve at least one of these categories and more commonly two. The amount of each category that must be generated will differ from contract to contract.

More difficult contracts will pay more, but will require the production of higher levels in each category over shorter periods of time. Failure to fulfill a contract involves loss of the fee and a loss of reputation for your company.

Consoles[]

Staff[]

There are many employees you can choose from, some that need to be unlocked, some only obtainable from different Hiring Methods, and each with a pun in their name. All employees have different careers inside the company.

Training Methods[]

There are many training methods that your employees can use, with more and more being unlocked as you progress through the game. The training methods do stop having effect after a while, so keep this in mind.

Pinball never stops working (6 to each stat), but it fails to do anything most of the time (3/4).

Items[]

Items are obtained from Pumpkin Products, who appears every M5 W2 (first time on Year 2). Prices of all items go up as you upgrade to a new office. For every item you buy, the cost of the others goes up (this is not true for Dead Bull or Career Change Manual).

Moving Seats[]

Switching your employee's seating arrangements is primarily for aesthetic or entertainment purposes. However, you can gain a small performance increase by putting employees with smaller Power bars closer to the door so that it will take them less time to walk between their chair and door when they leave for home.

Advertising[]

Advertising will increase your number of fans and the Hype for any game currently in development. More expensive ads will increase fans and hype by larger amounts. If you use the same type of advertisement too often, however, it ceases to have any impact on the number of fans. Also, post-game launch advertising will increase sales.   

There's no point in advertising until you've released a game. Let's concentrate on game development for now!
 
— Secretary
Advertising Cost ($) Unlock
Magazine Ads 30.0K Initially Available
Online Ads 50.0K Initially Available
Radio Ads 80.0K Initially Available
Demo Distribution 150.0K Initially Available
Marching Band 250.0K Initially Available
TV Ads 350.0K Move to office 2
Animal Costumes 500.0K Move to office 2
TV Sponsorship 650.0K Move to office 2
Racecar Sponsorship 1,200.0K Move to office 2
Card Game Contest 3,300.0K Move to office 3
Blimp Sponsorship 5,500.0K Move to office 3
Lunar Writing 9,900.0K Move to office 3

Research Data[]

Research Data points are gained by employees while both doing work and sitting idle. You are also granted research points upon completion of a contract, with the amount varying by the difficulty of the contract. Research Data is very important and can be used for leveling up employees (up to level 5, with progressively more points being used every time) and performing Boosts. Using a Boost item requires differing amounts of data depending on how many Boosts have been used. Boosts requested by an employee, however, allow you to use more Research Data in order to increase the change up success (up to 80%). The amount of data needed for certain percentages of success depends on the employee's skills (more skills need less research points).

An easy method to quickly gain Research Data points later on in the game once you have a very fast team is to continually complete contracts that have high point requirements. You are granted a bulk of Research Data points upon completing the contract, and because you should be able to complete even the most complex contracts quickly (within a couple of weeks), this is a very effective way to gain masses of Research Data.

Events[]

Game Guy Magazine

Main article: Transcript:Game_Dev_Story#Game_Guy_Magazine

The latest issue.

Fan letters
Main article: Transcript:Game_Dev_Story#Fan_Letter

Letters can be both good or bad events. If a game that was published had a positive score a person will send a letter in increase the popularity in the age group and gender according to the top of the letter.

The opposite effect will occur in a decrease in popularity among the age group and gender

Paying Staff

Staff are paid annually at the start of March. At that point, the combined salaries of all staff members will be deducted from the company's funds. The one exception is at the end of the first year; all salaries for the first year are covered by the "government" in an effort to encourage game development. 

If a company does not have enough money to cover payroll, the company can dip into a one time $150K emergency fund. If the $150K is insufficient, or if the company fails to cover payroll again, consequences can include cancellation of projects and so on.

Pumpkin Products

He appears annually on M5 W2 to sell you items starting the 2nd year.

Development Events

These include such things as magazine reviews.

