The Movies (the game)

[PlaidSquirrel]

So I looked high and low and couldn't find the interview I read before but here is a quote from another site.

"As for the game itself, it all begins at the turn of the century … no, not the 21st century, the 20th century. Players take over a small studio and then pursue the magic of Hollywood through approximately 110 years of time line."

http://pc.gamezone.com/gzreviews/p20755.htm

[veilchen]

Thank you Plaid, that's open ended enough for me. I appreciate all that searching, I'm a little research weary at the moment. I've been doing it for four month now (for my real life term-paper), and it was nice to get it handed on a platter for a change :D

[Motoki]

Well I looked through the guide, it's a lot smaller than the TS2 one but at the same price but overall I think it's worth it. There's number of things I wouldn't have known had I not read the book. I also feel like TS2's guide had more extraneous or useless info than this guide does, so it's less pages but a higher percentage of them are useful. Of course, that perception's probably colored by the fact that I played TS1 and thus more or less knew the basics. *shrug*

At any rate, if you can spare the money, I think the guide is worth it.

[Baa]

Getting a high-rated screenplay is pretty easy, and can be achieved very easily.

Ratings of the screenplay and movie are dependant on majorly actors, and their experience. So check their Exp. with the genre before casting them. They are also rated on number of actors in the movies, number of extras, and the number of costume changes affects the rating too, as does scene diversity.

So add a lot of extras, maybe even just 1 or two to the scene, your rating should go up by 1/5th of a star or so. Change an actors outfit by dragging them onto the clothes hanger icon. If you don't want them to have a different outfit, do it anyway, don't change a think, and hit OK. The game recognizes it as a costume change and your rating should increase. Continue doing this (adding extras and changing clothes) each scene and your movie should get a good rating from the start.

[veilchen]

I guess it's because the Prima Guide is full of false information where TS2 is concerned, that I don't trust them. Even though it's hardly their fault, they can only operate on information given to them by the game creators/manufacturers/whatevers.

I appreciate all the information. I've been checking amazon.de for the game and the guide, and will most likely have them deliver it to my sister's house so she can give it to them on Christmas. However, I'll also make up a guide of my own with all the tips and hints here, and I'll leave it in english. That way he has another challenge and it will make everything so much more interesting.

[Motoki]

My movies make no sense at all but still do well lol. I just put random scenes together based on what sets have a higher freshness rating and work with that. Once you get established, you get so many bonuses for having famous stars, award winning stars and directors, good mood, good relationships, sets in good repair, novelty of sets, having scientists research latest technologys, PR (you have to max out the PR then give it a proportional budget 2.5 stars use the middle marketing release, 5 use the last etc) that even a total movie can end up with 4 or more stars once everything is all calculated.

I don't even use the writers anymore, I put them to work in other areas as I needed more employees. Once the scientists are done for a while I put them to work too but when research becomes available again I do have to hunt them down and find the same ones (right clicking on a non actor or director employee will give you their experience even their previous experience) and make sure I put those ones back since they are experienced in research and will unlock stuff much faster.

My biggest pet peeve about this game is the entourage. If you take someone from somewhere else, it doesn't regenerate another unemployed person in that line, so if you grab a janitor to make someone's personal assistant, you won't get a new janitor. If you sell a star or they retire, it seems their entourage goes with them. You can move them manually yourself before you get rid of the star, but it's sometimes hard to find them because they don't always hang around their star and you can't bring them up on the menus. They all look alike too.

I've started firing a janitor or builder or whatever and grabbing them unemployed on their way out to make into entourage people. It seems like I get a replacement in the line that way, but it takes a while. I wish someone would make a hack to better manage the entourage people.

I actually heard a patch for this game is supposedly due out sometime this month but I have no idea what's in it. I really don't have any bugs (well except when I once tried to sell a director who was working on a film; kids don't try this at home lol) but there are a few annoyances I have with some of the 'features'.

[PlaidSquirrel]

I have had a problem with costumes occasionally not being right. I used custom script to get everything in order for a western movie once. Had everything perfect but when the movie came out 2 of the extra chicks had on the blue lipstick from the sci-fi movie they had shot before even though I am 100% certain I had changed this when casting. That was annoying. Then once I was draging an actor in to change the person playing a part and somehow the girl was fighting with herself. That was odd and I had to exit and go back in to fix it.

[Motoki]

Has anyone gotten 2 actors to be lovers yet? Apparently, that's the only way you can put them in a trailer together. I have a couple (male/female) that I have been working on their relationship for quite some time. They've been soul mates forever and even gotten eating disorders from sitting in the damned VIP restaurant so long. I can't seem to get them higher than that no matter what I do.

