TheMadWasp posted a good guide for the mechanics of the game, but there's not a specific route to follow for new players so I thought I would make one. WARNING: This route is about half sitting and doing nothing so be prepared.

There are four sections of the games, the Garage, Office 1, Office 2, and Office 3, all of which I'll go over in detail later, but for the most part it doesn't matter how much time you take in each section, just as long as you hit the last check point for Office 2 and aren't sitting in menus. That means it doesn't matter if you leave the Garage in 7 minutes or 12 minutes, and head scratches don't matter. The best optimizations would be to produce less games (current WR has 16), because the game concept menu plus the slider menu plus the review menu is a ton of time, especially compared to all the other menus.

The Garage is very simple, the goal is to have the last game be a 10/10/10/9, which should make 2-3 million and fund the start of Office 1 with no issues. We are going to be making simulation games because they will show up commonly later, are good on pretty much every later console, and ideally we won't have to change the sliders too much. For console we will use the G64 for only the Garage. You have to start with 2 simulation topics (reset until that happens), and then set up the sliders for the first game at 80%/100%/0%, 0%/80%/100%, 0%/100%/80%. Make four simulation games and alternate the topics each time. After the four games generate game reports until you have at least 65 points. Then you want to research custom engine and mono sound, and then make a game engine with everything in it. For Game 5 you want to not add any new features except for 2D Graphics V2, Game 6 you want to add on Mono Sound, and then Game 7 add on Linear Story and Savegame. Ideally Game 7 should get at least two 10s, so just wait for the reviews to come in because making a Game 8 won't make any money/generate fans so it is just a pointless menu. If Game 7 isn't two 10s, reset or just make a Game 8 and that should make 2 10s. After the first week or two of the game being out you should have 1M and be able to upgrade to Office 1 (There is a little bit of bubble math and RNG that comes into play, but I routed this to manip the bubble totals a bit for Game 5-7, so Game 7 should get 10s).

Office 1 has two stages, getting 100k fans through publishing deals to be able to publish medium games independently, and then getting enough money to last the rest of the game. Immediately once you get into the office train yourself in Staff Management, and once that's done hire 3 employees. For employees don't adjust the slider but get one Complex Algorithm (Tech), one Showreel (Design), and the third one doesn't matter but I usually go Showreel. You are looking for someone around 300 in their specified trait. After you have all 3 employees train everyone in Staff Welcome Training. Completing actions fills up the efficiency bar faster, so after that you can generate game reports for RP and research items for your next game engine. After you've done all you can, just sit until all the bars are mostly filled up. Now comes the publishing deals, best case scenario is getting a Any Topic/Any Genre or X/Simulation. Your goal is to just pick deals that will make the topics have a strong combo (here is the site I have pulled up on my second monitor: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=216784744). It is fine if you switch off simulation but make sure its a strong combo and try to have the sliders for the genres memorized (another cheat, use for slider %s: https://forum.greenheartgames.com/t/great-combinations-list-time-allocation-sliders/7705). Until you reach 100k fans (which should be about on your 14th game if you did Garage in 7) you are only doing publishing deals, so just pick good ones and adjust the sliders (console and royalties don't matter). For assigning employees, to optimize the most bubbles (and in turn better ratings), you want Tech/Design/Design, 3rd/3rd/Tech, You/You/You. In between every game train every employee in their respective attribute (Tech: Code Incomplete, Design: Game Design for Pirates, Yourself and the 3rd: Game Dev Games). The only time you won't train is when you make your next game engine, which will occur when you reach 2D Graphics V2 to Level 3, which unlocks 3D Graphics V1 (about after Game 9). Once you unlock 3D Graphics V1, research all the new features you can and make a game engine with everything and the first game throw every feature on. Then keep on the path to 100k fans. Once you reached 100k fans (around the mid to high teens in Game #), you get a good chance to practice what you will be doing for a majority of the remainder time, sitting and doing nothing. The only thing you have to do while you sit is click escape key whenever the G3 convention pops up, which is the start of M5 of some year. The last exciting thing you will do will occur on Y8M7W1, which is research sequels. After you've researched sequels create a sequel on the Gameling for your first game and then your second game (unless you just made a game that has the same topic and genre as your first, in that case do sequel for second then sequel for first) and they both should get very high ratings and make a lot of money. After both the sequels you should have about 25M+ and now you get to apply the skill you just practiced, sitting and doing nothing except clicking escape at the start of M5 every year (be prepared its a long wait). Once Y11M6W2 rolls around upgrade to Office 2.

Office 2 is literally just waiting until Y13M9W2 to upgrade to Office 3. I know, fun right. You actually do get some action this split because you have to hire one more employee before the deadline. That is the most exciting thing you will do in 8 minutes.

Once you get into Office 3 search for a Showreel employee with the slider up to 2M. You are looking for someone with over 700 Design, and you should have about 2-3 searches where 5 people to hire come up, so unless you get insanely unlucky you will be fine. Once you hire the employee train them to be a Design Specialist and then once the training is complete click the notification and open up the R&D Lab and then run is over.