Game Dev Story

Following the meeting with Vertical Slice, they recommended looking at Game Dev Story (for iPhone/iPod Touch) so I have! Interesting that in the game they start with the scenario, when at NCsoft the scenario seemed to come last and be  subject to change.

Two major things I noticed immediately:

1. It sucks you in. None of the actions take very long, but there's always another action to take. No convenient pause/break points. And suddenly an hour has gone. 
2. The in-game time display. You have a simple display in the top left: Y10 M4 W2, and then a little tiny dot indicating how far through the week you are. Quite effective, but I didn't notice it too much. I'm not sure if that's because it only seems to be relevant for when you pay your staff, and if it had more effect I'd have noticed it more. Still, I thought it was an interesting UI design for the passing of time.