I’ve previously moaned here me and Rach aren’t doing XMAS properly until the second week of Jan. I sort of had XMAS yesterday, starting with the egg in a bun fest that was breakfast at maviscruet‘s. Massive kudos to that man for feeding the large number of people who turned up. I was literally in shock when I first stepped into the crowded room, so apologies if I didn’t talk to everyone. Lots of people, most of whom have LJ even sweet Jimmythedog. A nice fun way to catch up with people and their hangovers…

Then returned to the peace and quiet of Castle Von Newport, and me and Rach exchanged one present. I gave her the new G4 CD since she likes that sort of thing¹ and my sweet darling wife gave me a copy of The Movies.

Hurrah for Peter Molyneux and the chaps at Lionhead. When ever I get bored with FPS and pc games in general they release something that is truly innovative and fun to play. Last time it was Black and White, which I had to put to one side I had to work on my Masters.

On the surface The Movies is a management type game like Theme Park meets the Sims. You have to look after your studio keeping it in good repair and adding buildings while looking after the needs and happiness of your Movie stars. However it all builds up to the creation of Movies that you can watch after they are made. When the game starts in the 20s this is all automated (leading to some very strange Gay Cowboy films). However as the game eases you into it, it lets you lose with the Advanced script writing once you’ve released a couple of films, which allows you to write your own films.

This is my first attempt “Die, Die my darling”, A particularly violent spaghetti western tale². I created it in game³and nearly bankrupted my studio filming it. My leading lady, who appears in this film, quit the studio soon after. Like most “Art” films this one didn’t make its production costs back.

Download “Die, Die My Darling” (in .wmv format/ ~4Mb)⁴

Spent most of the afternoon and long into the night playing/tinkering with game. Now firmly into the post war period, managing the chaos which is a busy B-Movie studio. Trying to get “Maximus studios” off the bottom of the Studio league table, by churning out crap short films to rake in the dough. Then I can go back to make my WW2 epic, or perhaps some more strange Sci-fi/Horror films.

I’m rather smitten by this game. I like messing about with this sort of multimedia nonsense. The good thing about the Movies is that you don’t have to create things from scratch, so its relatively quick to put a short movie together. Most of all its fun. Expect more nonsense from this direction 😀

¹Of all the muppets that have been on X-Factor they are the most tolerable.
² Ok so it was an excuse for me to try out all the fight scenes.
³ Apart from adding the music after wards, and slightly changing the titles. This can now be done in game using the “Post production studio” but this wasn’t available when I originally made the game. You can also make films with all the options, sets, props and costumes etc., in the out of game Sandbox mode.
⁴Next on the list of things to learn is to import these files into flash in a smaller format.