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Stephen Leyton
20/12/2002
Peter Molyneux took a couple of hours out to chat with TVG, about the creation of a new game that will surprise, impress and bring a whole new gaming idea to the PC gaming public.
Peter Molyneux took a couple of hours out to chat with TVG's Derek dela Fuente, a journalist he has known and spoken with for over 15 years, about the creation of a new game that will surprise, impress and bring a whole new gaming idea to the PC gaming public.
A visit to meet Peter Molyneux is never a boring one, with Black and White 2 appearing to be the driving force behind this studio, so I was not expecting to see something new or to be as impressed as I was with The Movies and happily spent nearly all the allotted time on this title, although I had not even heard of it before my visit, but is one that could well create as much interest as any other of Peterās titles ā“ which to many will not come as any surprise.
Just when some may be saying that Peterās creative juices must be starting to dry up a little, up pops a simple concept but with added ideas to make it very special! The concept is the hardest part but fleshing it out is easy when it comes to Lionhead!
So how does someone like Peter come up with new ideasā¦.āThe luxury of owning your own company allows me a little more scope than the average person. In January I woke up in the morning and had this one thought in my mind and it was āthe moviesā a concept for this game. I asked myself why has no one done a game about making movies, about running a movie studio and taking the studio from the silent era in the 1920s right up to the modern day!ā
With this short and inspirational dream it was not long before it had been turned into code, along with a detailed design, and although there is still plenty of time before its completion already it is looking superb. The idea within the game was inspirational and so obvious but no one has even come close to what Peter will offer!
Peter quickly put his first ideas together after speaking with key people at Lionhead.
āWhat about a game where you run a movie studio and get to make your own movies and if the movie is successful you get to make more movies.ā Cool eh and not many people could find any flaws in the concept however putting this kind of idea together could be strewn with problems, none of which seem to bother Peter or the team!
To cut a long story short, within three weeks a team had been set up and they were working on the artwork. The unique thing in the game is you get to build, physically, bits in a movie studio - like the script writersā office and the movie sets, and those sets can stay there for other segments of the game. Sharp-eyed movie-goers have probably seen in films like westerns, the same scene again (studio set) and again, but with subtle differences in big names films. Why build a set for only one film? Like any idea based on the real thing there are so many facets that go into making the game. You will need scriptwriters and then film scripters. Now this might sound very straight forward but it is the quality of actions, designers, scripts that make a movie successful and this game tries to mirror the real thing so merely having all the ingredients is not enough ā“ you need detail, style and innovative ideas ā“ as you would if you created a real successful movie! Getting the best writer as well as the best producer is the ingredient for success but early on you have to watch your resources.
The cool thing is, while that movie is being shot, you can carry on running your studio, hire other scriptwriters, actors, etc. By adjusting the three onscreen bars/controls you can change the influence of the movie from tame to really violent whilst the movie is being shot. A movie in the 30s didnāt have much violence, whilst one made nowadays has a lot so you tinker about with it if for each occasion. Options for romance kissing to some X rated bits (this will be censored) can also be manipulated. Will the first female nudity give you a success or will it turn off the audience?
At this point it must be said, ideas are being created and taken out daily so the end result could be slightly different from what was seen but not much.
With a film theme, sets and actions in place, you can change little actions within a sequence and clicking on a specific object will bring up a little interface at the bottom of the screen allowing you to adjust things!
Numerous other factors also have to be considered and throughout the whole interview so many were covered that you could easily be lost in the creative and clever way this game will be presented. Needless to say, with games like Theme Park under his belt the many intricacies that go into creating a total experience in an enjoyable and imaginative way without losing any realism will not be lost in this latest presentation.
Will the film have violence? Will it have romance? Will the western film offer realism or merely be a good story? In effect, you have to get the blend just right. . If you turn the realism up there will be lots of blood and when someone gets shot it will be dramatic and youāll see blood and gore. If you turn the romance up (via the interface) then they will put the guns away and go and kiss whoever, if you turn it up a bit more then they will be more explicit with the realism. That means that whilst that movie is being shot, the movie is being saved to your hard disk, which is unique to you in this form, and so you can actually save the whole movie to hard disk, which you can see outside, but essentially it saves as a trailer, which you can send to your friends.
Now as you read this you may be asking questions yourself like ā“ can I cut the film? Can I have a scene where you do this and that, etc? Answers are - probably!
When the movie is finished, itās released essentially to the general public within this simulation, and if itās successful you get to make more movies and if not then you try again - thatās essentially it.
Now this might all sound simplistic but so did Theme Park when it was conceived. It was the expertise of Peter and his team that created detail and brought it to life much in the same way he is doing with The Movies!
