Buy Movie Studio Boss: The Sequel

9,99€

About This Game

You have just been appointed the head of a new Movie Studio and have been given 10 years to make it the most successful studio around. You are up against seven other computer controlled Studios all trying to be the best Studio in the world. You are judged in three ways - most turnover, most profit and most awards.

As the Studio Boss you have lots of decisions to make, including: controlling the budget, deciding what type of film you are going to make, hiring a scriptwriter, getting the best director, trying to get the screenplay right, negotiating with the stars, handling problems on set, getting the post-production right and that’s all before you worry about the cinema release. You’ve got marketing costs, web publicity, test screenings, how many screens to show the film on, when to hit the International markets, when to sell it to TV, how long before you put it on DVD and much, much more!

Turn based (each turn represents a week), yet has time pressure. Players have around 10 minutes to make all their decisions each turn and can end the week early if they want.
More than one way to win. Bosses can win by being the best at making high turnover, profitable or classic award-winning films.
Each section of the game is designed as a ‘mini-game’ in itself.
Success is firmly in the hands of the player. Decisions they make (and they have many to consider) always affect their box office.
Covers pretty much the entire movie making experience.
You are up against seven other computer-controlled players.
We keep the numbers sensible - you do not see $1,067,345 ever in our game. Just $1M. This helps to keep the game from looking too much like a spreadsheet.

Back in the late 90s I thought it would be fun to create a game about running a Movie Studio in the style of a soccer management game. This genre is one I know well having worked on Atari ST/Amiga games like Kenny Dalglish Soccer Manager and Gazza's Super Soccer – it's hard to believe that these titles are now over 25 years old! So Movie Studio Boss was born and released around 2001 on our experimental website/shop PlaceforGames.

Jump forward to 2014 and I thought it would be fun to get back into writing games again. So what to do first? I thought it would be sensible to update some of my old titles and as Movie Studio Boss was always a favourite I thought I'd start with that one. Movie Studio Boss is certainly showing it's age – I'm pretty sure Hollywood doesn't release too many titles on video now! Plus technically it's screen resolution was fixed at 800 x 600 – which looks like a postage stamp on modern computer screens. So MSB The Sequel it is. My old artist friend Gary agreed to collaborate and Movie Studio Boss has been updated.

Besides giving me the chance to get it to run on screens which have larger resolutions there's lots of technical benefits including improved audio (players of the old game will be pleased to note that the tunes I wrote have been replaced with a great score from some new friends Guy, Tim & Bradley) and the ability to have more people on screen. In MSBTS every film has a Production Assistant who will dress in a costume relevant to the film and will walk around the Studio letting you know what stage of production the film is in.

As well as updating the gameplay – introducing Blu-ray and updating the financial model – and pretty much all the graphics I got the chance to add in new features; animated films, musicals, age rating, personnel profiles, more detailed film credits, more reports, notification icons and more.

Thanks For Your Time.

Edward

System Requirements

Windows

Mac OS X

Minimum:

OS: Windows Vista/7/8
Processor: Intel ® Core2Duo or comparable dual core processor min. 2.4 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Dedicated DX9 graphics card (shader model 2.0) capabilities with 512 MB
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Hard Drive: 700 MB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9 compatible sound card
Additional Notes: A demo is available for you to try.

Minimum:

OS: Mac OS X 10.8.4 (Mountain Lion)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (Dual-Core) CPU Speed: 2.4 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: VRAM 512 MB
Hard Drive: 700 MB available space
Additional Notes: A demo is available for you to try.

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zaxtor99

128 products in account

Not Recommended

2.2 hrs on record

Posted: 17 December

** Video Review Link Below **

UPDATE: I feel bad for giving this game a bad review and such a low score. I played it again, I did the tutorial to read everything and make sure I was doing it all correctly in hopes that somehow or some way the 2nd time would be more fun and engaging. .Sadly that didn't happen and my score of the game hasn't changed and as much as I want to like this game, it just isn't "fun" to me.

I gotta be honest in my reviews, I'm just not the type to give it a thumbs up and say something witty like "The sexiest actress told me NO to any amount of money 10/10". That's the kind of lame review that I know lots of people love here, but that's not honest, informative, or helpful to people genuinely trying to decide if this game is a wise purchase for them.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br82NF1rIew&feature=youtu.be

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Don't let my negative review turn you off of this game if you like games that are 100% strategy and numbers games. As far as numbers and strategy goes, this game very well could be great. My review and score below is MY opinion of the game and my liklihood to play it again after my first 45 minute long first look.

The problem for me with this game is it really offered nothing to reward me or fault me based on my decisions and my choices. I think I would have liked to hear actors talking in the background or see a newspaper spin onto the screen saying what movie made the most money on its release, or how bad my movie did at the movies, or something.

Instead, it's just adjusting numbers and hiring actors with point and clicks but no sound effects, no screen dazzle, just leaves it feeling kinda "blah" to me.

The background graphics are plenty well done, and honestly don't need to even be nearly as good as they are. I think that I was just looking for something more in the sounds, updates, or voices, or SOMETHING to make me feel and see easier how I was progressing rather then just requiring to me look at data on a chart on the screen.

I'm not asking for a lot. Just basic musical sounds or gongs or something would help a lot. And it just doesn't give you any kind of musical or graphical rewards in any way, shape, or form. I guess just seeing the numbers about if your movies are making money is supposed to be all that you need to keep playing, I dunno.

A big thumbs down for me, because I knew what kind of game I was buying, I knew it wasn't going to be a big graphics action game. I love strategy games. But this game just didn't inspire me in any way, shape or form to keep playing.

