Preview – Hollywood Animal

Today’s the day. One of the games I’ve been anticipating is launching into early access. Hollywood Animal. A game about being a jerk in charge of managing jerks. To be more specific, it’s about managing jerks who make movies.

You begin by buying a bankrupt movie studio at the end of the ‘20s. The Great Depression and Prohibition are both doing their part to make things suck. Racism, misogyny, corruption is rife. It’s the perfect environment to make some money. Potentially.

I’m not very good at it, as it seems. Part of that may be because I have trouble letting go of certain principles. Weappy Wholesome isn’t fucking around. You have the option to be an absolute scumbag to protect and further your business. Actors often have vices and get into all sorts of hijinks, like killing someone’s dog or burning down a hotel room, and it’s up to you to make their problems go away before they sink your projects.

Sometimes, you have the option to make them face the consequences for their actions, but it reflects on your studio. It can tank entire movie projects. A director might want to set a horse on fire, and you may have to sacrifice some of their loyalty to avoid traumatizing the rest of the production staff. People suck. Put a bunch of them together and they’ll suck in all directions. Hollywood Animal depicts this with fearless frankness. Not for the faint of heart.

VICE AIN’T NICE

Which isn’t to say that Weappy is trying to be edgy. More accurately, it’s just very cynical. They make it pretty clear that a lot of the behaviour involved is abhorrent. There’s no sympathy for the perpetrators, and since the game is about showing the dirty underwear of humanity, it’s effective to come in so hard. That’s especially true considering at the historical setting of the ‘20s. They make a statement at the beginning of the game saying that they believe “that to ignore and suppress these matters, no matter how terrible and unfair they may seem, would be to pretend they never existed.”

I tend to agree, but it’s not for the faint of heart. I think it’s worthwhile, so long as the content is marked for anyone who has trauma around some subjects. Just brace yourself. Even knowing what I was getting into, there were moments when my eyebrows hit the ceiling.

But making movies isn’t merely about keeping racist egos in check, it’s also about making movies. There is an incredible amount of depth in the process, as you have to take things from planning, to pre-production, to production, to post-production, to distribution. Along the way, you choose what employees take care of what position, as well as how much money to spend on the overall production on things like extras and on-location filming. Then there’s a matter of how many showings of the movie you want, what advertising, and so on. There’s a lot that goes into it, even if it’s all menu-driven

And then you have all the human problems that crop up, as I’ve mentioned before. An announce of prevention can be helpful, since, for example, having security on site can allow you to protect the staff or beat up someone who’s causing a problem. Having rolling edits unlocked in the scripting department means you can re-write the story around certain incidents. It’s all about taking risks and enduring when things backfire.

STRICTLY BUSINESS

Things that I don’t do particularly well, it seems. While the current early access build supposedly contains 20 years on the calendar, I can’t make it past the first few before I go bankrupt. It’s rough. I’m pretty good at business sim games (despite struggling with real-life budget building), but Hollywood Animal has me hitting the wall.

Mostly, I’m uncertain how to make profit on my films. On my last attempt, I thought I finally had it worked out by careful planning when it comes to the theatres I was renting. A couple movies brought in a cool million each, but, without changing strategies, later movies (ones more critical to my budget) lost me hundreds of thousands.

These are things that are no doubt going to be tweaked based on player feedback, but if I can offer some of my own: better tutorializing or context-specific advisor prompts would help significantly. I don’t necessarily need Hollywood Animal to be easier – I like a challenge – but I need to know where I’m making mistakes so I can build the tools for success. What am I doing wrong? Am I releasing at the wrong time of year? Am I not marketing correctly? Do I need to make more drastic adjustments based on a film’s quality? I don’t know, and trial and error here is painful. This is especially true considering the initial tutorial (and even the intro cutscene) is unskippable.

Note these things: Research the casting and marketing offices first. If you can’t hire new actors when you need more or advertise your movies when your pre-paid three campaigns run out, then you’ll sink quickly. I think the tech trees could probably be better arranged to help keep the player from kneecapping themselves.

TWO DECADES

But, really, balance will come from player feedback. Hollywood Animal is a sprawling and ambitious title. Watching its development, my biggest concern was that a small studio would have difficult keeping all the variables wrangled. Early Access is a good way to build something like this, since players can point out where things don’t make sense or aren’t working quite right; something that can easily be lost in a big development document, spreadsheet, or a living build.

Even in Early Access, there’s allegedly a lot going on in Hollywood Animal. Reportedly, 20 years are represented. Act 2 – which will include 20 more years spanning through to the end of the ‘60s – is scheduled to arrive in the latter half of 2025. Act 3 – which I’m guessing will be an addition 20 years – is coming sometime after that. Each one will come with new events and social changes to navigate.

As it is, a lot of the gameplay systems are in place. It’s maybe not a completely complete game, but it’s complete enough to be satisfying. I don’t feel any reservations in checking it out early.

My only problem is that it’s pretty brutal. And not in a thematic way – but also in a thematic way – but in terms of difficulty. However, that’s something that can be rectified on the fly during Early Access. Based on what’s currently available, I have absolute faith that Weappy can get Hollywood Animal off the runway. It’s a staggeringly deep and customizable experience, and it’s one that I can’t wait to get back into. Even though it’s kicking my ass.

This preview is based on the Early Access release candidate. It was provided by the developer.