To say that I am a fan of the film industry would be an understatement. I have watched countless documentaries and interviews with actors, directors, producers, writers, and plenty of other positions in order to get more insight into how the films that we see in theaters come to life. My dream job since I was in high school has been to be a screenwriter and to have my stories show up on the big screen. When I heard that there was a game coming out that allowed you to run a movie studio, it seemed like a game that I could easily get hours of enjoyment out of. However, certain aspects of Moviehouse caused that to be a difficult task.

Moviehouse – The Film Studio Tycoon is a game that is developed by Odyssey Studios and published by Assemble Entertainment. Odyssey Studios is based in Latvia and this is their debut game. Assemble Entertainment is a German game publisher that has been around since 2016 and has been involved in the publication of over 40 games. Looking at the portfolio of Assemble Entertainment, it appears that they primarily work with indie developers in bringing their games to players. It also seems like they have a track record of releasing games with mostly positive reviews or rather divisive games amongst the players who find them.

Moviehouse – The Film Studio Tycoon, which I will just refer to as Moviehouse from now on, is a casual Strategy game where you have to manage the overall business of your movie studio. Everything from hiring writers, finding talent, creating scripts, and more are all at your fingertips as you navigate your studio’s rise to the top of the film industry.

The game promises players the ability to “Experience the decades – start with a small film crew in the 80s, develop your first short-film, and taste the sweet nectar of box office revenue. When your enterprise expands, you’ll create better movies, hire a larger crew, and, of course, need a bigger boat!” While all of these tasks have interesting aspects to them, there are also some things that don’t quite stick the landing.

The first thing that didn’t stick the landing for me was the general map overview. In my first attempt at playing the game, the button to hire a director was not functional at all. The button was lit up and indicated that I was clicking on it. However, it refused to pop up the menu that would allow me to hire a director. I tried reloading, but that didn’t work, so I had to fully abandon that run and start from scratch with a new save.

In subsequent attempts, that bug never showed up again. The second issue I had was the creative process of making the films. While it would be ridiculous to have every aspect of the films you make be crafted to a certain specification since the game isn’t about micromanaging from an omnipotent perspective, there does seem to be a clear lack of passion towards the showmanship of the various parts of pre-production, production, and post-production.

The two positive things that Moviehouse has going for it are that it is cheap to buy and it requires very little from your computer. The current full price of the game is $10.99, which is quite low for a new game and hopefully means that Odyssey Studios won’t have to sell too many copies in order to make a profit. The computer requirements are simple since it only requires a 2 GHz Dual Core 64-bit processor, Windows 10 64bit, 4-8 GB of Ram, 1 GB of Storage, and a GeForce GT 1030. For macOS, the requirements are similar with MacOS 10.15+, 2.3 GHz Dual Core Intel Core i5 64-bit processor, and Intel Iris Plus 640 graphics card being the only differences.

Overall, Moviehouse is not a game that I can recommend in its current state. I had held off doing this review for quite a long time in the hopes that the developers would release an update that would radically change the game. However, that has yet to materialize, we even reached out to the devs to ask for comment on the state of the game. Despite that, Moviehouse is certainly a game to keep an eye on in the future, especially since the developers seem to be willing to provide updates to it. I would be willing to revisit the game once it gets the changes that could make it amazing.

A PC Review Copy of Moviehouse – The Film Studio Tycoon was provided by Assemble Entertainment for this review.

Moviehouse - The Film Studio Tycoon

$10.99

4

Score

4.0/10

Pros

• Easy Computer Requirements
• Cheap price

Cons

• Not Engaging
• Lack of Creativity
• Occasional Bugs
• Feels Like an Early Access Game