March 2016 Update

It's been a long time since my last video update. I've had lots of emails from people regarding the game so I am sorry to keep you all hanging so long. Truth be told there isnt a whole lot to show off at this stage as most of the past few months have been lots of back-end programming. So in other words, I have been working a lot on the Editor and making sure that a lot of the smaller things in the game like dropdown menus and sliders are working well as well. Real boring stuff. But since everyone has been so patient I have thrown together a few new screenshots of the game.

In Production Updates

In this screenshot you can see how the in production screen now looks compared to the simplistic version of Showtime 1. I think it was important that at an immediate glance to your "works in progress" that you had a good overall guide on where your movie is heading and the stages of which things are progressing. I have also added in a "top billed cast" spot; this will display the top 3 talent attached to this film. Also I have added in a "shelved projects" screen; this is similar to the Bestseller feature where you can shelve projects or scripts for later use but not necessarily pursue them until you are ready. As an example; if you have flooded the market with all of your Marvel movies so they're not doing so well you can put them aside for future use when the market is no longer saturated with superhero movies. Its a simple but cool feature I think.

Casting Update

This is an updated screenshot of what the casting process looks like. Unlike Showtime 1 where you click on button to cast actors and then go down the list of "leading" or "supporting" roles, all roles can now be cast from this screen. You also get an immediate overview of your casting process; as you can see in the screenshot you have cast a director and producer but still have leading roles which need to be assigned. I find this extremely helpful when you dont necessarily want to dig through every screen trying to see if someone needs to be cast; its all visible from the one screen and is directly tied to your "project view" where everything else is handled. It makes screen-jumping minimal and (hopefully) is easy on the eyes.

Production Overview Update

And lastly I have been working on the production overview and trying to get the look of this right. It will no doubt undergo a lot more changes but what you can see here is that you can now get an overview of how long each stage of your film making process will take; pre-production, filming and post-production. As you put more money into the movie the longer it will take for each process (e.g. a movie with a massive CGI budget will take longer in the post-production stages). You can now also select between short or feature films and actually choose your run-time. You will also be able to create your own budget presets. There will be about 12 presets which can help you decide (if you are unsure in the game) what certain genres will need. For instance if you select an "Independent Film" preset the game will calculate which genre you are making and then change your budget allocations to something which is considered industry-standard for an independent film. Likewise, if you use a standard for your own movies then you can save it to your list and call upon it whenever you need it. Its just another way where the player can move fast through these screens without getting bogged down in sliders.

Final thoughts...

I hope you guys like what you see. I will probably make this devblog a bi-monthly thing from now on because it is time consuming to write and I'd rather spend my free time on the game. I'm so happy the game is still generating lots of interest and its definitely moving ahead. I will do my best to make the next update a video. Thanks for reading!