Game Developer Simulator 2018

Welcome to Game Developer Simulator 2018, the only video game on the market that lets YOU, the player, assume the ever esteemed position of Game Dev. You can go ahead and uninstall Goat Simulator, because this game is about to satisfy all your procrastination needs. We here at META Studios know that many of you have built strong relationships with the creators of your favorite titles over your gaming careers, wether they be out of love or toxicity (don't kid yourself, we both know it's the latter). Either way, we hope our game allows you to better understand our lives and the creation process. The events of this title are entirely based on true stories (dont bother fact checking that) but at the same time somehow do not reflect the ideas or values of anyone at the studio. Now enough from us, everyone loves these little intros don't they? I'm sure this wont get old by the tenth time you've started the game. Well, regardless, hopefully you reading this gave our game enough time to load on it's outdated engine. Get ready to dive into the experience of a life time. [[Enter Charactor Creation->Charactor Editor]]

Would you like to play as a male or female charactor? [[MALE]] [[FEMALE]]

Choose from the following charactor models. This choice is final and can not be changed at any point. [[Young nerdy guy who looks like he wont make it past the first scene->Intro]] [[Rediculously built attractive guy majority of the players will pick->Intro]] [[Fat, balding man in his 40's for all the dads out there->Intro]] Really cool biker guy I wanted to include in the game but ran out of time for

Choose from the following charactor models. This choice is final and can not be changed at any point. [[Normal looking blonde woman->Intro]] [[Normal looking brunette->Intro]] [[Normal looking woman with black hair->Intro]] [[Only choice with any thought put into it whatsoever. It's not like girls play videogames anyways right? Of course, it's the hyper sexualized model that every studio is some how obligated to put into their games. The marketing team puts a lot of pressure on us, alright?->Intro]]

Are you ready to begin? [[Yes-> Intro]] [[No]]

You walk into work, and it truly is a wonderful day. You've just been assigned lead dev on the project you've always dreamed of. What was that project again? [[Oh, a first person shooter! There really aren't enough of these out yet!]] [[Actually, I'm really the imaginitive type, and I want to spend the next year just drawing the map for my game. Let's make an open world adventure]] [[I've led a twisted life, and I want other people to experience my anguish. I'm doing a survival horror game]]

Too bad, its time to start. Not really sure why we wasted time with this option when we could have been making that cool biker charactor. [[Begin-> Intro]]

You have selected FPS. Would you like to invite a friend to play? Certainly you're not playing an FPS game by yourself? Select your game mode. [[Online Multiplayer]] [[Single Player]]

By selecting the open world game type, you have triggered the additional charactor creation menu. Let's be honest, we both know this is where the majority of the game time of these games is spent. Feel free to spend the next couple days playing with every facial and body feature slider, picking the color of every pixel of your charactor, placing cool scars all over their body, and writing a 30 page backstory. When ready, press continue. [[Continue]]

Awesome! This story is gonna be so greusome! Oh, by the way, remember that charactor creation thing? Me neither. You're a 20 year old dude named Jon now. I mean any other playable characor in a horror game would be a little rediculous, don't you think? Could you imagine if you were a girl! Anyways, it's time to make some serious decisions about your game. You walk into the meeting room where you and your team are going to decide which direction to take the game. "Zombies!" your best friend and lead graphic designer Zac cries out. "I want to do the cult story we've been talking about" pipes up your girlfriend and head of the narrative team, Lisa. From the corner of the room, a bland and unimportant looking charactor chimes in "Why not vampires?" His buddy next to him sneezes, lets out a sickening cough, and excuses himself to the restroom. This is quite the dilema. Which idea do you pick? [[Let's do the cult thing, I can't upset Lisa->Boss]] [[Let's do what uh.... that one guy said. Vampires? Yeah that seems cool->Boss]] [[Nah Zac's right, Zombies are sick!!->Boss]] [[Some infection thing you just thought up in your head that's basically zombies->Boss]]

