Software Inc.

Okay people. ..I play a LOT of indie games, yes I do. Just check out my same name over on Youtube and you'll see that most of my 4,000+ videos cover indie games. This game is special. And it's incredibly addicting. And simply "fun" AF. I got 52 hours in this thing, and that's just in the last week since my GF gifted it to me. Just insane. It's easily one of my favorite indie games on Steam.. You have a 2 hour, 2 week refund policy on Steam and you have NO excuses. Just buy it, try it, and thank me later. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. ..It should be some kinda crime or investigation into how this game isn't way more popular here on Steam. I've played at least a thousand indie games that have had more success, more reviews, and aren't 1/100th as much fun as this little gem and project of true passion from the solo dev who made it.

It's been in early access for 10 (!!!) years now. Like, at some point, just release the game. It gets a steady stream of updates, so just do it? It feels like being pregnant for 5 years.

- Start in someone's garage shed, the founder, dreaming of OS empire while eating ramen. - Realize I can add co-owners; restart the game with 3 specialist-- one code wizard, one design diva, one art gremlin. - Start making OS dev, blow our tiny budget, while half my team bickers over coffee. - Cash evaporates; grind small dev contracts to scrape pennies and keep the lights flickering. - Resume OS work; money vanishes AGAIN-- set half of the team to keep grinding small dev contracts. - Finish OS at "exceptional" quality, print 1 mil copies. - Crickets. Zero marketing + already dated features = no sales. - Limp into OS 2 dev, repeat same cycle. - Release OS 2: fever sales. "Genius" me wonders if OS stands for "Only Starving" - Plot twist: OS 1 suddenly starts selling ka-ching! - Start hiring more employees, upgrade to skyscraper. - Release OS 3: sales go decent, but money keeps reducing. - Company goes bankrupt, employees lose jobs, software ip gets sold off. - Back it shed with my co-owners ready to try again. 10/10 would play again.

I bought this game in early 2016, and to see how far its made it through the development cycle. Just wow. Even back then, the game was pretty solid. Now add proper logistics, stocks, better AI behavior, and reworked development cycles. And MANUFACTURING? There's a reason I have almost 800 hours in this game. I could write "I love this game" 500 times and it still wouldn't do it justice.

Game is a real mixed bag. On the one hand it does much of the core gameplay loop very well; the process of developing and maintaining software is pretty engaging and does mirror real life fairly closely. Making offices is cool too but I can't be bothered to put much time into it personally. My main gripe is software features - you can't actually release a fully functioning software (as far as modern standards go) without kneecapping your profitability/how long the dev cycle is. It totally takes me out of the game to have a DAW with synthesizers and mixing but no drum sequencer for example. No company would ever release software with such a limited feature set and call it a DAW. This applies to every software category. The worst part is, there used to be a much better system which the dev for some reason scrapped and has furthermore made said system untouchable by mods. This game might be good for one or two playthroughs, but I really wouldn't recommend it currently given this core design flaw.

step 1: create a company step 2: try creating a software step 3: go bankrupt step 4: repeat it again until succes 11/10 Recomend

I've been playing this every now and then for the span of a few years. It's good fun if you're satisfied with building a small company and keep things focused. If that's your jam, I think this game will satisfy your needs and I'd recommend it. However, I find that gameplay loop gets repetitive once you get things running. You can only build so tall. How I keep things fresh is by expanding into other markets. As you expand, there are more things to keep track of, and I feel like the game does a poor job of providing you with easily digestible information to make that possible. HR and development automation is provided, but I can't for the life of me get it to work reliably, it feels like it has a mind of its own. I'd like it to either provide finer control or better documentation on how it's supposed to be used, as it feels like it's tailored to be used in one specific way. Playing without it provides greater flexibility in how you build your teams and develop your products, but with so many things happening in parallel it becomes unsustainable. However, if building wide and not making use of automation it's micromanagement hell, and playing it quickly drains me of brain juice. There's just too much information for me to keep track of. A lot of this comes down to how I like to play games, and issues I run into aren't guaranteed to affect other players since we're all different. It could be that I'm trying to bite off more than I can chew, and others with the aptitude and willingness to learn the game's mechanics can overcome this and have an absolute blast. It's a unique game with a lot of depth and it deserves a heap of credit for it, but I'm still trying to figure out how to enjoy a full playthrough.

One of the best business simulations out there. Yeah, its focused on software businesses, but the level of detail and depth is amazing. Well done.