Unofficial Tex Murphy

Nah, I can't say I ever tried "The Movies" but let me tell you, I wanted to. The game was on my radar for the longest time as it was being made, and when it came out I was in a tight spot, money wise. So I never made the purchase. And then it just dropped off my radar. I would love to actually play it once or twice. I never fully understood the mechanics of the game engine as it was explained, though, and wonder, are you the director? The producer? The actor? Which part do you play? Or do you like, in essence play all the parts?

Also, in response to your earlier line about playing the original game before playing the sequel. I think, at least in the videogame universe, that sequels are created so that not only can the original game players play and love the game, but so can new comers. I have absolutely no idea what happened in the first Longest Journey, but I can say I'm having a blast with Dreamfall.

I tried The Movies, but didn't have the level of control that I wanted to.

I'm currently well into "The Movies" and I must say that I really love the gameplay in it. You can actually say it's a bit like Theme Park and Theme Hospital, where you start up with nothing and you should end up with a fully functional movie studio (whereas you should have a fully functional theme park and hospital in the before mentioned games). If you play with the start tutorial on, you get to know all the basic knowledge in the beginning of the game - how to create sets, staff offices, hire actors/extras/directors/janitors/builders/movie crew and such. Along with all the created buildings and sets one should also create paths so people are able to get to them + it's necessary to place ornaments and various other things to make the studio lot more attractive to look at. During the game the actors begin to get more upset with their status or salary, so you need to buy trailers or give them a raise - maybe a make-over in order to keep them happy and to give the best performance when shooting a movie.

So basically when the game is well under way the purpose is to write great scripts (which can be done automatically by hiring scriptwriters or you can do the entire work yourself if you want that) - after a script is written the casting of actors will begin and when they are ready the movie is shot. Research can be done so new sets, trends and such are "invented" throughout the game. Every "year" there's an award ceremony and if you've been great at the game you can win awards thus earning more advantages when playing.

Of course there's also a sand box edition of the game where all sets and buildings are present from the start - thereby making the game a bit easier to begin with - but all in all it's really a great game and I've enjoyed myself a lot by playing it.