Let’s face it, if you were a fan of The Movies then (like me) you’ve probably been waiting for this game. If so, it’s probably disappointed you, but it’s also IMHO the closest thing we’ve had so far and still worth a look.

There is huge potential here and for a small team of devs to produce such a promising successor is impressive. I purchased the game after having played the Prologue, recently replayed The Movies and read some of the early reviews, so I was well aware of the game’s issues, but felt it was worthy of support nonetheless, especially at this price point.

So, this is a Thumbs Up, albeit one with some hesitation.

* The Tutorial is very thorough.
* Graphics and UI are good for the style of the game.
* Making and furnishing your own buildings and sets is a nice feature.
* The camera controls (while limited) do give you a good feeling of being in control of direction.
* Being able to position actors wherever you like (mostly) in a scene.
* Sound effects and subtitles in the video editor. A big tick for this.
* Since The Movies we haven’t actually had a movie making game that actually lets you make and watch your movies. The movie making controls in Blockbuster Inc are also better than The Movies, and you can have a lot of fun with this if that’s your jam. It’s just a shame that we don’t have more animations (especially ones that fit each genre) and more costumes.
* It’s a passion project so hopefully will continue to get much needed love from the devs. The team has stated that they will continue to add content and improve things. Therefore, if you’re not sold on it yet, maybe check back later.

* Players need more challenges. Making money seems a bit too easy and the Missions were so easy that I was completing them without even checking the requirements.
* The stars feel very one dimensional. There’s only two actor skills, Charisma and Athletics, and no specialisation in particular genres. In The Movies stars had addictions, multiple personality traits, fashion and entourage needs; they could even go in for plastic surgery and rehab. Managing staff in Blockbuster Inc. is too straightforward.
* Once you have the genre sliders worked out (which doesn’t take long) there doesn’t seem to be any advantage to making your own movies versus letting the AI do it for you, nor any significant advantage gained from the various tweaks, apart from technology and some re-shooting.
* There are not enough animations. There are no sitting animations nor can you place actors on top of items in set. So, you can have a coffin in your vampire flick but can’t actually have the vampire in it. In fact, that lack of varied animations really starts to get old quickly.
* No outdoor sets. So, no war-torn battlefields, scary forests or wild west streets!
* Item placement in buildings needs a polish. Notably, windows seem to interfere with character movement.
* You can’t start marketing till 1945! This makes zero sense.
* Research takes a LONG time and/or lots of researchers. You can’t help but feel that certain technological leaps and trend changes should be happening as time progresses (again, like in The Movies) rather than being totally dependent on you. As it stands, you end up constantly hiring more researchers just to get access to the various genres so you can at least have SOME variety.

* There’s no customisation of stars. You can’t change their clothing and each genre only has ONE costume. There is also very little distinction between genders. eg: Medieval women get dresses but not Western ones. Access to these costumes is also automatic. Why should we have cyberpunk costumes in 1920?
* The short list of animations includes some highly inappropriate ones which too often appear in the AI generated films. Having the actors in your medieval drama shooting one another (seemingly the default action animation) is really off-putting. The film-making AI needs improving and more animations AND COSTUMES (yes, I know I mentioned that earlier, but it really bugs me!) are seriously needed.

Ok, so it’s not The Movies and that’s the inevitable comparison most will make, fair or not. There are some nice features in Blockbuster Inc. and I am happy to support it in the hope that the devs will address some of the more glaring deficiencies. There is so much promise here and I’m optimistic enough to hope that it’s going to get the attention it needs.

* More Costumes!!!!
* More animations!!!
* Outdoor sets!!
* Better movie making AI!
* More traits for stars and the ability to customise clothing etc

I rarely write reviews and now I'm writing two within the day. Blockbuster Inc. got me down bad, it seems. As I previously mentioned, I really want this game to succeed, many of us have been utterly STARVED after Lionhead went down under and Peter Molyneux decided to be peak Peter Molyneux.

