Does raising the amount of time spent on a development stage increase the game quality

game-dev-tycoon

I was developing a new game in Game Dev Tycoon and wondered, does raising the amount of time spent on a development stage really increase the game quality?

Best Answer

Game development consists of five stages:

  • The zeroth stage is Preparation, before any sliders are used. Some tech and design points accumulate.
  • Stages 1, 2 and 3 involve silders. The sliders affect the portion of the time to spend on each of the three fields. The sliders do not affect the length of the stage. Raising a slider above the other sliders increases time spent on that field, which may be important depending on the kind of game you are making (dialog in an RPG, for example).
  • The last stage is bugfixing and lasts until you release the game.

Bugs reduce the quality of the game. If you want the best quality game, you should fix all the bugs. Also during the last stage, tech and design points will continue to be added at a low rate (even after the bugs are fixed). This also increases game quality, but it's not a very effective use of time.

The optimum strategy over many games may not involve fixing all the bugs.

Stage Length by game size (d = day, 4d = 1 week):

Size   Prep   1   2   3 Bugs
Small    3d  8d  8d  8d    ? 
Medium   4d 13d 13d 13d    ?
Large    6d 18d 18d 18d    ?
AAA      9d 34d 34d 34d    ?