Before your team even has time to complain about your decision, your mean spirited and suffocatingly controlling boss, Archie (short for Archetype Smith III) storms into the room. "Jon!" he yells. "How's that zombie game coming? The board was so excited when I told them we were developing a Zombie game. This genre's so hot right now, I can feel the cash pouring in!" [[Looks like you're doing zombies]]

You are annoyed that Archie is already getting his hands involved in your project, but you move on with your day. After a bit of work, the sick guy from earlier returns. He now looks incredibly ill, and has a glazed over look on his face. "Bob!" you call out, are you feeling alright? The vampire guy from earlier (at least you think it's him, half the random charactors have the same computer generated face) walks up and pats him on the back. "Of course old Bobby's alright" he says, "probably just had a bad egg for breakfast". Suddenly, Bob sprouts massive spiked tentacles on his back, and impales vampire dude into the wall. As the life drains out of him, he too turns into a freakish monster. He attacks the nearest person next to him. Bob turns towards you, his freakish eyes staring into yours. What do you do? [[Run]] [[Are you kidding me? You know you'd be running!->Run]]

You run and lock yourself in your office. You lay down crying under your desk until you here the screaming from outside the room begin to die down. Shit! You lost Lisa and Zac! You go to call them on your cell phone, but realize you lost it in the turmoil. You try to use the land line, but then realize the power to the building is suddenly and inexplicably out. Fortunately, you are the luckiest person on the planet and find a flashlight placed right by your feet. It even gives you instructions on how to turn it on, and for some reason, how to aim the light left, right, up, and down. You would think that would be self explanatory. You know what you really need is a weapon. The security office probably has guns in it, right? You go to walk out your door, but you hear an odd, inhuman moan, coming from the hallway. Do you risk it, or do you attempt to crawl to the office through the air duct like you did in a video game once? [[Im not messing with that thing, I'm taking the airduct]] [[My claustrophobia is so crippling I would rather die and be reanimated as a grotesque monster then enter that duct]]

You crawl into the air duct. You make it about five feet before you get stuck. Why did you think this would work? Why did you assume you had the agility of a video game charactor? Suddenly, a monster pulls you down from the duct, and devours your head. It's really quite gruesome. (Sorry about that, people don't buy these games without the sickening death scenes). [[YOU HAVE DIED. RELOAD LAST SAVE? (You panic. Did I save earlier? You can't remember.....)->Run]]

As you enter the hall way, you see a horrifying creaturing lumbering in the corner. You manage to dodge it and it's buddies on the way to the security office, where you find a pistol on the body of a dead security officer. His corpse did not reanimate, and you notice his head is missing. Is this a blatently obvious clue that headshots will kill the monsters for good? Alright, now it's time to find Lisa. God, I hope she's still alive. You make your way to her office, where you assume she hid. I mean it's what you did right? As you enter the room, SOMETHING JUMPS UP FROM BEHIND THE DESK AND LETS OUT A TERRIFYING SCREAM OH MY GOD ITS GONNA KILL US RUN oh wait its just Zac. As you embrace each other crying you ask him where Lisa is. "I don't know man, when everything broke out I saw her run towards Archie's office". You groan, but you both agree to go looking for her there. As you open the door OH MY GOD A MONSTER IS JUMPING AT YOU IT'S REAL THIS TIME WHAT DO YOU DO? [[Uh, shoot it in the head, didn't we just learn that?]] [[I don't play games to learn, or I cant aim. Im shooting the body]]

The monster's head explodes, and it's body falls to the floor. You and Zac make your way to Archie's office, battling off monsters and encountering jumpscares. You reach the office, and burst in to find Lisa wrapped in some sort of web in the back corner. She tries to yell something to you, but her mouth is covered with web. You rip it off, only for her to yell "TURN AROUND YOU IDIOTS!". You spin just in time to see Archie drop from the cieling. He has turned into some sort of massive mutant spider monster. He has eight sharp legs protruding from his back, dripping in a web-like goo. You and Zac look each other in the eye. You both know it's time for the Boss Battle. What is your plan of attack? [[IDK, shoot out all eight legs, if the developers made him a spider I'm sure they would want to include that somehow in the fight mechanics]] [[Shoot him in the face and wonder why nothing is happening]]