Though, starving animals are also known to shove absolutely everything, regardless of quality, down their throats as if it were the best thing since sliced bread. Blockbuster Inc., however, is far from the best thing.

With this prelude out of the way, I want to emphasize that my critiques come from a place of complete love for the genre, but also the knowledge that you can't make a great dish without adding some spice.

So, let this review be the spice in your dish... what a weird ♥♥♥♥♥ analogy.

Anyways, bullet points are amazing:
(Points with '(!)' infront of them mean that I haven't fully seen everything, so take 'em with a grain of salt)

• The artstyle, music and SFX currently present really fit the presentation.
  
• The building menu is nicely organized and easy to navigate.
  
• Downloading/Uploading sets from or to the workshop is so seamlessly integrated.
  
• (!)A huge timeline from the 20s to the 20s to discover and research.
  
• An ambitious passion project and I can't help, but respect the amount of work and detail thats been put in. The sets can be gorgeous.
  
• The schedule has been touched up and your staff aren't turtles anymore, so the way you plan has more influence on their mood and your products than before. Nice!

• Missions have been added, but you cannot pin them into an outliner. Why? It makes them uneccessarily tedious to track.
  
• Aligning anything (decoration, set-dessing, furniture etc.) can be extremly clunky. My OCD cannot cope with the fact that, when I tried to rotate two kitchen pieces so their counter tops would align into a kitchen isle, they just... wouldn't. Same with desks, why do they need the Mariana Trench between oneanother?
  Maybe enabling the ALT button to move pieces off-grid could be an idea, as other games do.
  
• As of now, the game is incredibly easy, because you do not get punished for bad decision making or a string of horrible fims.
  
• While the sets can be beautiful, it doesn't take long till the honeymoon phase is over and you realize its always a square that comes in different sizes. Grand, expansive sets like city scapes, or desert, beach or hilly landscapes cannot be re-created.
  
• Sadly, the product making process suffers the same fate and it really doesn't take long till you just randomly generate movies that are, way too often, better than your handcrafted ones.

• The performance is inexcusable. Every time you try to place, rotate, delete or add ANYTHING, the games needs a moment to deal with this change, it doesn't matter if your studio lot is empty or filled with props.
  
• I know, its performance related. But the 100% GPU load bug(?) has not been resolved yet.
  
• Customization is heavily encouraged, but even the pool is just a palm tree with re-arranged polygons. Your peeps will never use any decorative objects, even if a use-case is heavily implied (benches, pools, trash bins etc.)
  
• Sadly most gameplay elements are just a façade supported by two twigs and its really windy right now. Blockbuster Inc. is a game that wants you to make decisions, manage your employees, be deeply involved in the movie making process, but its all inconsequential.

I desperately want to love this game, I'm starved for movie tycoons, all of us are. But in its current state I sadly cannot recommend it. Blockbuster Inc. wants to be everything to everybody, but fails to get the basics down. Why should I care about my employees, if their needs are easy to satisfy: Pay 'em more.

You are never punished for losing an A-list star, because it really doesn't matter - hire a new one. You'll have so much hype from undeservedly winning way too many awards every year, that its a drop in the bucket. Sure, you can direct your own movie, make your own sets, meticulously craft the scenes and who plays which role and in which outift, ponder over IP-names and craft your own overarching Story through the decades.

Sure, you can build the most beautiful lot, detail everything with love and care and spend hours going over your build again and again.

Or... y'know... you could just randomly generate non-sensical movies, place the same tree 1000 times, randomly place pre-built rooms and sets all over the lot and STILL generate the same, if not more success.

Because nothing matters, you are never punished and never rewarded.


Phew... I think this is by far the longest review I've ever written. I know this is a daunting list of things that just aren't up to par with the developers ambition, BUT nothing I've written about is fundamentally broken, this is all fixable with time and effort.

