A peek behind the curtain

I've decided already that I'm updating this game to be closer to a... Well, proper game. So, in the spirit of preservation, this is what happened during the original concept.

Of all the ideas I wanted to make, this one was the most comfortable to adapt to the MiniJam's Cinema theme. Originally envisioned as a fantasy adventure where you see glimpses of a hero's journey most vital decisions, giving you the chance to select your own to later witness the result of them. I just changed the theme from fantasy, to a movie studio, and began to work, without a clear idea of how would I adapt it.

I had quite a lot developed, when I realized the premise was pretty outlandish, and I had to choose to either double down in the silliness, or start over with a more "simulation" approach to it. The limitation of the jam made it a clear choice, and I rewrote every dialogue to be as silly and weird as I could. In the end, the game was a pretty non-sensical approach to a simulation game. However, behind the scenes, the code is pretty complex, and in my idea to make it challenging, I failed to properly explain the mechanics and "gamefy" the concept. For posterity's sake, here's what was going on.

A peek behind the curtain

Each actor has an Emotion value from a pool of 6. Considering there are 12 actors, this leaves each emotion being represented by 2 different actors. One woman, and one man will represent one emotion. Each emotion has a preferred pairing, both for each other, and the movie genre and set.

Speaking of movie genre, at the start of the game, a random value determines the Genre of the movie. The constantly ringing phone is the only clue as to what the genre is. The phone was a very underdeveloped feature, and was more of a nuisance than proper gameplay, but given its importance, I had to leave it in. Importance, as in, every other aspect of the game compares itself with the genre to assign a score to your choices. 

The last variable is the theme. This can be altered by you directly, considering your choices in Scene Mode.

"Scene Mode" activates when speaking to the Assistant, and agreeing to help, receiving one of three roles at random: Producer, Actor or Director.

Producer gives you a chance to change the Set, altering the Theme value, and selecting two actors to perform. You get a point based on how well the actors' emotions match the movie Genre, another point if both actors chosen are with a preferred pairing, and and extra point at the end if the Theme matched the Genre.

Actor lets you replace one of the performing actors with your own emotion. Of the six available emotions, you are randomly given three choices to select from. The choices are given as descriptions more than directly telling you which emotion is, but they do not change, so it's possible to correctly guess with repeated playthroughs. Here, you get a point if your chosen emotion matches your acting partner preferred pairing, another one if it matches the director's prompt, and an extra one if whatever the director said matched the genre of the movie. This is a less desirable one, and the extra point is basically random.

The final one is director. After choosing two actors to perform, you can choose a theme by selecting three of six, randomly chosen prompts, to give to the actors. These prompts are also not very specific, to avoid immediate recognition, but remain the same on multiple playthroughs. You'll get a point for choosing actors with preferred pairing, choosing a theme that matches any of the actor's emotions, and this time, two extra points: one if the chosen theme matches the genre of the movie, and another one if both actors match the theme and the genre of the movie. This is easier to do choosing two actors with the same emotion.

After four days, the final scene start, where you're presented to a movie theater. Here, the movie will use a random title and story from a pool depending on its genre.  The final movie shown will remember every set, actor and dialogue chosen. The dialogues will be edited, but still non-sensical, and mostly disconnected from what's the movie is about. Dialogue works in pairs: a prompt and a reply. One actor chooses a prompt depending on their emotion, and the other one a reply.

At the very end, you're given a review. This review takes into account the final score to produce a review article that changes depending on how well you did. Three metrics are used: Theme score, Emotion score, and Overall (both). If Theme score is high, the movie would be a success with audiences, if Emotion is high, it'll be with critics, and for Overall, the review article will give it a final rating.

You'll see an epilogue, where the Boss who  hire you calls you to congratulate, or berate you on your performance, with a short narrative ending. If you score a perfect (close to maximum score value for each day, maybe one or two points of wiggle room) you'll see a "perfect ending" with some additional effects.

And that's it! That's what this was supposed to be about. There are more values and other aspects, but they're pretty insignificant, and these are the only ones that actually matter for gameplay purposes.

I feel like I didn't give this project a fair chance, and I'm sure I could at least bring it up to a more interesting approach.

I can't do much for the visual aspect of the game, so it'll likely stay the same, but I'm definitely changing how the gameplay works, along with a major undertaking on how dialogue is presented. Work is halfway there, so It'll definitely be soon.

I have no idea if this long ass article would even be of interest to anyone, but if you found it entertaining or, at least, readable, thank you. At the end of the day, I'm just a guy sharing silly little projects with strangers, and these few views and clicks I get really make my day brighter, and give me an excuse to keep going at it, when I've used up all others.

Thank you for playing, and see you soon!