The monster shrugs the bullets off. It disembowels Zac and strangles you with his intestines. I can go into more detail if you want. No? Well the point is you died. Did you really expect this option to work? [[YOU HAVE DIED. RELOAD LAST SAVE->My claustrophobia is so crippling I would rather die and be reanimated as a grotesque monster then enter that duct]]

Your plan works! Archie loses all his legs, allowing you to walk up and shoot him in the face harmlessly. You fire off a couple extra rounds "to be safe". You go and cut Lisa out of her ties. In the distance, you here sirens. You're saved! As you all embrace and celebrate, you notice a deep cut on Zacs arm. Lisa and Zac notice it too, and the room becomes silent. Zacs face has turned a pale green. What do you do? [[Tell him you love him, and then blast him in the face]]

You die. Tip from the devs, shoot the legs. [[YOU HAVE DIED. RELOAD LAST SAVE ->Uh, shoot it in the head, didn't we just learn that?]]

It's really quite a poignant moment as you blast your best friend since grade schools head off. You and Lisa cry and embrace, as the authorities close in on the scene. You're sad you lost Zac, but you really should have known when you got into the zombie bussiness that you were going to have to kill your best friend. Some tropes you just cant escape. At least, at the end of the day, you have survived. [[Credits]]

Thanks for playing! -The Dev Team (Jackson Christian) [[Return to Title Screen->A Quick Message From the Devs]]

We are currently experiencing long queue times do to server maintenance Estimated wait time: 999999 hours [[Exit to Main Menue->Oh, a first person shooter! There really aren't enough of these out yet!]]

Congratulations, you've embarked on making your own FPS! I'm sure it will be very inivative and not derivative at all! You enter your first team meeting, where very important decisions are to be made about the development of the game. You think you want to make a standard shooter where players choose their loadouts and then fight team based battles on a set pool of maps. After all, isn't that what got the Call of Duty people famous? Im sure there's still money to be made there. However, a young member of your team throws out the idea of a battle royal style game, where players are sent out onto a large map with nothing, and must scrounge for weapons. Last player alive wins. He claims this genre has blown up recently, and is the top watched on streaming sites like twitch. Which do you choose? [[Uh my idea, I mean it's my project]] [[This kid seems smart, lets go with the battle royal]]

At this point, the conversation switches to figuring out the plot of the game. You begin to drift off, you know that no one actually cares. This game is gonna be made by the gun play and multiplayer. You picked FPS, your'e all about the action. In fact, lets go ahead and skip ahead to the exciting part of the game. We don't need anymore background. [[2years later....]]

At this point, the conversation switches to figuring out the plot of the game. You begin to drift off, you know that no one actually cares. This game is gonna be made by the gun play and multiplayer. You picked FPS, you're all about the action. In fact, lets go ahead and skip ahead to the exciting part of the game. We don't need anymore background. [[3 years later...]]

Congratulations! Your game is a success! It's only been out for a month, but it has already become a massive hit! You're rich! However, with a massive game, comes a rabid fanbase. After a month, the multiplayer has become stale, and people have figured out what guns are the best. All over the forums, players are demanding balancing changes. How do you proceed? [[Take some of the players advice. The SCAR does seem a little too good, maybe we should make it do a little less damage?]] [[This is my game, I know what's best. I got killed by a shotgun yesterday when I was playing, let's focus on lowering it's range even though no one asked for that]] [[Does this make me money? Let's focus on designing new skins we can sell to players as micro transactions]]

The players love that you listen to them, and the game continues to succeed. However, another month goes by, and they become upset. "Why are shotguns so bad?", they wonder. "Snipers run the game, shot guns need a buff". You check the stats, and the amount of players killed by each weapon type are very close. You reach a dilema. Do you trust the community, or go with the stats? [[Gotta trust the community, let's buff shotguns]] [[Maybe getting sniped is just a frustrating way to be killed, and we can work around that]]