As I mentioned, I desperately want this game to succeed, but I'm not so desperate as to be blind to its obvious flaws.

To the developers: I know you guys read this and I hope feedback like this can help you address the issues and build the game you actually wanted to build. I will not refund the game, because I believe in you and your ideas and ambitions, even if the current product fails to live up to my expectations.


And to you, the reader: Please keep in mind that these are my opinions and you are welcome to agree or disagree, I'll respect your opinion if you respect mine. I don't mind comments, if you think I have it all wrong, go at it :P


Thx.

Also typos or grammatical errors are, of course, kompletly intentional.



Since there was a bit of a consensus that I should play more of the game, here's a couple additional things I've noticed. This is not to dunk on the game, but to provide further feedback to hopefully better help the developer work things out:

• Managing housing for your stars is tedious. If you, for example, rent 1-Star accomodation, but your stars reach Fame 2, 3 or 4 the game will not tell you to upgrade housing. Clicking on a house only tells you its required fame level, but not the fame level the stars living there have - making you go into the Employee management tab to check.
  
• I have about 30-40 employees right now and clicking on the employee management Its actually the "Import Set" window that completely lags out my game to the point where my stable 100 FPS crash down to 5 and it can persist for up to a minute after closing the window.
  
• While in the city, if you click on "Create Product" without leaving the city map, the game puts you back onto your lot, but the city map will still be selected and UI elements are visible in the distance. - I've provided a screenshot:
  https://steamcommunity.com/id/bigdumhoss/screenshot/2449475124252119979/
  
• The previous point seems to give reason as to why performance is the way it is. I have the sneaking suspicion that that the game renders both the city map and your lot at all times to minimize loading, but it doesn't seem to cache and update, but rather literally render everything at all times.
  
• I'm about 2-3 years in the game and I'm the number one studio, endless money in the bank and, if I don't delete my save, I've probably won the game if I continue, which I will. The game has its charm underneath it all.

The short of it:
I don't regret my purchase, but I stopped having fun pretty quickly and doubt I'll be picking this up again any time soon. I'd rather reinstall The Movies.

The long of it:
As a big fan of The Movies I wanted to like this game, but five hours in I'm only at 1923 and already have 200m in the bank, a 5 star studio, numerous 4 and 5 stars actors, directors and producers. I've won every award since 1920 except the best stunt film since I can't put stunts in my films. I own 100% of the shares in the five other studios (though there's no dividend/return making this a waste of money). The balancing and pacing is way off here. There is no difficulty curve where you have to break into the industry and fight past other established studios, you're just the best straight out of the gate.

I think the greatest sin here is the lack of character. The game is a pale reflection of The Movies and I will unapologetically compare this game to it given the obvious similarities.

There is no quirky satirical radio host to keep you company. No soundbites of any form placing you in the era. You form no connection to your stars, they're all faceless drones who'll perform whatever script you give them. A large part of The Movies was balancing training up your stars in different genres, keeping them fit and stylish, keeping their stress down without turning them into alcoholics. There's none of that here. At most you have to make sure there's enough seats in the canteen, and even then I still get half a dozen notifications saying so-and-so couldn't eat today because they were blocked which I assume means their pathfinding failed?

There's none of the funny little interactions that gave The Movies life. They have more in common with a colony of ants. They don't follow footpaths, or sit on benches, drop litter or peek into windows, all they do is talk to each other.

I appreciate that there have been attempts to iterate on the formula. Most obviously, building is more free-form. It feels like it was lifted from a game like Evil Genius or The Sims, and for some might be an improvement but it wouldn't have been my first thing to change. The lot also feels a lot smaller, even after expanding. The price to expand from starter-lot to full size was basically pennies, priced in the probably less than 10k dollars. Ultimately, this free-build loses a lot of the character and style. All the (non-film set) buildings end up looking like you made them in The Sims and forgot to put a roof on.

