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Exclusive: The Movies Q&A Feature
Derek dela Fuente
11/08/2004
TVG chats to Adrian Moore, Lead Designer on one of the most ambitious titles we've ever seen...
The Movies, another of Peter Molyneuxâs great gaming design ideas, is slowly coming together. It goes without saying that any Lionhead game automatically moves into the echelon of premier and innovative game merely by assocation but the fact is that Movies offers so many well-heeled ideas and angles is is rightly seen as one of the most wanted games of 2004.
The premise may be simple but the avenues the game moves along in fleshing out its ideas are nothing short of captivating.
Derek dela Fuente spoke with Adrian Moore, Lead Designer on the Movies, to get an exclusive insight but first gives the basic premise to the game.
Movies can best be divided into 3 main areas - designing your movie studio, forging the careers of movie stars, and making movies. It is possible to focus on any of those areas that most appeal to you, and spend less time on the others. The game plays through from the birth of cinema to the present day and a little way into the future, with all the technology and historical advances that occur along that timeline. The really cool thing about the movie-making part is that the movies themselves can be watched, once they are made! It will be incredible fun to make movies - something no other game has allowed you to do. Throw a few actors into some costumes, put them on sets, pick some scenes for them to act out and watch them go. The end results can be fascinating and hilarious - it is possible once the movie is made to add your own voice, text and music, really personalising each movie you make. The movies can then be uploaded to a website for all to see!
TVG: You must have received lots of outside comments on the game in the last year. What possibly has been one idea that you did not initially think of that has been implemented and when do you draw a line under adding or making changes?
I guess the biggest change we made as we got up and running was deciding to make actual movies - in the beginning we were running with the concept of making trailers of movies - promotional shorts that represented the films that were being made in the game. Now the game allows you to actually make short films, which is far more fun.
Another big change we made was the picking-people-up system. It used to be that you'd wait for a character to make their way to wherever they were going. Once we allowed players to grab characters and drop them in different parts of the studio lot, the game pace became much quicker. We were scratching our heads about an interface problem relating to people and we came up with the idea of the interface buttons appearing on the floor of the studio lot itself.
We tried it out and were very happy with the result - it's so easy to use.
I guess those are the biggest changes we've made - the majority of the game is as we first imagined it.
It's hard to know where to draw the line under adding features and changing parts of the game - I guess the answer is that we do so when we need to, but we don't allow anything to be added on a whim - it's so easy with this game to get carried away with thinking âwe need this set, scene, or costumeâ when in actual fact we have loads of cool content in there and we have plenty of opportunities for new content with the expansion packs.
TVG: Although The Movies is a management game, how much did you want to change the kind of perceptions of this game genre and try to give lots of rewards to the player and make them feel and see that they are progressing when playing and do you feel you have succeeded?
The big rewards really come from the challenges - characters approach you, offering you opportunities. If you accept a challenge and achieve it â“ for example casting a pop star in a leading role and having a hit movie - it is possible to get hold of hidden stuff that is not available elsewhere.
Aside from the challenges, we're really making a point of the player feeling good about success. When a hit movie is released the money on the interface sparkles and shines as it rolls in. The queue of people outside the cinema reinforces the feeling of doing well.
TVG: How much can the player change some of the in-game influences and ideas or is it all about pure manipulation? In most management games there are many options, most of which are the defaults. Tell us what kind of in-game manipulation the player can actually do?
We have a sandbox mode which allows players to adjust the game settings before play - for example putting 100,000,000 dollars in the bank and turning off the stars' tantrums. This allows people to control their own situation and game experience.
In both the main game mode and the sandbox mode, the game reacts to your play style. For example, if you insist on making nineteen Western movies in a row, movie audiences become very bored with that type of film so it becomes increasingly difficult to have a hit.
TVG: Letâs focus on the Actors? Have you 'based' most of the cast list on famous actors and what are some of the varied traits they offer and how do you know if an actor will fit the part? Also is there a progression and timeline for actors?
The actors in the game are not based on famous film stars but it is possible to create your own. You can change facial features, makeup, hairstyles, costumes and the physique of your stars, allowing you to re-create your favourite heroes and villains.
Each actor has individual traits in terms of acting ability, suitabilities for types of films, and waywardness. For example, one actor might be a fantastic actor, great in horror movies, but like to get drunk a lot. Another star may be an average actor but suitable for all genres of film, and be clean living.
Every person in the game ages with time, so each actor can become 'past it' as they grow old. It's possible to send them into plastic surgery to give them face lifts to extend their careers however!
TVG: So far what has been the most difficult aspect in putting this game together?
The sheer scale of the project. Because it runs through time - from 1900 to a little way into the future, it means we have to create costumes and write music to create the sense of each era. Unlike other simulation games, The Movies features the ability to make films, which means a massive amount of work in terms of creating thousands of individual movie scenes. It's been hard to seamlessly marry the simulation with the movie-making side. It's been a challenge but the whole team is working very hard together.
TVG: What are the limits when it comes to making movies; the major concern appears to stem from whether there will be heavy restrictions placed on this or whether the player is completely free to create whatever they choose to?
Of course there are restrictions, but we've afforded players a huge amount of freedom. There are thousands of scenes, 40 sets, hundreds of costumes and dozens of backdrops, and the ability to customise each and every one of these elements. There is so much freedom that the number of combinations of movies that people can make using the game is vast.
TVG: Naturally the community aspect appears to be quite strong and crucial to the success of The Movies; whilst we can understand this on the PC (being able to swap movies, add new content), do you think this will adversely affect the console versions?
It is possible to exchange movies between players using the memory card, and we are looking at the online side with some of the consoles too. The Movies game is very strong without the community aspect - the fact that it is a part of the PC version only really serves to make that version of the game even more interesting than it already is.
TVG: Could you perhaps briefly outline the concept of making a movie from start-to-finish within the game?
It is very simple. First you need to hire scriptwriters to start brainstorming some ideas for you. The more brainstorming you can do (by having more scriptwriters or giving them more time, or both), the better the quality of the scenes are that become available to you.
One click of a button opens up what we call the âmovie making screenâ which allows you to define every last detail of the movie you'd like to make. It's not possible to explain this with words - it is all graphical, but in essence the game takes you through a âflowâ - the title of the movie, the director, the cast, and the scenes. It is possible to very easily define a movie in just a few clicks, but then possible to drill down into much more detail if you'd like to, adjusting such things as lighting, props, and costumes.
Once you are happy with your movie, which you see acted out in front of you as you design it, one click gets the movie off the ground and into the shoot phase. Once it's shot it's ready to watch and to release to a (hopefully) adoring public!
TVG: Are players free to create whatever scripts they choose or will there just be a wide selection of pre-determined scripts for the player to choose from?
Buying scripts is the simplest way to make movies. There is a wide variety of them to choose from, across all the types of films. They change over time, becoming more epic as time goes by. New scripts become available all the time.
TVG: Are you concerned that such an ambitious title will be hard to sell to gamers?
Not at all. The game has an incredible amount of depth but on the surface it is really, really simple to play. We've spent enough time on the interface to ensure that.
TVG would like to thank Adrian Moore for taking the time to answer our questions; weâll have more coverage on the title soon.