[Motoki]

Have any of you guys uploaded your movies yet? I think mine are so messed up and probably not worth looking at except for a laugh.

I found a really interesting one though, it's gotten a lot of buzz on the official site. It's called The French Democracy:

http://movies.lionhead.com/movie/11520

It's about the recent race riots and France and I guess is sort of social commentary. It's 13 minutes long! I don't know if I would have the patience to make one that long so politics aside even, I think he did a good job just coming up with a cohesive short film that long from the game.

[SaraMK]

Have any of you guys uploaded your movies yet? I think mine are so messed up and probably not worth looking at except for a laugh.

Upload them and tell us anyway so we can vote for you and help you get whatever crap is going to be available in the Prop Shop eventually.

[Motoki]

PLZ rat ME HI!!!!!!!!!!!

Heh, as much as it sounds nice to be able to download custom stuff, that sounds disturbingly like bene begging. 

[SaraMK]

PLZ rat ME HI!!!!!!!!!!!

Heh, as much as it sounds nice to be able to download custom stuff, that sounds disturbingly like bene begging. 

That's what that site is turning into. People are begging for ratings. And that's just what I've seen from searching the boards for game tips a few times.

I don't make movies myself, so that whole competition thing is lost on me.

[witch]

PLZ rat ME HI!!!!!!!!!!!

You rat, you dirty rat you...



O you mean rate you...
Well on a scale of 1 to 10...
 - are we allowed decimal points?

[witch]

I just went and viewed the movie. Wow. This whole Interweb thing just constantly amazes and challenges me. The author of this work has used a game to say something very real, it's stirred up some quite passionate commentary.

NZ doesn't have the level of violence and air of oppression the movie depicted, but young Maori and Pacific Islander males are certainly over represented in our jails. Many young black men here take their culture from the American gang culture, emulating clothing, behaviour, language and music. Episodes of violence do not seem to be increasing, but the level of violence in attacks is.

There is a perceived and real inequity between opportunities for young people of Maori and Pakeha¹ cultures, without even considering our diverse immigrant cultures. We have had 'positive discrimination' in some areas here for a while, social welfare is one area, on the assumption that if a family has a roof over their head, food and clothes, they can at least begin to learn. It's an attempt to get everyone to start on a reasonably even footing. Our job market is only just picking up too.

This positive discrimination upsets the racists of course. Especially the white trash racists who feel disadvantaged anyway. And so the wheel turns.

If you've made it this far, thanks. This French movie, out of a game, certainly stirred me and presented a story the world has in common. If I had the game now I'd logon and tell the author.

I wonder if the author is black or white?


¹Pakeha - name for the white people who settled here several hundred years ago. Commonly used in NZ to describe white non-Maori New Zealanders.

[Motoki]

I wonder if the author is black or white?

I kind of wonder that too. And if any of those names of the characters were remotely based on real people. The one guy who was facing discrimination in finding work and a place to live is not something you really see in the news (it's not a sensational as cars being set on fire I guess) but it seems almost as though the creator either had first hand experience like that or else knew someone who did.

[sanmonroe]

I have been playing it.

The gameplay itself is fairly blah. Real easy by 1940 to get the top studio spot and keep it there playing with just the best scripts available at the time, make one top level script and 1-3 low quality scripts be in production at all times.

The movie making can be pretty entertaining, I haven't uploaded anything yet though. 

there are tons of loopholes in the game though. For example: Want really exp directors and actors? Tons of money? Hire 2 actrors and 2 directors, make films until you get custom scripts, then spam make 1 scene actorless movies. With 4 stages you can have each of your stars directing one all the time. Each takes 3 months to complete and makes 70k as a 0 star movie (yeah, you make 70k for releasing a 5 second film of an empty room). I spammed them out and provided no bathrooms recreation etc for a studio to see what would happen. I hit 2.5 stars from star quality (they get exp for everything they film) and cash alone. My lot was covered with trash, teh sidewalks were growing fungus and the sims went around barfing everywhere.

Good times!

[PlaidSquirrel]

That is messed up.
On another line I did get 2 people to be lovers. They were both on the verge of drinking and eating disorders but still. I also had the free love bonus for that year. Not sure how hard it would have been without it but once they were lovers I just put them together to talk and they went to the trailer themselves. I was not able to place them in there together however.
I think the flying hearts between them are cute.