Your update drops, and the community is confused. The SCAR is still a problem, and now shotguns are utterly useless and a waste in the game. You recieve personal death threats from players, and you think youv'e noticed a weird car lingering outside your house at night. Something must be done. What do you do? [[Give in to the players demands, buff the shotgun and ruin the SCAR->Gotta trust the community, let's buff shotguns]] [[Continue to balance the game however you like]]

Your game continues to make even more money, and the board is pleased. You recieve a promotion to a cushy executive position by the studio, and you make millions. However, the player base becomes more upset over time, and eventually dies off. Your game is replaced by a new one a year after it came out. Sometimes, I find myself wondering if I should just embrace this outcome. Is it possible to add microtransactions to a choose your own adventure story? [[Congratulations, you have won, kind of. I hope you're proud of yourself->Credits]]

Your patch drops, and the community is pleased! However, after only a week players are becoming upset. The game has become marred by unbalanced weapons. Shotguns are killing people across the map. Their new increase has caused rifles like the SCAR to become even more useless. Who's idea was it to nerf that again? The community is outraged, unable to understand why it was ever made worse in the first place. Something needs to be done quickly. [[Increase the SCAR's damage, that will save us!]] [[Release a video series explaining your changes so far]]

Instead of wrecklessly adjusting everything the way the community demands, you and your team take time to find a reasonable solution. Instead of buffing shotguns, you lower the scope in time on snipers, making them more focused on long range battles. This fixes what turns out to be the original problem, that people were able to zoom in so fast that they could use the sniper from any distance. You continue to work like this in the future, and your game stays massively popular. For the next five years, your game remains in the top five most watched on twitch, until it reaches the end of it's natural lifespan. At this point, you move on to your next project, with one massively succsussful title under your belt. [[Congratulations, you have accomplished every developers dream->Credits]]

The community is happy at first, but again a new weapon becomes unbalanced as players figure out the new meta of the game. You recieve personal hatemail from gmail accounts ending in the number 04. What do you do? [[Nerf the gun the community is upset about with no other changes]] [[Release a video series explaining your changes so far]]

Your video series calms the players down, and allows your team to find a way to balance the guns in question with out breaking the game. Your video series is a hit, and you gain fame and respect amongst the community.You continue to work like this in the future, and your game stays massively popular. For the next five years, your game remains in the top five most watched on twitch, until it reaches the end of it's natural lifespan. At this point, you move on to your next project, with one massively succsussful title under your belt. [[Congratulations, you have accomplished every developers dream->Credits]]

Overtime, the playerbase dies off. No one cares to spemd their time playing a game where the developers don't care about the community. You are fired, and spend the rest of your career working as a midlevel contributor on the narrative team of a mildly successful farming simulator game. Maybe you should have picked an open world game, after all. [[GAME OVER->Credits]]

Unfortunately, your game was not very successful upon release. It turns out most of the hype HAD shifted to battle royal games after all, and no one was interested in a classic shooter. How do you get more people to play your game? [[Let's offer a free trial period, give out some free items, maybe even bring down the price a bit]] [[Let's release some new downloadable content maps to build up hype]]

Your game begins to pick up some steam. Player's love the deals, although your studio head doesn't. It turns out your game actually did have a pretty good multiplayer experience, and you manage to keep a decent size, extremely dedicated player base for the next few years. Although you didn't break any records, you are proud of your game. [[Credits]]

Sorry, you must purchase the Downloadable Content Story DLC pack to access the DLC storyline. [[Return->2years later....]]

As you begin the process of building your game, you realize how many different aspects you will have to integrate. You create a map to help you visualize all of these elements. [[Open Map]]

Where would you like to go? [[World Building and Narrative team]] [[Graphics Team]] [[Outreach and Promotions]] [[The Coding Department]] [[I'm tired of running from place to place! Let's get this thing moving!]]

