Even since I was young, I’ve always wanted to become a game developer, so when the opportunity came to review Ryan Saunders “Game Dev Masters” I shot my hand straight up.
Some games let you build game worlds, others let you build the game developer itself. With the many game development simulators on the market, how does Game Dev Masters hold up?
Title: Game Dev Masters
Publisher: One Man Media
Developer: Ryan Saunders
Platform: Windows PC (Reviewed)
Release Date: June 3, 2022 (PC)
Players: 1
MSRP: $14.99 (Review Copy Received)
Game Dev Masters ran well on my PC, with zero bugs or frame rate dips. But that is to be expected. Like most of these tycoon/simulator games, the overall art direction feels like an afterthought. You’ll spend most of your time looking at lifeless offices, with the only change being the weather outside of your window.
When I booted up a new game for the first time I was tasked with making my character. I couldn’t tell if this was a meme or not, but the character does this really awkward and bizarre dance while you’re selecting their clothes and hair, which I found really off-putting.
You can pause the dance, but I don’t know why it exists in the first place, other than to troll the player and make me laugh. But for someone who doesn’t know better they might this may turn them off progressing further.
As you progress through the game you’ll have the option to purchase larger office spaces and hire staff. However, with random character designs that look like stock assets with no real direction, you’ll be spending more time looking at the UI than the background.
The graphical Interface is where all of the magic happens, and what you’ll be looking at mostly while you play, and if you’ve played Game Dev Tycoon you know exactly what you’re in for.
Considering Game Dev Masters is a one-man project, the graphics aren’t bad, however, they lack any kind of character or charm, especially compared to similar games on the market.
The gameplay is where Game Dev Masters shines, the tutorial does a decent job at teaching you the basics, and with plenty of trial and error, you’ll be making video games in no time.
The core gameplay structure comes from taking side jobs to earn money, using said money to research video game genres and themes as well as maintaining video game engines to make the games on. If your engine is too complex, development gets too expensive. Too cheap and your games will suffer.
When making a game you have to balance between technology and design, this is done through a slider-style minigame that will affect how well the game is built, and how well-received it is, which will affect the sales. I personally found this a little bit confusing and a tad random, especially early on. It seemed no matter how perfectly I matched my technology and design the outcome of the game wouldn’t match.
It does help to have researched the genres and elements of the game, which will give you a greater chance at success, but I couldn’t help but feel the early game was punishing me for knowing too much.
Making a zombie FPS should be a shoo-in, but if you haven’t researched zombies and FPS games, you’ll be limited in how well you can do. Towards the late game, this becomes a non-issue and the game really does begin to open up and that’s where I had the most fun.
And that’s exactly what the process of game development is. You grind away making little to no money doing side hustles to sustain your dreams of becoming a developer until one day you make it. So, in the end, I can’t fault the simulation aspect of the game and wouldn’t change much.
If I had a magic wand and could change one gameplay element, I’d like to see an auto-pause when you finish developing a game or doing a job. I typically play these types of games in the background while watching YouTube videos and it can be quite frustrating to realize you finished that job 6 months ago and all the money you made was wasted on rent. But, that’s my fault for not paying attention.
While toiling away at your desk, the game plays relaxing jazz and acoustic music which, I personally enjoyed quite a bit, but I wouldn’t blame anyone for putting that on mute and playing their own tunes in the background.
As you develop video games, develop your skills and take on odd jobs, bubbles will float out of your character and staff, with an incredibly satisfying popping sound as they reach their respecting circles on top of the screen. Just hearing those pops alone made me want to hire more staff and level them up just to hear the popping. It’s a very addictive sound.
In regards to a story, there is no grand dialogues or motivations for the player other than “you want to make video games”. I was pleasantly surprised to see some popular YouTubers as reviewers for the game and when you make a bad game they don’t hold back their punches with some reviews being incredibly cruel.
In conclusion, Game Dev Masters does exactly what it set out to do. Make a video game about making video games, and the fact that it was made by just one person is to be commended. However, I don’t feel that Game Dev Masters does enough to set it out from the crowd of other game development simulators out there.
The lack of visual style may have people looking in a different direction to get their game development simulation fix. The gameplay elements work well, offering a decent challenge while also not being too confusing for complete newcomers and the review dialogues made me giggle.
Game Dev Masters does offer an unlimited demo on steam which provides all of the game features inside of the starter office, which should give players plenty of time to figure out if this is something they want to purchase or not. So if you are interested in Game Dev Masters there is no reason not to give it a go.
Game Dev Masters was reviewed with a code provided by Games by Ryan. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Game Dev Masters is now available for Windows PC (via Steam).
