CaptainD's Freeware Game Digest #6 - The Director's Chair
May 24 '04 (Updated Sep 18 '07)
The Bottom Line Very retro, but very good.
CaptainD's Freeware Game Digest #6 - The Director's Chair
Director’s Chair is a game written in Quickbasic that will really take you back in time if you remember all those text-based Acorn Electron / BBC Model B games you played in school. I even tried writing several games like this over the year (failures, the lot of them :-C ). What type of game am I talking about?
“You are the boss of a software company. What type of game do you want to design next? 1/ Arcade 2/ Adventure 3/ RPG 4/ Shoot ‘em up… How much money are you going to spend advertising the game?…” etc. (Just reminded me of a game I must include when I write “Blasts from the Past – The Commodore 16…) Well, this particular game puts you in (go on, guess) the Director’s chair. Yep, you’re going to make a movie.
With its tiny download size (96Kb) you have no right not to try this game. If you’re old like me (well, not old exactly… just old enough to remember using the ZX81) then it’ll bring back a load of memories, and if the mere thought of playing a game that doesn’t involve state-of-the-art 3D graphics scares you, then you really need to see what it was like in the good old days…
But enough waffling, onto the game itself. Your first decision is whether to buy a script or write your own. (The quality of the script either way seems to be random.) When you have a decent (or hopefully good off), you send it to the studios – some will offer to make the film, but you’re only really interested in the ones that will also let you direct. At the start of the game, there will only be one that does this. The studio then gives you a budget and a deadline, which you must keep to if you want to be popular.
You have various choices to make, such as what sets to build and how much to spend on them, how much to spend on the cast (though until your reputation grows, only unknown actors will want to be in your film anyway), how much to spend on SFX etc. Once all that is decided, you go into the actual production of the film. This is done week by week – some weeks, everything will run smoothly, in others you’ll be told of disasters or accidents that require monetary outlay (don’t spend it all on pre-production!), or various events that pop up and require your decision. These include actors getting stroppy, the company boss wanting you to give a part in the film to their relative (who may be able to act well… but then again..), the choreographer asking just how intense an action scene you want shot, etc. The decision you make in each instance has an effect on the overall quality of the film.
When everything’s done and you’ve tied up a few post-production details, the film opens and you are told how much profit it made, how happy the studio bosses are about it, and whether it was nominated for / won any awards. And then it’s off to get hold of another script and start the process again, or quit and see your overall score (and whether you made it onto the high score table).
You just can’t compare this type of game to modern epics that take years to learn the controls of, or even other freeware titles – the lack of graphics and the simplicity of the gameplay makes it a whole new ball game. If you’ve got the right mindset for it, Director’s Chair is loads of fun and is exceptionally well put together. (Having tried to code this type of game in the past I know exactly how easy it is for errors to creep in!!) For the few seconds (okay, perhaps a couple of minutes on a really slow dial-up) it will take you to download this, you owe it to yourself to at least try it out.
Final Ratings
Graphics: - N/A
Sound: - N/A
Playability: - 10/10 – you can’t possibly fail to pick this game up and play it straight away!
Longevity: - 8/10 – even though it seems a little too easy, it’ll still take you a while to win the oscars!
Replay Value: - 8/10 – I’ll certainly play it again, and unlike many games today it’s a game you can play in that odd few minutes you suddenly find you have and still enjoy it.
Overall Rating: - 7/10 – it’s hard knowing how to rate this, given the difference in people’s tastes and of course the lack of any sound or graphics (apart from some fairly impressive ascii representations of newspapers!) If you don’t have the nostalgia about it that I do, I doubt if you’d like it at all. But I like it, so there!
Download Size: - 96K
Where to get it: - http://geckogames.extremecarnage.co.uk/DirectorsChair.htm
System Requirements - um, a PC… a 286DX would probably be fine (if there are any of those still around…)
Thanks for reading,
Dave
Copyright 2004 Dave Seaman
Please feel free to link to this article. If you wish to quote from it, please feel free but I would appreciate it if you also include a link.
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See CaptainD’s Freeware Game Digest #1 & Index for more freeware game reviews.
See also: My Top Ten Freeware Adventure Games (September 2007 Edition)
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