You walk into your meeting with the narrative team, where they have multiple story lines planned. They outline a couple basic storylines and ask you to choose between the three. [[You are a knight fighting through a desolate world searching for a princess->next]] [[You are an astronaut lost in space, traveling from planet to planet->next]] [[You are an adventurer in a dense jungle, stuggling to survive->next]]

Your meeting with the graphics team is quick and boring. They show you how your game will look when it runs on modern consoles, and you demand higher resolution. They say this is impossible, and you tell them that graphics sell these games. Certainly you can not rely on what ever crappy story the narrative team puts together. The graphics guys tell you that maybe you should talk to the design team. Simpler and more reused assets will allow for better graphics, they claim. [[Complete Assets Side Quest]] [[Return to Map->Open Map]]

The Promotions team is working on making a sick new trailor for your game. They simply need to know what song you envision playing, so they can figure out what direction to go in. They give you two choices they have narrowed it down to. [[Stronger- Kanye West]] [[Immigrant Song- Led Zeppelin]]

The design team is initially excited for your arrival, but becomes dismayed when they learn why you are there. They had already created hundreds of designs based on buzz they had been hearing from the narrative team. However, you are able to convince them to reuse more features, and the graphics team is satisfied. [[Open Map]]

The team loves your choice, and can't wait to begin laying out the story. On your way out the door, one member stops you and asks for your help. He claims he left his lunch in the break room, and is wondering if you could go get it for him while he begins work on your story. [[Complete lunch retrieval sidequest]] [[Return to Map->Open Map]]

You go to the break room and retreive the mans lunch. You bring it back to him, and he rewards you with a key. You are not sure what it is for or why he gave it to you, but you place it in your inventory. You are relieved to be able to return to the main story. [[Open Map]]

The team loves your choice, and thinks the song will really connect with a younger audience. That is what you were going for, right? [[Open Map]]

The team loves your song choice, and really thinks it will connect with older players. That was your plan all along, right? [[Open Map]]

You walk into the coding department, and find people hunched over their desks, busy typing. You begin to say something, and then realise your'e not really sure what they can do for you, or you can do for them. You leave, unsure of why you went there in the first place. [[Open Map]]

Finally it's launch day! Five years have passed, and you can't wait to see how your game performs! You think back to when it all started, the original release video. You try to remember which song it was you ended up choosing. [[Oh yeah, it was that Kanye song]] [[Duh, I went with Led Zepelin]]

Suddenly you start to worry about your graphics again. Did you ever figure out that deal with the design team? [[Yeah, what kind of developer would't]] [[Uh, No, who had time for that??]]

Suddenly you start to worry about your graphics again. Did you ever figure out that deal with the design team? [[Obviously, what kind of developer would't]] [[We had a design team?]]

As the day goes on, you flash back to an odd encounter with a member of the narrative team. What happened with that again? [[He told me to get him his lunch and I walked away laughing]] [[He gave me some weird key, I wonder if that's lying around somewhere ]]

As the day goes on, you flash back to an odd encounter with a member of the narrative team. What happened with that again? [[He told me to get him his lunch and I walked away laughing]] [[ He gave me some weird key, I wonder if that's lying around somewhere]]

As the week goes on, you begin to recieve bad news. Despite your best efforts, your game is struggling. Unfortuantely, critics have found the story lacking. It turns out that guy from narrative never forgave you for not getting his lunch, and he sabotaged the plot. At least youv'e learned, never leave a side quest undone. [[Credits]]

As the week goes on, you begin to recieve news about your game. Congratulations, it's a huge success! Major praise was given to both the graphics and storyline of the game. Additionally, marketing managed to get the adult demographic involved in the game. The studio green lights you for a sequal, and youv'e never felt happier in your life. [[Credits]]

As the week progresses, you begin to recieve reviews about your game. Although it scored well among older audiences, critics could not get past some major graphical issues. Turns out you were right, graphics drive sales. However, your game recieves moderate success, and the studio green lights you to work on a new ip. [[Credits]]

As the week goes on, you begin to recieve news about your game. Congratulations, it's a huge success! Major praise was given to both the graphics and storyline of the game. Additionally, marketing managed to create a massive younger playerbase. The studio green lights you for a sequal, and youv'e never felt happier in your life. [[Credits]]

As the week progresses, you begin to recieve reviews about your game. Although it scored well among younger audiences, critics could not get past some major graphical issues. Turns out you were right, graphics drive sales. However, your game recieves moderate success, and the studio green lights you to work on a new ip. [[Credits]]