Game Dev Story

[h1]「いつものカイロソフト」の源流[/h1] 元はWindows95向けのゲームでケータイ電話にも移植され、現行機でも遊べる。 いわゆる「いつものカイロソフト」と呼ばれ、80作以上同じ作風で愛されているゲームの源流。 「いつものカイロソフト」の特徴は、 ・ゆるい経営シミュレーション ・箱庭のような世界 ・丁寧でかわいいドット絵 ・牧歌的なBGM ・最初はコツコツ育てていたつもりが気づいたら巨大化を遂げており規模拡大が止まらなくなっている ・なんならプレイヤーの方も遊ぶのを止められなくなっている ・他版権とコラボするとやたらとマニアックなネタまで拾ってくる といった具合。全年齢向けでプレイヤーの性別・年齢層を選ばないので子供にも安心して与えられる。 Nintendo Switchを買ってとりあえずどんなソフトがいいかしら、とお悩みであれば とりあえずカイロソフトを1本入れておくのがおすすめ。 小さい子でもむずかしくはなく、扱う数字も最初は小さいし実はゲームオーバーもない。 遊びを通してスッと経営シミュレーションの世界に入れる。 ゲームのジャンルと題材を組み合わせておもしろいゲームを作ろう。 おもしろい組み合わせを発見するとゲームがたくさん売れて、ファンが増え、新たなジャンルと内容が増えていく。雑誌レビューで殿堂入り、誰もが知っているほど有名になり、ゲーム大賞グランプリを獲ろう。 あとこのゲーム、いかにもマウス操作向けに見えるけどショートカットキーが充実していてゲームパッドの方が遥かに快適(個人の感想です)。 会社の成長に合わせてBGMが3段階あり、個人的には2番目が好きなんですが成長すると聴けなくなる。そして3段階目も良いBGMだけど、やたら眠くなる(個人の感想です)。 僕の初カイロソフトは「ドラえもんのどら焼き屋さん物語」で、2つ目が本作。大きく歴史を遡ったつもりが根本は全然変わっておらず完成度が高かった。 ゲームの「面白さ」「独創性」が和菓子の「おいしさ」「オーラ」などに変わっただけなのに面白いから不思議。 ゲーム会社が経営が順調になってきて広いオフィスに引っ越す？というイベントがドラえもんだと無茶な流れになっていて笑う。 クリア・全実績解除まで約10時間。 セーブ完了ダイアログにケータイの名残をすごく感じる。いいよね…

I remember first playing this on mobile when it originally came to the West, well over a decade ago, and laying in my bed til the wee hours of the night chasing my high score. I'm so glad Kairosoft has started bringing their games to PC in the West, because they have such a charm to them that isn't really replicated by anything else in the industry. Game Dev Story is one of Kairosoft's first games, way back when they were a doujin Windows developer. I think it's so charming that even 30 years later, they are still such a small, tightknit studio (only 9 employees) that has stuck to their original vision of creating iyashikei simulators, maintaining their original (and in my opinion: timeless) art style. I think a lot of Game Dev's Simplicity can simply be attributed to it's age. It would be easy to see it as trying to capitalize on the facebook/ mobile game craze of the late 2000s by creating simplistic management sims (albeit far less predatory); but that's only if you acknowledge the original western release date, where as this game predates those concepts by over a decade. The goal is simple and how you reach it is simple, but open ended. Make a GOTY within 20 years of your studio opening. It's a combination of skill and money management with your employees, and creative combinations of game genres. There is also a pretty unique timing element to the game as well, essentially striking while the iron is hot and getting on a new console bandwagon before the console is lost to obscurity. You have a few options of items you can use to increase certain parameters. That's about it. The actual game creation process is actually the easiest part, you can find a winning combo of genres and keep banging out sequels to mass appeal, you just have to make sure to space them out between other genres so your fans don't get tired of the same games. Staff training is where the real depth of the game lies. You can unlock certain roles, which specialize in specific parts of game development, by maxing out the level on other roles and changing the role of your employees to the next one to be levelled up. Some of the skills earned in previous roles carry over to the next roles, so creating a true Hideo Kojima tier employee requires lots of patience and strategy perfecting all the roles. The tricky part is keeping the balance throughout your company, as you don't want one particular skill to be "weak", so the most straightforward path of power levelling a singular employee at a time might not always be the best approach. The entire gameplay rotation is simplistic enough to be relaxing, but just enough complexity to still force you to use your brain. It becomes quite an addicting loop, and although I didn't have the same drive to chase after my personal high score this time around like I used to when I was younger, that initial playthrough had me glued to my screen all day today in between work. And the art design man... just infinite charm. I just wish it had more going on visually as far as animations, it's a fairly static screen you will stare at most of the game, but thankfully it's fast paced enough that you rarely have to stare at it for long. High Score/ Best Seller: "Kage Never Dies" a Ninja Action game released for my companies' very own console, the "Penultimate Frontier" - 50,953,385 units sold. 4 GOTY's, 2 consoles developed, 17 game awards trophies received Best Reviewed Game: "Europa Unlimited" a Sandbox Crafting MMO released for the Nintendo Gamecube - 39/40 points from Famitsu