āBasically you decide on the genre of your film. You get the scriptwriter writing the film. Later on you get to buy scripts in, sort out sets, actors, etc. āItās essentially Theme Park but at the movies. Obviously there is massive potential for getting endorsements. But I keep asking myselfā¦why has no-one done it before?ā
Now putting a question to Peter to try and catch him out is not a thing you should do, as I mentioned that because of the nature of the game, you are only limited to what the programmers have made it do. āWell no thatās where the interesting thing is - part of the influence is the set that you design. If you build a western set and you put it down in a graveyard, complete with a jail and a bank, bog standard things, then you try to shoot a romantic western where they are all 'lovey dovey' and they donāt shoot each other nothing uneventful, merely a formulised movie, will be created. Merely grabbing a set and a script is not enough ā“ each will have its own influence and so mixing the wrong things will result is a rubbish film!ā
You will get to build your own actors and actresses and how youāve treated them will depend on how they act. Put Arnold Swarzeneger in a romantic western and heās going to be pretty awful but put Tom Hanks in a romantic western and he will be pretty good. There will be a host of individual options that you can change but cleverly the team has made sure you donāt decide on the lighting and camera work but you DO decide on the people who decide on that. This might sound strange but there are solid reasons for everything in the game and believe me it will work! Spending a lot of money on a good director will result in your camera shots being of the highest order!!!!
As the many ideas became understandable within a game it was an interesting answer from Peter when I asked if he understood the basics of filmmaking. āThe theory behind Theme Park is this, do a simulation and only simulate the bits that the general public really know about. Like you didnāt worry about where all the sewage went and where the chips came from. All you worried about was where the rides were and where the hamburger stands were and how much you charged people and thatās the same with the movie theory. You donāt worry about the fact that youāve got a best boy and a dolly, and those things we see in the credits but havenāt got a clue what they do, you worry about stars, the directors and the sets because everyone knows that they are real core things that makes a movie. I still to this day would struggle to tell you what a producer does! I kind of know itās something to do with money but I donāt know whether they decide on sets or the actors, etc. The great thing about āthe moviesā is that everyone knows the progression. They know it started with the silent era, went to the black white era, went to the talkies, then to colour, then finally to the spectacular blockbusters so you donāt need to say, what comes next cause everyone knows.ā
The mechanics to playing the game are simple and fulfilling and we are talking early viewing with many more subtle and sophisticated ideas to be implemented. Go to the scriptwriting office, click on the scriptwriter you would like, click on a theme, and then toggle around with the onscreen manipulation bars. This done you will see onscreen people rush out and the creation begins.
The actual footage and what you will see (the view) of the film will be displayed on screen as it compiles to your harddisc. Although it is hard to get your head around the way the concept is being placed in a game you really have to think of the way Peter created titles like Theme Hospital and Park to appreciate the amount of thought that is going into the movies and in terms of game features this could far out-weight those. It is obvious details you would not expect to see which are there. Ageing star actors will continue their careers and understanding who could be liabilities or still star attractions is up to the player. You can dress them in any clothes or costumes you wish, not forgetting that this costs. Can you believe that you can even build a plastic surgery unit to give aging stars a good makeover to get a few more films out of them? Far fetched? Not really as this mirrors the movie industry.
āInitially The Movies will come with a list of defaulted themes - 7 - and the list of clever ideas and realistic events included could go on forever. One very important question that was answered was how do you quantify a successful film when you are playing the game? āWe talked a lot about this. We have one big formula to determine how successful a film is. If you look how successful war films are after say the Vietnam War then you will see they were not that popular. Movies after World War II were very successful because we won. If you do a movie on the same set again and again it will be less successful. If you put the wrong actor in the wrong movie then again it will not succeed. We have a massive formula, a little like what went into Theme Part (excitement, uniqueness, etc). When the movie is being made you can read what the critics are saying and you have awards ceremonies, etc. Itās a question of putting the right formula together even down to creating your own film star complete with body parts to re-invent a new Marylyn Monroe! You negotiate to bring in a star or use an unknown by using your scouting network and build your own star. Pressures on an actor/actress will also be taken into account if their film fails and alcoholism or drug dependences could be a problem you may have to encounter. A large entourage could be associated with an actor and all this will end up costing you. These are some more of the parameters implemented in the game. The general public can name the actors but we canāt.ā
You do not need a blockbuster to start you off just a small box office success so you can spend more on subsequent films. In effect, the game will mirror the real world business mechanics.
Peter Molyneux: The Movies game is a real blockbuster in the making and with a good time to create more ideas to implement this is one to keep watching out for! At present the code may still be in its early stages but it is working exceedingly well and is a really intriguing idea.
