Game Sim is a forum-based, online multiplayer game where players assume the role of a video game development company, and proceed to release games and DLC, amongst other optional activities.
History[]
Game Sim was initially conceived in 2009 by Kaven, the game's sole founder. It had a brief stint of about 3 turns, and was 100% forum-based, with no wiki. After about 3 turns, the game died off, and Kaven ceased continuing the game. The forum and website remained online, however.
First Revival (2013)[]
In 2013, Kaven decided to revive Game Sim, advertising for players to join around the web, on sites such as Neoseeker and Reddit. The game quickly gained a small following, and officially resumed on March 22nd, 2013, where the first Turn Announcements thread was posted. As of May, the game continues to go strong, in the 20's of turns.
In the middle of May, 2013, Kaven officially named McKane the official Game Sim Wiki Handler, and since, McKane has assumed the majority of wiki work involving Game Sim. McKane had previously done much work on the wiki since his initial joining of the game.
In mid-August 2013, Chiken assumed turn simming duties to help out, and also make the turns get pumped out faster.
Second Revival (2014)[]
In late summer 2013, the game's updates ceased, and Kaven disappeared. Eventually resurfacing in mid-2014, he revealed the reason he disappeared was that the workload proportional to keeping the game running was too much for him, and he planned on reviving the game a second time with a more focused approach to ensure longevity.
Game Sim's 2014 revival was successful, with turns resuming on 08/05/2014.
In turn 38, McKane resumed wiki editing, and was officially added to the crew.
Third Revival And Unveiling As A Project (2015)[]
Game Sim once again disappeared in late 2014. Kaven changed his name to Vault, and elaborated to a few close members of Game Sim what had happened. The board had hit a technical issue, and after speaking with InvisionFree, the forum was unable to be restored in late 2014. Early 2015 came, and Vault decided to attempt to relaunch the project as a group effort, recruting as much help as possible along with confirming that the board could be restored. McKane was immediately brought on board as co-owner.
Fourth Revival (2016)[]
For a fourth time lucky, Game Sim is in the process of a fourth reboot after it disappeared again shortly after the third revival after issues with the forum hosting service resulted in the loss of everything on it, which involved Game Sim itself.
After an absence of nearly all previous members, McKane, a long-standing member, has emerged to restart Game Sim back up to its former glory, with high hopes of returning the game back to a seamless and enjoyable state.
However, this time around Game Sim is to be rebooted back to Turn 1 in order to start afresh and rebalance the game once it hopefully re-acquires its fanbase.
Game Sim will also feature certain gameplay tweaks and updates, such as role categories and colour codes, to further enhance longevity of the game and smooth out the Game Sim a bit further.
Origination/Idea[]
The game's founder, Vault, is a big fan of online simulation games, and found several that allowed players to run a movie studio or form a band, but noticed there were none for video games. Thus, the idea of Game Sim was born. Kaven had the idea for a few years prior to the game's initial conception in 2009, but had never acted on it.
The game is partially inspired by the Game Biz series of games, of which Vault is a big fan.
Gameplay[]
Game Sim is played in turns, which vary in their length from one day, up to five days. Despite the length between turns, each turn is considered an equal amount of time. Kaven has stated that the turn model was chosen primarily to appeal to players who can log in multiple times a day, along with players who can only log in once a week or so. The original Game Sim in 2009 was run in real time, but hit several road blocks of players failing to report activities/turn announcements on time.
Once a player has joined Game Sim, they can begin releasing games immediately by using the Video Game Development Forms. A DLC form also exists, for players who wish to expand their game with DLC.
Random Events[]
Random Events are one of the "driving forces" behind the game, and Vault considers them one of the most important components. Random Events consist of everything from developers being offered contracts to develop for specific platforms, to a game becoming a cult classic, to a full-scale boycott.
Other Jobs/Activities[]
While players have their games in development, they can also take part in several optional activities to make money, including reviewing other player's games, starting their own magazine/news site, buying/selling franchises, and releasing DLC.
Crew[]
Vault (formerly Kaven) - Sole founder and current co-owner of Game Sim.
McKane - McKane is the primary wiki editor, a job he had before in 2013 before resuming in 2014. He is official co-owner as of February 2015, and is currently the lead manager following the fourth revival.
Past Crew[]
Chiken - Chiken helped during the 2013 revival, simming turns.
Evolution[]
Kaven aims to constantly evolve Game Sim by adding new features, some of which have already been incorporated, such as voice actors. Kaven uses the game's player base as a means to test out how popular ideas would be, and hosts polls and topics to get their response on whether or not they'd like certain features. Such an example would be whether the player base wants to see TV eventually introduced, to which the player base was promptly divided.
Among other ideas to be potential additions include user-made consoles and peripherals.
Peripherals[]
In early August 2014, Peripherals were added to Game Sim, allowing developers to release console skins, controllers, monitors, and instrument peripherals among other things.
Future[]
As of the relaunching in 2015, the game looks to regain its initial player base and restart.