Game Guide - Welcome to the Biz The Movies Guide

According to Peter Molyneux, a producer's life is full of strange contrasts between high-importance decision-making and annoying micromanagement. Despite the fact that the movie-production process gets more and more complicated as we advance through the decades, we will still be forced to repeat some basic activities almost endlessly, thus placing you in a chair of a semi-manager and semi-janitor. You have to be quick and dynamic in everything you do. It is possible to earn a million $ by 1930 or win all the awards during the second ceremony, everything is a matter of your reflexes and multitasking abilities. The game's tempo rises to insane levels when you try to crush your opponents from the very beginning, and sometimes resembles an old-school RTS game (one of the ones called by some 'arcade', malevolently). Your efficiency is a function of your quickness and accurate choice-making. Remember that, if you want to reach the top as soon as possible. If you don't, go play football or something and don't waste our time any more. We're talking hardcore, here.

 

The beginning of the game is a kind of tutorial, which lead you through the very basics of studio management. Once you have the possibility to hire your first stars, it is best to divide them into two separate teams of two, specializing in different genres (this fundamental choice can be handled differently of course, but going this way proved to be the most efficient for us). Hire two directors and two actors, then, and try to make them like each other from the spot. Notice that you don't have to socialize the teams with each other, so concentrate on building two separate actor-director relationships. Think about which two genres you want to choose as your main areas of work. Choose carefully, because they will stay this way possibly the whole way through. It isn't as crucial as it may seem, as you can make your way to the top with every genre - just choose the ones you like, then. Some genre populations are more (ex. Action) stable than other ones (Sci-Fi), but all of them have their moments of fame. Rushers (people who want to command and conquer from the beginning) should consider choosing action and comedy, as those genres witness some popularity bonuses early on.

*HINT*: Early in the game, try to make use of your stars all the time, not giving them a moment to waste on their own. Make them talk to each other, practice on sets, and, well, act/direct. Stress is not an issue in the beginning, so you can be a little devilish for them.

You won't regret making your stars each others' friends.

Always buy and build everything that becomes available. There are no useless investments in The Movies. Once you gain full control of the studio, start constantly using both your teams, releasing low-budget movies. When one team is working on the set, the other one has time to socialize, rest, and most of all practice on sets (consider building a second Stage set so you can practice Comedy even when the second one is being used in shooting).

When it comes to managing the space of your studio lot, it is enough to remember about a few simple rules. Most of all, group all your sets in one part of the lot (later they will be taking most of the available space anyway), what will make movie shooting a little bit faster. It is also useful to group all the buildings that have employee-wannabes standing in lines in front of them. It helps mostly because you can make anyone do anything in this game, so if for example lack scientists, you can always hire an aspiring janitor.

It is essential that you produce scripts *all* the time, hiring a maximum possible number of writers to do this. It doesn't matter, that we won't be using like 90% of their work. Scriptwriters are never overworked and every script they prepare gives them a little experience bonus - and that's useful. Get yourself a Star & Script Selling Facility and sell scripts like mad, while saving the best ones for yourself of course (the difference between "best" ones and "to be sold" ones isn't usually too big, like 1/5 or 2/5 of a star, but hey - it still counts).

*HINT*: When your writers produce a script with a nice score, but you notice that the stages it utilizes have low Novelty Values, go to Custom Script Office and change it. Even if you get your script a complete U-Turn (i.e. change scenes, characters, costumes) it will maintain the score and get a higher Novelty.

This is how this guide was made. Well, almost.

Invest in lot attractiveness from the very beginning, covering the whole terrain with green grass and spawning lots and lots of ornamentation. AI doesn't actually score what you may call "sense" in their placing, so don't trouble yourself with creating pedantic patterns. Randomness is quicker. Try to make the whole terrain that counts (empty unused space isn't included in your Lot Prestige stat) appear green when you turn on the ornament-placing mode. That's an easy way to get the Most Prestigious Studio Lot award during the second ceremony. Each award you win gets you some very useful bonuses for the following 5 years. It's worth struggling for them, as if you manage to get most of them during one ceremony, you are destined to succeed.

You can't fail with perks like that.

Movie production process gets more complicated and longer over time, and the teams we created at the beginning will have to expand. In time, releasing a movie will take so much time that you will have to consider shooting two at a time. It will be necessary to hire some additional extras and crew members, even actors. When you build Intermediate Script Office, you'll need two actors for each movie, and a little bit later - three. The total number of 8 stars is not easy to manage, but it pays to take the risk. Always remember to take care about your stars' relationships. It is annoying, but nevertheless worthwhile.

*HINT*: Your range of possibilities and areas of business will widen with time (science, PR) and it is crucial that you utilize all of them. Don't ignore any aspect of the game, as it will noticeably hit your potential. When you build a PR Office, invest in awareness, when you build a clinic - get your stars some surgery, etc.

That redhead stole the script, after him!

Try to get your movies', stars', and studio's ratings as high as possible. The criteria the game uses and hints on how to impact particular parameters are found further in the guide. Notice that you only need one superstar in your ranks to win awards and certificates. You don't have to shed blood to get every star's ranking up by 1/5 of the star. What counts is a collective of artists with moderately high notes and places in the rankings. If you followed the above plan of creating two separate teams you probably won't have any problem with that, as all your stars will raise their rankings steadily. If your decisions throughout the game are accurate enough, using that strategy you can overtake your competition and dominate the market like on the screen below.

Nothing to worry about before the Ceremony, is there?

The Movies is quite an easy game, ruled by simple and mechanic rules. It's not a problem to understand them all and use them "against" it. Now we will tell you everything about the criteria you have to meet if you want to raise all of your rankings. Once you get them all, you'll know perfectly what to emphasize and how to behave in certain situations. Let's get going, then.