Steamlined Movie Making Process
I have been working on streamlining the process of film creation this
month and also working on the new Storyboard feature. When creating a
new movie you will now be prompted to enter a genre and sub-genre along
with the title and plot summary. For those interested in capitalising on
the market, a quick reference graph is also available which display's
the market share of each genre. Market's themselves will be dynamic;
changing and adapting to not only "whats hot" but also adapting to the
films you and your AI players flood the market with. In other words, if
you and your competitors capitalise on Action films then over time this
market may shrink as the audience becomes fatigued with action flicks.
Hopefully this will make it a little more interesting and challenging
for people wanting a more dynamic simulation experience.
Interface Update
In the screenshot above you can also get an idea of how the new HD
interface will look. This interface is native to 1920x1080 so things
will look sharp and very cool up-close :) A lot of the icons I have also
redesigned over the past month to be a little more easier to read. I
will no doubt continue to improve icons as ultimately they should be
easy to identify their purpose without hovering over them. Still, if you
are unsure of what something does then each icon has a tooltip. Help
icons also make a return to explain things a little more in detail for
those players wanting to know everything they can about a feature.
Box Office and AI
I've also been at work tweaking the box office screens to be a little
easier on the eyes. Since the game progresses week-by-week this time
updates will occur each turn. Its still something I'm working on getting
right... with so many additional factors at play in Showtime 2 it's
been quite the ordeal balancing the game and AI to not be
soul-crushingly hard. As I have been progressing I have been ensuring
that most new features can be turned on/off when starting a new game.
Much like the original game after adjusting the options you will be
given a difficulty rating which should fairly represent your experience.
I want players who love a challenge to be able to find one in Showtime 2
but also for newcomers to find their footing and pick things up with
ease. Hopefully I get the balancing act right! Not all game settings
will be able to be adjusted in-game though but I'll do my best to make
as many of them available so you dont have to constantly start new games
to tweak the difficulty slightly.
Final Thoughts...
As always thanks to everyone who have been giving their feedback in the
comment section below. It's really great to hear cool new ideas and I've
been adding/removing things based on what you guys have been saying --
so keep it up :) I do read everything but dont have a lot of time to
reply sometimes but I'm just soooo happy you guys have been posting...
it truly excites me to know people are passionate about this project.
Next month I aim to show off the talent selection process, the
production selection screens as well as the storyboard feature which
should be a little more developed. Thanks for reading. Cheers!