After the brilliantly self-referential Game Dev Story, Kairosoft could either quit while it was ahead or just keep churning out slight variations on the theme and make lots of money. Plan B it is, then!

Following on from Hot Spring Story, the third in the series adopts many (if not most) of the same tricks that made us play long into the night, faces aglow with touchscreen illumination.

In Grand Prix Story, it's once again a moreish balance of hiring, training, researching and upgrading, as you aim to work your way up from a team of aspiring amateurs to all-conquering motor racing behemoths.

At first, you'll pour your limited resources into a fairly useless car and a small team of hopeless nobodies, and systematically prod them in the right direction via research points and cold hard cash.

Periodically you'll enter races and watch as your plucky losers inch their way up the rankings with every incremental update. It hooks you in with the micro rewards of bettering your race standings and lap times, and before you know it, you're actually capable of winning things.

And then off you go, developing new cars and parts, and bolstering your team with your winnings. Good performances then leads to sponsorship, and the chance to enter progressively challenging races, and so the cycle goes on until, inevitably, you have to tear yourself away from the damned thing.

In some respects, the ability to see the fruits of your labours in action only makes it more engaging. You're no longer just churning out some imaginary product, you're watching the product go out and perform, albeit in endearingly wobbly pixel art fashion.

Eventually Kairosoft will run out of things for us to manage, or just repeat the same ideas until the whole thing becomes utterly transparent. But right now, these are stories worth telling and games worth owning.

Used under license from Eurogamer.

Download Grand Prix Story