Global Game Awards

The Global Game Awards is an annual show in Game Dev Story every December. Your company first enters the Global Game Awards when a game has got into the Hall of Fame, or a total review score of 32 or more. After that, even if no other game produced has a review score of 32 or over, your company's games will still be entered to the Global Game Awards to compete against those of rival companies.

To have a chance of getting Game of the Year Award, a game must have a total review score of 36 or more. Even a review of 40 does not ensure winning this award.

Gamedex

Gamedex is an annual show in Game Dev Story that allows your company to gain popularity through different fan bases or a game to gain hype for a current game either in development or released. The event is at the start of every July (M7 W1). The first Gamedex appears after you upgrade your office for the first time. Having a booth a game Dex can increase the popularity of your game company.

Gamedex is probably parodying the Electronics Entertainment Expo or E3 as the expo also happens every July.

Option Price Effect
Don't attend show Free Skip the event
Don't hire anyone $150K Step up a booth with no special guest
Use costumes $600K 2 costumed bears join (increases popularity with children)
Hire booth babes $2,500K 2 booth babes join (You might get into the news)
Hire a guest star $7,000K 1 bear, 2 booth babes and star Kairobot join (Worldwide attention)

Bugs & Cheats

Bug-game dev story Bugs and cheats listed below can be replicated on a device without the need of cheat tools.
  • You can remove the "prev" condition on an employee when you create a game. When the screen comes up asking you to write a scenario, press back. This will completely remove the "prev" condition from the employee. This allows you to use the same employee again and again.
  • [Patched]When starting a new game, pick a genre / type combination. Press okay and then okay again until a dialog window pops up asking you to write a scenario. Press back and then repeat but picking a different type and/or genre. Wait a while and all of the genres/types will all level up. This makes leveling genres and especially types very fast.
    • For newer versions, this doesn't seem to take effect until development starts.
  • [Patched]Contract fees (hiring fees) only apply when you are filling an empty slot. You hire someone with a low contract fee and then replace them with a more expensive hire without having to pay the hiring fee for the more expensive one.
  • When you fire an employee exactly when he's going to give Research Data to another employee (it requires high reflexes), the other employee gets frozen and does nothing anymore. The only cure to this bug is the following: An employee goes to the frozen employee; The employee gives Research Data to the frozen employee; He becomes no more frozen.
  • If you fire a person like a hardware engineer (LIke John Gameson), You dont even need to hire a large money hiring task but instead hire him/her where you hired him/her before you actually fired him. Then if you luckily get the person you just fired, you can pay the amount that you hired him when you first hired him (John Gameson only cost $50 on Word of Mouth), you get the job that he/she was before you fired him.

Trivia[]

  • Apple Arcade has a special version called "Game Dev Story+" which has extra visual customization and Leaderboards/Game Center support.
  • The Space and Jumprope types are inaccessible in game as there is an unused training method, Retreat. They would have been unlocked by the designer and the coder by going to the Retreat. This can be seen in the game's code.
  • If you make a racing game it is possible to receive a fan letter, where the writer of the letter, a Race car driver, says "Thanks to you, I was able to come in 16th in the recent Chimpan Island Race.", which is a race in Grand Prix Story.
  • Gamedex also appears in Venture Towns as a Dev. Project.

Other Links[]

External Links[]

Language packs[]

Language Pack icon Language packs are community made translations of a specific game into a language not otherwise supported by Kairosoft. If you wish to create one, you can download the english CSV file here.
See the language packs page for details.
Language CSV Author(s) Notes State Donations Contact
Spanish (Spain) csv MikyMuch

Version: 0.1 - First release (not finished).

Edited without translator.

Last edit: 20/3/2020

Active Gmail: adur2006@gmail.com
Language CSV Author(s) Source Notes
português csv (.rar) ( Priscylla Correia J. csv (.rar)

Gallery[]

Audio[]

External Resources


Game Dev Story on Wikipedia

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