Steam Achievements, Balance Improvements, and New Faces On The Lot
Hello, moguls! This is a big one. We've rebuilt how audiences find your pictures, changed how a studio earns its reputation, and filled the town with new people for a studio that's just starting out. Here's what's new in Backlot: Hollywood Studio Tycoon.
Weekly Payments:
The biggest feature in this update is the brand-new Weekly Payment System. When you start a new production, you’ll now only pay 25% upfront. The remaining cost will be split into weekly installments. So you should consider taking a credit or becareful about your budget.
This change fundamentally shifts how you manage budgets and makes Producers and Events far more crucial to your success:
Producers: Beyond providing upfront capital, a good producer can now shorten your production time and significantly reduce your total weekly costs.
Events: Watch out! Any event that delays your production now directly impacts your bottom line. If an event adds another week to your timeline, you’ll need to make sure you have enough cash in reserve to cover the extra weekly payout—or risk running completely out of money!
Your Audience Improved:
Your picture decides its audience. We improved upon how good it is and who it's for set how many people will ever buy a ticket. Luck, stars, marketing, the month and your screen count only decide how many of them turn up in week one. This will make the job of flops harder. So as a manager, you should be careful.
Good pictures draw bigger crowds. While a flop will be suffering at box office, a solid picture will take twice of that, and a landmark movie three times as many. A great picture can now sell out for months, so how widely you open it really matters.
Every week is a little different. Some of your audience stays home each week, but they don't disappear. They're still out there for next week, so a run always trends down but never falls off a cliff. Some people comes late to the party. With this update every week of cinema will be important.
A mid-run marketing campaign now brings in new audience, not just a quicker week.
Bigger cinemas for a bigger country. Seats per screen grow with the population, so later eras can pay their rent.
Rivals play by the same rules. They'll shrink or pull a picture that's losing money, just like you should.
Television
A show's audience now comes from the show itself: its quality, its network, its night.
Star power draws curious viewers to the premiere, and that fades over the first few episodes.
New: Promote the Show. Spend to grow your following and give the next episodes a lift.
A full season now earns your studio as much fame as a film of the same quality.
Network warnings reset after a week that pays the network back, so one good week gets you off the hook.
Series are now paid for week by week while they shoot, just like films.
Fame Is Earned
Your studio now builds its name more slowly, and the pace depends on difficulty: 2× slower on Studio System, 4× on Independent, 6× on Poverty Row and 8× on Four-Walled. Studio System now opens with 500 fame.
A studio that keeps releasing no longer fades. Fame only slips after 10 quiet weeks, or very slightly once you're past 7,000.
Stars now judge you on a curve. Unknowns will work for anyone, but the biggest names want a studio that has proved itself, and signing someone to a contract asks more than hiring them for one picture.
New Faces for New Studios
34 new starter characters a brand-new studio can hire from day one: 19 actors covering every genre (including three comedians), 9 composers and 6 producers.
Artists who won't work with you yet are now shown dimmed, with the fame they're waiting for. A new filter hides them if you'd rather not look.
This update especially makes the Casting Office, and Scouting for the new talents. In order to find new and better talents, you should search for them.
We have also changed the pictures of the actors and others. This new procedural system will let us create a portrait creation for you too while starting to the game. Which will be improved further.
When you are bankrupt
When you bankrupt you will see couple of options including letting the creditors take your belongings or parts of the studio. Or you can take a loan, release bonds.
Loan and bond options now open the Finance screen with the clock stopped, so you choose exactly how much to borrow and for how long.
Quality of Life
A new weekly report card lists what needs your attention each week. You can hide it, or skip it from the start with the new New Game option.
An Extend button now sits next to "Pull from theaters" on any film with a fixed-length cinema contract.
Revenue charts are thicker and animate as they grow.
The tutorial has been rewritten and tightened to 20 steps, and new careers with the tutorial on start paused.
Lots of smaller fixes and balance changes.
Our immediate plans
More balance tweaks
Much better tutorial
Day & Night cycle (visual)
Creating a board for the next updates and when they will happen
Creating a wiki or a guide for the game mechanics
Improving the character portraits system
Adding more events
Creating more event videos