My score is a 15 out of 100.

PS - For those of you looking for a game similar to "The Movies" from back around 2006 or so, this game is nothing like that and will likely leave you very disappointed.

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sheiky

383 products in account

Recommended

1.1 hrs on record

Posted: 17 December

*UPDATE*

Thinking about it now, I'm not sure why I bought this. It was very late and it sounded like fun. Plus it was cheap. I like management games but this one needs more development. I don't want to give it thumbs down just yet but I'd say you should hold off on buying it and see if it gets updates. If not, only pick it up if you get it super cheap or part of a bundle. Too many developers just dump games on Steam and walk away from them.

Remember that game The Movies? That Peter Molyneux game that was going to be the most amazing thing ever but never lived up to its potential? (Kind of like every Peter Molyneux game?) I got a lot of enjoyment out of that game even though portions of it never worked right. Nobody has done a game quite like it since.

Well Movie Studio Boss The Sequel (was there a first one?) is a bit like The Movies but you take out all the micromanagement like lot building or keeping your stars happy. You're just basically making a bunch of decisions. And as far as that goes, Movie Studio Boss is more detailed. There are a lot of different stages and people that you have to hire to get your movie made. So it is a bit more realistic in that respect. If lots of menu screens are your thing and you don't expect some sort of update to The Movies, you might like it. It exists somewhere between The Movies and Game Dev Tycoon but not as polished as either. It needs some work. I hope the developers realize this. Some of the options are not explained very well and I can't exactly figure out the whole marketing and releasing part as of yet. Plus there's no real reaction when your movie does come out. No reviews or goofy, nonsensical movie to watch. There needs to be more incentive to keep playing.

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Zane Thanatos

490 products in account

Not Recommended

1.0 hrs on record

Posted: 17 December

In a word - clunky. Fairly simple game overall - pick out same basic stats for your movie (genre, setting, etc), hire the associated staff (actors, extras, director, etc), get the thing filmed, send it to post production and hire vendors(?) to do the work there (CGI, musical score, etc), and send it out to the world (pick out your marketing budget, release format, etc) and that's about it. Not as much interaction as some other similar games, it's really just entering numbers and selecting who you want to hire without much feedback about what those choices actually do or how they effect the final product. However, if you happen to like that sort of thing the game wouldn't be to bad. The problem is a lot of what you have to do to hire all those people and set the numbers isn't streamlined very well and the effect they actually have isn't very clear.

Some notable examples:

My epic space action movie required 2000 extras - but you can only increase the numbers one at a time (everything else allows you to click and type in a number so not sure what happened there).
One of my directors REFUSED to work in a digital format, would have been nice to know before I hired him.
One of the actors refused to work with the director I hired, also would have been nice to have this information before I tried to hire him.
Almost every person you hire is ranked 1-5 on a number of attributes. Unfortunately you can not sort or filter this in any manner so you just have to scroll through to find who you like (and half of the avaliable workers are already hired but you can't sort them out either).
Every actor/actress I tried to hire refused the default salary (they usually required 200-300% more to actually work for me). No real guidance aside from "Nope, to low for me". You get 3 chances to get it right then they won't talk to you for another week.

In short, don't buy the game. It had some underlying potential but the general pain of actually setting a movie up isn't worth it.

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moerappit

6 products in account

Recommended

8.2 hrs on record

Posted: 19 December

Not a bad game...
It is a great game to take your mind of heavy games...relaxing.
could use some more improving though.

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luke.moers

20 products in account

Recommended

2.9 hrs on record

Posted: 21 December

Game needs some improvements
But the Developers are working on it
It was only just released, So We can expect big changes
Why Release an unfinished game?
To See what the community (US)
Buyers want
It's good to get your mind off things and relax
It can be very fun sometimes
And the best part is
The Developers are willing to work on it

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=GSG=Vidar

64 products in account

Not Recommended

2.2 hrs on record

Posted: 18 December

Clunky, with no sense of how your choices actually impact the film. The mechanics are shallow with very little in the way of rewards. No look behind the scenes, just looking at numbers.

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winedine69fn180

90 products in account

Recommended

0.6 hrs on record

Posted: 21 December

not too bad could be better

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TravisB

21 products in account

Recommended

1.2 hrs on record

Posted: 25 December

It's fun. I like showtime better!

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[LaG] Reasoned Joker

265 products in account

Recommended

3.0 hrs on record

Posted: 17 December

not the best game but its a start. it has potential.

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DangerMan#1

64 products in account

Not Recommended

0.5 hrs on record

Posted: 17 December

This game is sort of gives you the same feeling of watching a fat person run when you first see it... but then when you start playing the game it's equivalent to the fat man falling and dying.

This game has sooooo much potential! but because of the production and the way it is made it is just spoil.

Example Time:

Young Dangerman sees this game and starts getting excited because it is the perfect genre for him (simulation). He reads the reviews and they are mixed but is overwhelmed by the potential of the game. He buys the game and plays the tutorial, finishes it and starts a new career as a "Movie Boss". Around 30 minutes passes and he thinks "What the ♥♥♥♥ am i doing with my life on a game that all you do is go round in circles and doesn't even make sense when trying to release the final production of the film".

Moral of the story:

Don't buy this game. Or at least not until it makes more sense of how to play it and the bugs are fixed.

Piece!

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Title: Movie Studio Boss: The Sequel
Genre: Casual, Indie, Simulation
Developer: Eddy & Gary & Friends
Publisher: Merge Games
Release Date: 17 Dec, 2014

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Buy Movie Studio Boss: The Sequel

About This Game

Thanks For Your Time.

Edward

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