Feedback on Movie Making Process

[Vogelmeister]

Hey, devs!
First of all, cheers for being such an amazing team and engaging with us in all the right ways. Since you're really passionate about the game and take our feedback seriously, let me sum up my experience specifically with the moviemaking process. As you know, there’s countless other management sims out there, but only one full release about making movies, so I’ll argue that this is actually the most important aspect of the game. As such, it needs a lot more attention. Here goes.

1. A big limitation right now is that actors can’t interact with objects. Even something as simple as sitting at a table (like they do in the canteen) would go a long way.
2. They also don’t really interact with each other. Yes, we can animate them individually to arrange a fight or kiss, but it’s fiddly and very static, not to mention limited. I think it would help to have some kind of group animations where we could just assign the actors and let them play out the scene.
3. AI scriptwriting is a dud. One of the most fun parts of The Movies is to watch premieres. Since AI scriptwriters in that game slap movies together from a pool of pre-defined scenes, the results are occasionally hilarious. Here even the most proficient writer just makes actors stand around and do a stunt in the end. It would be much better if, for example, genre sliders affected what actually happens on screen.
4. Pre-defined customizable scenes with cinematic framing would be so great to have! You’d think such things stifle creativity, but it’s exactly the opposite. Find a scene you never knew you needed, suddenly the whole thing has taken a sharp turn for the unexpected.
5. The way each set is tied to a theme is just not good. Maybe this wouldn’t be a problem if they had a customizable look, but right now if I want to make something as simple as a cozy bedroom, I need to mix a superhero set with the pirate bed. Which kinda makes the whole concept of themed sets redundant anyway, except I get points deduced for not matching the theme. This is a little annoying.
6. No outdoor sets, no green screen. Need I say more?
7. Camera controls are nice, but too basic. Worse still, adding a second camera only increases stats and nothing else. You could do so much more in this department!
8. No way to control lighting and mood. This might even be solved by something as basic as a couple of sliders.
9. Option to watch the finished product should probably be somewhere on the release screen, not tucked away in a distant sub-menu. This is a small detail, but I think it’s an important one. Seeing a finished end product is, after all, the ultimate reward for any creative endeavour. You guys know it better than anyone, right?

Guess that’s it for now. Some of these things are probably on your list of priorities already. If not, I hope you find this (and all the rest of our feedback) helpful.
Anyway, keep being awesome & good luck with the game!

[chaddid]

Hey at least there's a milk drinking animation. lol

I agree with this whole post. The whole movie making in the game is so basic, it just kills the game for me the longer I play. If this game is about running a movie studio, it's too basic, if it's about making movies, it's too basic. I mean it's fun for a while, but when something is so basic and doesn't make you think in any way, me, I will just get tired of it. If a game like this is deep, I'll stay long term and pay for any DLC's that might come out. This game needs things that you make a choice to do that effect the game. So put choices in the movie making process that will effect the quality of the movie.

[HardPenguin]

That's some good feedback! Thanks for sharing it! I will be writing all this down for our team to evaluate ✅

[ChristinaSF]

Thanks for a great game and it definitely brings back good memories of The Movies! In a future update, could you consider having actors let you know via pop up when they are mad enough to refuse to work? For some reason, I kept having crews and everyone BUT the actors show up for shoots, which would never progress because no actors, only to find that they're annoyed about their housing,