Drafting Tales

Eh it get's super boring and repetitive after awhile. I play many games where you do much of the same tasks, but in this game they are just tedious and not fun to do. The Devs also seemed to have abandoned the game as it has not been updated for awhile now.

In its current state: cannot recommend. This game is basically Game Dev Tycoon but where you play an aspiring writer instead of a game developer. You can write articles, short stories, non-fiction and novels. Genres and themes are unlocked through an XP requirement that becomes far more of a chore because you can only earn considerable amounts of XP from large and unprofitable projects like non-fiction and novels. Main reason I cannot recommend Drafting Tales is because the game is about as fair and balanced as Fox News. With each year that goes by, inflation goes up considerably (price for vacations and rent) but your earnings from a publisher don't, meaning that you'll struggle to even afford rent before long. Another problem is that large projects as previously mentioned, are unprofitable. If it takes 8 times the time to write a book compared to an article or short story, and also a significant investment into a vacation because writing that book will drain your stamina, the book had better make several times more in revenue than a short story would. Unfortunately it doesn't. At most it makes about twice as much as a medium length journalistic piece. By around year 15 (halfway through a playthrough, presuming your career lasts 30 years), if you don't consistently crap out 4 star articles and short stories for quick and efficient profit, you will immediately go bankrupt. A few other major nit-picks include: 1. Purchasing the website and being told that I can self-publish articles and short stories on my own domain, but the game doesn't give me the damn option to do this. When I select publish, I can only find third-party publishers. Is this feature even implemented? 2. Some genre combinations being bad, i.e. shark horror is not a good combination, yet films like Jaws exist, or Historical Spy works of non-fiction are bad, yet there are numerous books on the history of espionage in real life. It's downright asinine. 3. Your fan limit is tied to your house. If you want more than 5000 fans, you have to purchase a better house for $50,000 plus an $1,800 monthly rent fee. Why is there a 5,000 fan cap when you have no hope in hell of saving up $50k with the limited amount of fans you are capped at getting? 4. Going back to point #3, what's even dumber is the notion that in this game universe, rents require an initial deposit akin to a high end frickin mortgage. Nobody in their right mind would pay a landlord a deposit equivalent to 28 months of rental payments.... It's like the game's creator doesn't even grasp the concept of what rent or mortgages are. I would have given the game a pass for being buggy, imbalanced and unfinished it were still in early access, but this is the full retail release. I bought this game on Early Access two years ago and expected a lot more by now. If Drafting Tales were meant to be an allegorical warning about how capitalism is killing starving artists, then the devs have done a damn good job. But this is a game and punishingly brutal game mechanics suck.

As gruelling and frustrating as a real writing career, would play again.

Boring and grindy. A complete waste of money. Due to the objectives being absolutely linear, your gameplay will always track more or less the same. Please spare the cash and buy something else.

totally sucks. basic game dev tycoon BS. i played it in early access hoping it would get better by release but nah. its still totally uninspired and boring.

Bottom line: this game just isn't that fun to play. There isn't a lot that happens and pretty much you're just grinding away without so much as the option to speed up time as you watch your little writer sit on their ass and maybe sometimes do a bit of work. As a failed writer myself I guess I can attest to the relatively accurate depiction of the lifestyle/profession, but it seems like any number of variables could have been added to the game to make it more fun or at least compelling. Character interaction, even just more than 4 types of writing jobs (articles, short stories, non-fiction books, and fictional novels) or simply the ability to have more success as anything other than a fictional novelist probably would make the game feel less punishing for not min-maxing. In my own play through it felt like I had carved out a nice niche as a perennially award winning guidebook author by day and seamy Alien Romance Thriller (a commercially and critically unappreciated sub-genre) novelist by night, but after my 30 years were up I had a completion score of 87/1000 which just kind of made my 7 hours trying to enjoy myself feel like a waste of time somehow... I don't know, if you just want something relatively relaxing to play and you can amuse yourself (even though that's the game's job) I guess this is alright, but I would instead recommend Mini Metro. Or if you're determined to spend your in-game life chained to a computer you could try Game Dev Tycoon I guess...

I wish I could do a Maybe recommend, instead of a yes or no. It is an easy casual way to spend time, but it does not really improve upon the genre of Game making/writing sims, and lacks some key components. Its basically identical to Game Dev Tycoon, and neither are as good as City Game Studio when it comes to variety. I'd suggest getting it if it is on sale. Pros: Cute, not too repetitive, easy to understand but can still be fun to figure out combinations. Cons: Keeping track of deadlines is very hard. Your deadlines are given in days, but the only clock/calendar you have passes in weeks. There's no way to actually track your deadlines either, because it doesn't mark on the calendar. So unless you are taking your deadline and dividing by 7 then manually counting the weeks with your mouse hovering to hit submit, you just always have to do a freelance job to the bare minimum and submit the moment you can, because taking any time to increase clarity means that while you do the inevitable corrections, the deadline passes. There's no way to plan ahead, or multitask. If we had options to trade reputation points for an extension, or even could plan your month in advance so you choose to finish this phase by this date and can use some planning skills to maximize your output, it would be more fun. I disagree with the binary/black-and-white "this combination doesn't go together" concept, because there is always someone interested in a niche topic. Rather than penalizing combos like Spy Romance (which by the way is totally a book I've seen before) with an automatic bad rating and loss of fans, you should be able to compensate with particular settings or plots or character combos. A Romance novel where the main characters are the protag and antag is not a good combination, unless of course the story is an enemies to lovers harlequin novel, and therefore the antag is also the love interest. I feel the system is lacking nuance and ingenuity. Lastly, the options for self improvement are so painfully limited. Its so hard to get the necessary XP to improve your stats. I know the point is probably to force you to write failure books more often, just to farm the experience, but that wastes a ton of time and your finances tank from bad sales. We need more than just networking excursions. Why not introduce creative writing classes, workshops, clubs, or other educational opportunity where you can get XP. Or have random events that might provide a point in an area "While talking with a exec at the networking event, you had an idea for a horror story. You now have 1 point of expertise in that area" or "During the workshop, you got into a friendly argument with the speaker regarding conflict, you can now write stories with 'Person vs Person' conflicts." Other ideas for variety and replay-ability: - give a starving artist boon, when your money is below a threshold, get "desperate" which increases speed and clarity for freelance work, but uses inspiration faster for non freelance work. - Let people re-write old archived novels when their skills are better - Sell short stories as screenplays for TV or movies - move to a cheaper apartment, not a more expensive one, to make finances last longer, but have some sort of mood penalty - Random events that provide 1 time use outline choices, like special plot ideas or character combos - "troll the internet for inspiration" that gives inspiration but at the risk of accusations of plagiarism - Let us make book covers or hire artists, which helps increase initial sales I'll keep playing, because I'm sure there's a lot I haven't discovered yet, maybe even some of my above suggestions, but until it feels more robust, this will live in my "casual time wasters" bucket

This is a decent tycoon-like game in the style of Game Dev Tycoon with a focus on writing as it seems. It doesn't waste time on fripperies, but its core loop is a bit off, missing a bit of 'friction' or 'interaction' to really get where it ideally would be. It's a weak recommendation if you like the style of game or the theme.