How to Make a Winning Studio Lot in Lionhead's The Movies Game

Knowing how to set up your studio is a key to winning Lionhead's The Movies Game. Though you begin with just a few sets and production buildings, space will soon be at a premium on your studio lot. Planning ahead is the key to meeting the needs of your studio and your nit-picking stars. You can use the lot design described below, or just rummage through for a few new ideas to add to your own design. Either way, you will be well on your way to victory.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Installed, Lionhead's The Movies Game
• Installed, The Movies Stunts and Effects Expansion Pack (optional)

1. No matter well you plan your studio lot, you will not be able to fit all of the buildings available to you during the course of the game. You won't use your Star and Script Selling Facility regularly so don't bother to build it unless the need arises. You won't need your Post Production Facility or Rehab (if you manage your stars properly) so don't waste the space. The Custom Scriptwriting Facility will come in handy as the game progresses but the stars won't need to go there, so you can build it in the outskirts of your lot as soon as it is unlocked.

2. 

   The game begins with an empty lot and several people standing in line to become builders. Pause the game immediately. Always pause when you are about to build so that you can take your time and place your buildings exactly where you want them to be. The first set of buildings (Studio School, Crew Facility, Script Office and later, the Laboratory) are particularly important because this is where your new people will line up to be hired. These new arrivals don't hang around for long, though, so you'll want to place all of your employee hiring buildings in the same area so you can keep an eye on them. The game offers a limited number of employees and you will need every one of them to do their jobs and later, to keep your stars happy with entourage. Placing all of these buildings together makes it easier to spot these guys when they arrive. I usually center these buildings near the gate, creating a center courtyard for things like benches and exercise equipment. This allows you to manage your stars (building friendships, improving their physical appearance or letting them chill when they get stressed out) and keep an eye on the hiring buildings at the same time.

3. Leave some space in the hiring area for the laboratory. Making a rectangle out of sidewalk squares about 14 x 21 should be big enough.

4. Since the higher level script offices are larger than the basic script office, you should make the basic script office lot a little bigger, about 17 x 18. You'll want to tear down the basic script office to make way for the intermediate script office, but you'll want to keep the intermediate script office and any better script offices you unlock later. Not all of your scripts need to be blockbusters. New scriptwriters line up at the lowest rank script office, so as long as you keep the lowest rank script office on your hiring strip, the other script offices can be placed anywhere you have room.

5. If you have the Stunts Expansion, leave a 16 x 13 lot for the stunt office. This is where your new stunt men will line up.

6. Now it is a good idea to set up the lots where the stars trailers will go. I usually center these in the middle of the studio lot. Make 4 lots about 14 x 20 for the trailers. I also put a little lot in front of the stage school for 2 snack vans and some benches.

7. Now its time to place the sets. You will never have enough room to place all the sets that you unlock, so try to position them as close together as possible. Since only the stage set can be placed while your money is in negatives, place the stage set last. Put 2 stage sets in the area you have set aside for the laboratory. Most of the earlier scripts will take place on these sets, and with 2 movies filming at the same time, you don't want to have to wait for the set to be clear. As soon as you unlock a new comedy set, tear down the two stage sets. You won't need them anymore. Don't forget to place about 4 restrooms around your lot. Make sure everything has a path to it. Now you can click the "play" icon (or hit "P" on your keyboard) and start making movies.

8. With the money you are now making you can beautify the lot a bit. Plants and ornaments have an overuse number (too many of them on a lot is detrimental). With plants and small ornaments the number you can place is 18 each. With big ornaments, like cars, the number is 3 each. Place sand everywhere except in the trailer lots and the snack bar lot, which should be grass. Place several trees around the restrooms until the area turns green (in beautification mode). Now place trees and flowerbeds around the lot until the area is green. Keep a count and only place 18 of each. Now place ornaments in the trailer lots. Thus the same ornament will increase both Studio Attractiveness and Trailer Prestige. Remember to place only 3 of each type of car. As new plants and ornaments are unlocked, continue to place them around your studio lot.

9. As a general rule, the more expensive the set, the less maintenance it requires to keep it in superb condition. Keeping this in mind, along with your space constraints, you will want to tear down most of the early sets as new sets of the same genre are unlocked. But what about all those scripts you have on hand that use those sets? No problem. You have two choices. You can temporarily build the Star and Script Selling Facility, sell the existing scripts and put your scriptwriters to work to come up with new movies. The alternative is to put each script into the Custom Script Office and manually change each scene from the old set to a new one. It makes no difference to the game which option you choose. It's just a matter of how you prefer to spend your time in the game.