I actually love the ability to reshoot a scene to try and get a better take! The Movies didn't have this level of detail to the filming process and this feature is one of the few good additions to the formula. Sadly it's presented within a system where the decision to delay release by a day/month has such little weight it's a shame. You're not scrambling for cash so the wait means nothing.

The schedule system is a novel twist, but is a symptom of this game structuring each month as a day which in turn creates this uncomfortable stop-start gameplay loop flow where half the time you're waiting for your studio staff to come back and flicking between full-speed and paused. I think it's an unnecessary level of realism.

Stars having rented accommodation is also a novel addition to the formula, but one which feels unpolished/tacked-on. In The Movies you had to give your stars trailers which had differing levels of prestige. Here you have 5 different home types of varying quantities which you rent for your stars. The principle works. The interface is lacking. You can't tell who is who from the portrait that pops up when hovering over each house on the map, meaning you need to switch between the management UI to find who is grumpy about their house being too low-level then clicking through each house to find them, then cancel their lease, find a free house in the correct housing level area, assign them to that house and then rent it. Did you ever read how website navigation used to be that you shouldn't take more than three clicks to reach where you want to go? That kind of User Experience (UX) applies to most things with button driven UI, and is very noticeable here. Most of the rest of the UI is slick and not deeply nested, but here it feels like there are unnecessary steps. And it's only exacerbated by the fact I can't tell who is who!

The slow-poly art style may be a result of the limited budget but is a massive detractor for me. On the character front, moreso than the props. I'm usually someone who remembers faces more than names, but these stars have such generic features and similar faces that you'll need to get good at remembering names to have any luck at telling them apart. Of course, you don't need to tell them apart most of the time. Throw any of them at a film and it'll probably do just fine. Their important traits/qualities are shown on their thumbnail in the menus anyway.

Reducing skills down to a single trait per role (Actors need charisma, directors and producers need logic) removes any need to care about who fits best where. To compare this to The Movies, there were six different genres and an actor or director would have differing levels of proficiency in each, and could be increased by practising on a relevant set or the little amount that was gained each time they were in a film of that type. Coupled to this was an actors age and appearance which contributed to their fit for the role. There's none of that here. You can't increase an actors skill through practice. There is supposedly a system for teaching which unlocks later, but I this feels like a poor choice.

Gone are actors' genre specific proficiencies. In fact, you only start the game with two genres and have to research new ones. There seems to be no sign of audience preference or market saturation. They appear to have borrowed a trick or two from Game Dev Tycoon in that you have to trail-and-error refine your script's balance of traits like Lore, Dialogue, Intimacy, Gore, among others. Given you can churn out 2 or more films a month once you get going and there's a handy red/green system for telling you how past films fared you should be able to work out what the best levels are pretty quickly through the process of elimination and trail-and-error.

I do quite like the inclusion of Themes as a method of adding complexity, and this could have been quite interesting if it mattered more what your sets were styled as, but there seems to be no negative impact for using mismatched sets. These too are locked behind research (which makes a little more logical sense than needing to "research the action genre").

The absence of pre-made/curated sets is also felt deeply. The Movies had a wide variety of interesting and thematically different sets, which in turn had dozens of different scenes which could be played on those. There's none of that here, just set dressing different sized squares (small, medium, large) in low-poly furniture of varying themes. Maybe there's more variety hiding in the later decades, but I value my time too much to slog through and see.

I can't comment on the "editor" side of things here, using the scene editor to make little films. The actual editor looked pretty well featured from the tutorial.

But I play these kind of games as Tycoon/Management sims and in that vein all the mechanics that made The Movies good are missing. Skilling up stars and script writers, making sure they don't run off set and stall the filming process, sending them to rehab since you turned them into an alcoholic through stress and building relationships with other stars so they had better on-screen chemistry. There feels like there is very little you can do of consequence here. Not once did I see a star storming off in a huff because I didn't manage their needs correctly. I never felt like I should be paying attention to what was happening on a set.

I can't recommend this.