Recent reviews by Tyler

An addictive cosy game that combines my love of management sims with my love of book shops. Can't wait to sink hours of my life into selling books.

The Executive is everything I've ever wanted! As a long time fan of business management sims and a massive movie buff, my two loves finally come together in one addictive, easy to pick-up package. I spent hours pouring my soul into my first few projects. Thinking carefully about what I would name them, which studio/release window would be right for my film's distribution. I was so happy to see how well received my indie horror films were by audiences and critics alike. That excitement I felt when I won my first Romy and when my films would be nominated (and ROBBED) at the Gaspars was thrilling... and then I realised I wasn't making money and I had to start pumping out more movies. It quickly became less about my passion for film and more about releasing a new movie every year to keep my studio afloat.

I just finished my first playthrough and decided to bring my studio to a close in 2020 to start over again, but I love that I have the option for endless mode. I didn't come anywhere close to unlocking my full potential and I only JUST managed to get enough research points to release my first large film in the latter half of 2019. I'm enjoying seeing the developers' taking on feedback and making constant updates to the game. I'm so excited to play this over and over with new updates, features and balance adjustments (I didn't experience any bugs or glitches in my playthrough but bug fixes are always good too). I thought I would share my biggest points of feedback from my experience as a first-time player. Food for thought for future updates or takeaways for future games:

- Early progress was difficult. Earning research points is consistently slow, and my well-received films barely earned any money at the box office. Maybe I was just unlucky but I had a dream of my little studio striking gold with a highly rated indie film that launched my progress forward in a huge way. Instead I was faced with a slow climb and a constant shortage of research points regardless of whether my film had an average rating of 6.5 or 9.

- When I hired my first analyst, I found it difficult to understand the genre trends and theme trend tabs. I couldn't work out exactly how to use that to my advantage and so I fired my analyst and hired a second sales person. I found that far more useful than having an analyst in my medium office setting.

- I loved being able to create a film starring my favourite horror actress 'Leather Hangenkamp'. What frustrated me as a grammar freak was feeling like my best choice for a film was 'Cman Aluming' or 'Poan Jlowright'. A lot of actor/director names feel like they were spat out of an algorithm and never proof-read by human eyes. I want a cast and crew of people with catchy, appealing names, not a jumble of letters. I would die to cast someone like Allen Calming or Cullan Amming in my films, but 'Cman Aluming' just sounds like a nightmare. I also hoped I would get to chance to cast new names with no real-world counterpart. I love the idea of fostering new talent and having the option to cast them in my films over and over, watching their stats rise through the success of my film. I long to give an opportunity to an unknown female director in the early 70s and watch her defy the odds to become an internationally acclaimed, Gaspar winning auteur. I was missing that aspect of the film studio fantasy in the gameplay experience.

- Obsessed with the home entertainment deals and the ability to release special editions. I find myself not quite understanding the details behind it though. I would love to release special editions of my entire back catalogue but the ability to do that seems to expire after a certain time and I couldn't figure out how to track which films would soon be off the table for a special release. I would also love to see how earning cult classic status affects the home video sales of an individual film - is it worth my investment? Or would I make more money just mass releasing cheap essentials editions of every single film for maximum profit? I would love more depth and clarity to this part of the game.

This one is for the witches.

Bloons TD 6 still receives frequent updates and new maps. Great game to disassociate to.