Publisher Dream is...not very deep at all, and frustratingly designed. From the employees that take the longest possible route to and from their desk every time they need to go do something, to the mechanics completely unexplained (even within the manual), to how punishing the early game is, to the lack of any option to reduce your ever-increasing monthly expenses...it's a mess, but one that can still be mesmerising enough to keep going with to the end.

Yeah, end. After 9 full years the game abruptly stops and that's it, you win. However, between the early game challenge of not being able to publish many games (none of which will be well received, there's even a hate mail feature) to the late-game issue of mountainous expenditure that can't be brought down in any way (all staff hires are permanent), it's easy to go bankrupt and game-over.

It's still an ok game I guess, but there's probably a million free mobile games that do this idea far better. So you should probably just play those instead.

Reviewed on Aug 14, 2021


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