Run your game development studio for over 30 years in fully interactive 3D.
Spanning over 30 years from 1981 to 2011 and beyond, "Under Development" puts the controller in your hands at gaming's most pivotal moments. Walk the halls of 9 different companies and assemble a team of specialists in 6 key areas - from design and programming to graphics and sound. Then let them loose on over 30 pieces of increasingly sophisticated hardware - all lovingly brought to life in photo-realistic 3D. And every step of the way, you'll be using games to make games - via dozens of charming sub-games that reflect your efforts. But if you thought game development was about bringing dreams to life, prepare to contend with the nightmares of office politics, fickle fans, scathing reviews, and economic woes. Whether you aspire to make games or play them, "Under Development" is an affectionate tribute to the ultimate art form.
+Addicting
+Free
+People made in your previous games keep living in the industry in future games
Cons
-The developer thinks that a game about making games is something new. It's not. It was new in 1996 when a Japanese company made a game called Game Dev Story, and they ported it to mobile in 2010.
-The graphics are godawful. In 2011 we were gawking at Portal 2 and other beautiful games. The game's manual describes it as having "beautiful photorealistic graphics"... what planet do you live on? This wouldn't have been good for 2003.
-Difficulty. In this game it takes around 10 months to make a decent game, even then it probably will get awful reviews and won't sell.
-Terrible minigames. They're repetitive, annoying (the snake minigame has a delay between a keypress and an action, meaning trying to quickly do a U-turn will probably make you go into yourself), and just unfun. You can "simulate" them to skip them, but you will probably only be getting about a quarter of the normal points by doing so.
Summary
Good but not perfect.
Killerv2
Pros
Game Is Very good
I think is the best game of MDickie Games
Cons
One Moment MDickie Have All Games Free Then Why He Have To Publish Not Free CD With All His Games?
Summary
Good But not Perfect.
I love this game.
abcdefghq11
Pros
Fun simulator,you never know what to expect,made me feel like a real programmer, HUGE replay value.
Cons
Minigames get a bit boring and repetitive.You really need to play the minigames because the automatic just churns out a few points. MDickie's ego.
Summary
Mat Strikes Again
siah462
Pros
I have to say that the overall epic gameplay came to no surprise to me, seeing that I have been a fan of MD's work for some time.His idea for "Under Development" is like going through MD's experience as a game maker,except for the part where we get to be famous.Nah MD I'm joking, you should be as famous as the characters in game.
Cons
I have to say the mini games get repetitive and a little boring after playing through for an hour,maybe a wider variety of mini games or a different way to bring up the games skills would help.
Summary
Overall I give this game a 4.5 the only con was the boring play through of mini games.
This plays as a 3D, minigame-based GameBiz!
InicoSandman
Pros
Possible outcomes are virtually infinite, it rewrites and modifies gaming history at the same time, a great way to make progress, highly customizable interface, nostalgia and modern gaming in the same place, awesome gaming-inspired soundtrack, really balances out the "realistic" and "fun" parts of the game.
Cons
The game offers some horrble, unfair judgement sometimes, some of the minigames can be too hard even at the easiest difficulty, as of the writing of this review (October 21, 2011), still has a buggy interface, though this is being worked out, can be hard to start out, even if you read the game manual, for a lack of a tutorial.
Summary
"Under Development" is a comeback game for indie developer Mat Dickie, more widely (but not much) for his alias "MDickie", as the name suggests, it's a game about game developing. In it you are a game developer (d'uh!), and although there's no way to "win" the game, there are many, many ways to lose, and to have fun. First thing you'll noticed is, there are quite a few people in the universe, and indeed there should be, and chances are, you'll recognize some names on it's roster, like Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, celebrity Michael Jackson and also Blitz designer Mark Sibly, but the big majority of the NPCs are ficticional - as they should be, the more celebs, the more unbalanced the game becomes, and they should have some high stats.
And since I mentioned stats, let's take a look at the gameplay, the characters are rated in 6 stats: design, programming, 2D Artistry, 3D Artistry, sound engineering and music, and these define what they are good at developing - which is made via minigames, the higher you score at them, the more the game is developed - and someone with high stats with a low score helps as much as someone with low stats and high score. There's something about giving untalented people a chance though, as their score in the game defines if they get better at that or not. Other very important characteristic is Popularity. The name speaks for itself - it's how widely known that person is. If somebody in the A-List releases a game, it's going to sell much more than they would if it was just some simpleton in a T-Shirt + Jeans combination, regardless of quality.
And since I mentioned that, let's speak about the games, there are two kinds of games, "Aspirational" and "Inspirational" games. The latter being the most common case, they are games you work on without being sure of how they will turn out, and that only gets an identity after it takes form. The former are games suggested by the boss or your teammates (more on them in a sec) or ports, and you know how they'll turn out since day 1. Their rating is defined by the quality of the work you put on them - if you try to pull out an "E.T" you'll probably be received with a low rating and poor sales unless everyone involved has a ultra high popularity! And regardless of sales at the time of launch, it WILL have an effect on your public image, so don't try to released numerous manure-quality games (I can't swear here) with popular people on your team trying get rich quick, you'll probably just fail. The suckier your games are, the suckier people will think you are at game developing.
And about teammates, you can have up to 6 people, including yourself, working in your office, and in your games. That's an important part of the game, because, unless you are a one-of-a-kind, ultra-talented game developer, chances are you are flawed in at least on of the stats. Having people to cover this flaws (though you'll have to pay them a salary and their rent, more on this in a minute) is what turns good games great, and great games into GOTY candidates. Not everyone is a Mat Dickie after all.
About contracts - you'll probably see a lot (and I mean a LOT) of those while you're playing. Regardless of if it's a contract to enter another company or one for someone who'll work for you, they can be VERY tricky, as everyone in the game is different and you truly can't read all intentions. As an employee you must seek the juiciest contract within the employer's patience, and as a boss you should try to work out the lowest possible agreeable salary. It's hard because you have to work with egos - sometimes the person you're trying to convince doesn't like you or somebody in your team, and will need a whole lot of money to swallow their pride, and even then they will most probably create some intern problems. Don't ever commit the mistake of thinking it's easy to work with people - in this game or otherwise!
The sound is something amazing, even though it's the sole thing MDickie didn't entirely make in this game. The sound effects are almost entirely taken from classic games, as is the soundtrack. Still you'll love it, that's a guarantee.
Lastly the game's highly customizable - if your games of choice aren't in the array of over 500 different games or if your favourite game song isn't in (or you don't like any of the songs that are in, in which case you're a childhood-less bastar--), different games, songs and more are possible to add with little effort. As if that isn't enough, there are plans of releasing the source code (as he did with his other games when he retired) in his website as soon as the game is in it's most reliable version.
Under Development is a must-play if you like simulation games, especially if you're a Gamebiz fan. It really balances out the "realistic" and the "fun". Oh yeah, and there are the random events... But I'll let you figure that out by yourself. And you will, as soon as you test this game. It's totally worth any amount of time you spend on it.
This is awesome.I nver thoght MD wil make a anothr gam
dipanjan007
Pros
this game is one of the best ones
Cons
thanks to MD now i am gona enjoy ths gam so don't disturb while gamin