During the summer I also tested two Android games I liked: Game Dev Tycoon (GDT) & Girls X Battle 2 (GXB2). I'll say a few words about those.
Game Dev Tycoon
GDT is a management game, where you're a game developer starting in a fictional reality apparently early in 1980's. It was originally released on PC in 2012, which I've never tried. Android version is much newer, but not sure if there are any actual changes in the game. During the summer I felt like oh well this is quite much praised game and I've bought only one game before, so let it go. I didn't regret - I did several few days for several hours with it. I nowadays rarely have time to put in more than 10 hours ever on a single game, so by a rule of thumb it's clearly a successful game if I feel myself enjoyed for more than 10 hours with a game.
Anyway, the game itself is quite simple. At the beginning you're alone and code games - coding is basically set by setting different amount of emphasis during three development stages, where there are three different sliders such as World Design, Graphic and Sound, or Gameplay, Dialogues and AI. Characters have skills in Design, Technology, Research and Speed - first two affect to making better results at different sides of the game development, while research is for generating reports and researching new technology. Speed then decides obviously how fast something is completed. If the project is larger than small, there is a need to dedicate one person to various fields during a phase - three people can do all the phases, but if the the project is too big, it's exchausting to be responsible of everything, and results will suffer.
During the time there will be time there will be new more capable computers and consoles availeable, and every now and then those are declared not supported by the producer, after which no more games can be developed to them. Devices model after real life devices with minor deviation in name and/or looks. New features will become available for research as well, and late game games are hugely more complex (indicated by points development and technical points required to finish) than the starter things. Also the company size will grow, there are various other choices too (such as genres and target audiences), your workers (and you yourself) will become better and more specialized, there are few semi-random events and eventually it's even possible to have own dedicated research department too. Overall everything is quite simplistic and abstract though, and various factors define which sides make a good game for this platform.
As a downside the game has in my opinion relatively poor replay value, because there is no randomness in game history course. Therefore I can always know beforehand that I'll need to stop making games for this device, as it's going to be shut down abruptly the next year, and likewise can know that soon there'll be a new device for which it's good to make strategy games and so forth (and actually since the devices are based on real devices, one can often foresee various things already on the first try). On the other hand at least it's possible to keep knowledge saved in game for the features which are important in some game combinations, and with multi-genre games etc. there are quite a few options in a long run. And of course needs to keep balancing with money, which seems a bit too easy though.
Overall a nice experience, especially for the first time, which can take quite a few hours already. Second time might go alright as well, but don't really feel like playing the game for many times through, mainly for reasons stated in the previous paragraph.
Later I decided to purchase in Steam a game in Early Access called City Game Studio. It is essentially a game like GDT with maybe a bit more crude interface at least for now, but also more features - even while it's not stated as completed. This also seems to have at least to a degree of variation with device development as an option. Will see if it will be the full mantle bearer of game developing simulations for me in the future - or if I'll just have already oversaturated myself with the genre.
Girls X Battle 2
Last year I tested and reviewed Empires & Puzzles, and deemed it had something a bit similar to Dungeon Link. This summer I thought I could go back to see the game and maybe do a review of it. Alas, I could not, the game had become victim of the modern times and the servers had been simply shut down. Now it's relatively difficult to find much about the game anymore from the Internet. Ok, that's not really true, there are still lots of sites referring to it, but still I see it's more like nothing stays in the Internet if not actively upkept. As I tend to think it's quite opposite to those who keep telling that anything placed to Internet will never vanish from there. Anyway, I'm digressing.
So since Dungeon Link was no more, I tried to find something more or less similar. I came across this game GXB2, which I'd seen in advertisements for quite a few times. According to the ads I'd probably never played the game; it was advertised by stupid 3D animations (completely unrelated to the game, in completely different style than in the game) where some guy is dating girls and dumping them hoping to get a better one. Essentially the advertisement videos gave the idea that it's a dating sim where all the girls are yours to be abused, even if some of them would sometimes ignore you. However, unlike with the Game of Lust, this time the actual game proved out much better than could've deduced by the ads.
So yes, it's a game where you collect girls (gotten from gacha balls), and there is kind of a date a girl feature, but it's really much more like tactical RPG management game. Girls must be fed to get levelled and then also merged to get empowered. They'll need equipment and have different skills, so the tactical side comes with combining the more efficient team - in case you can choose. There are also mild level of storytelling about sort of monster invasion to the academy...can't really remember much of it as it was so generic and meaningless.
Much like Dungeon Link, actually, except this time there is not as tedious grinding - but also no any tactics in battles either. On the other hand, most battles can simply be skipped thereafter, at least after few ingame levels. Also in Dungeon Link there were characters not only girls, and well, GXB2 is also filled with fan service anime, unfortunately. I'm fine with manga/anime style characters, but I dislike it when almost all the characters have overemphasis on bursting bosom, flashing knickers and having unnecessarily indecent clothing. Not to mention, most of the girls are supposedly underage, sigh.
If I'll rationalize, I can't actually even properly recommend this game. I mean it's a nice free to play game with ridiculously high possibilities to waste money for nothing while levelling your characters, and sooner or later the waiting will go on nerves of many people if not paying to speed up the progress. However, it's made quite nicely in my opinion, and to do the dailies it just takes few taps here and there and there's still stuff that is alright to play. Quite simple yes, but at least not annoying effort every day. Empires & Puzzles (and many other games) I played for some months until I got exhausted with grinding as F2P and not willing to pay, but this I've played several months without feeling tired - and therefore I felt I can actually pay a bit for the game. It's hard to explain, but I've enjoyed despite so limited actual gameplay options.
There is some humour also, even while not always that great, and I appreciate it that there are actually manga strips running ingame (with at least one strip falling under self-cencorship due to an incest reference - I think the game's normal graphical content is actually worse than this one relatively fun strip was). The manga is not necessarily my favourite comic as such, but at least it does make the ingame characters more lively and it's sometimes jesting with the ingame mechanics: eg. one character Giana causes her biggest damage after she dies, so in one manga strip Giana is used (reluctantly) as an exploding cannonball to vaporize the opposing team.
On the dark side though, it seems to me like every second girl in the academy is at least depressed. Some sound like they'd been abused or something, and several of them are plain mad (stuff like can I sharpen my chainsaw with your bones, master). I suppose it's supposed to be comical, but for some parts it almost sounds like if the developers would be human trafficked to do their game code locked into a dark cellar, and those little filler dialogue lines would be their only voice out from their personal hell. I'll never get to know if this is just my vivid imagination, which helps me across dull times in life.
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