When comparing Game Dev Story vs Threes!, the Slant community recommends Game Dev Story for most people. In the question“What are the best Android games?” Game Dev Story is ranked 4th while Threes! is ranked 17th. The most important reason people chose Game Dev Story is:
Nearly everything is self-explanatory, and the bits that aren't get explained by your secretary. This makes for a game that is easy to understand, even if it does not seem evident at first.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Simple and intuitive gameplay allows the game to be accessible, no matter the skill level
Nearly everything is self-explanatory, and the bits that aren't get explained by your secretary. This makes for a game that is easy to understand, even if it does not seem evident at first.
Pro Very engaging due to quick progression and frequent events
Contracts are measured in weeks and development cycles in months, but time passes at the rate of one day per second. Though the core gameplay involves watching little icons pop up over your employees' heads, rarely do five seconds go by without some player action being prudent, if not required.
Pro Fulfils a fantasy of creating a game studio
You get to choose what type of game you want to make, what tools you use to make it, who you hire to make it, what systems you publish the final product on and you get to watch how it is received by the world. Then you do it all over again bigger.
Pro A free demo version is available for anyone to try out
Game Dev Story Lite is available for free on the Google Play store. The Lite version ends after 2 in-game years.
Pro Entertaining business success model typical for Kairosoft games
Pro No time limit to solve the puzzles
There's no time limit to force the issue, but that doesn't matter, because it's so damnably slick to both the touch and the brain that you'll throw moves out with the same speed and grace that climbing into a tiny boat forbids.
Pro Ideal for phones
Being a portrait style game that has large graphics that are meant to be played with one hand, Threes! fits better on a smaller screen device such as phones more so than a tablet.
Pro Pick up and play
A puzzle game should be quick and easy to pick up and play, but deep and challenging enough that it’s difficult to put down - that’s the cliche ideal. Threes is the embodiment of that ideal.
Pro Rewarding
The sense of reward one feels as title are combined makes for a very enjoyable game, no matter how many times it is played.
Pro Easy to learn, hard to master
Pro A free version is available
A free, ad-supported version was released on June 10, 2015 and is available here.
Pro Gameplay suits anyone's style
Threes! can suit anyone's play style, whether it is someone who takes their time and considers all option or someone who just blazes through each move without much forethought.
Cons
Con Game is not free
Con Punctuation and grammar errors
Game Dev Story is a Japanese game that was translated to English, which shows, as sometimes there are a few grammatical errors in game. This shows a lack of polish, which may aggravate some players.
Con Unclear method of determining a game's success
Sometimes it is unclear how to find out how successful a game is.
Con It's very hard to fail
Your employees' salaries are waived the first year ("government subsidy") and you can go into the red to pay them after that. You can't develop a game without some initial funds, but since you can always take a contract to make money, there's basically no hole you can't crawl out of.
Con Randomness of game can be frustrating
The randomness of what new tiles appear can be frustrating when nothing is lining up very well.