Review - Hollywood Blockbuster

Today I want to offer a review of a game that is relatively new to me, Hollywood Blockbuster. Hollywood Blockbuster is a remake of the Knizia game Traumfabrik for an English-speaking audience and is published by Uberplay. It is an auction game where players take the roles of movie producers trying to collect movie components and assign them to films in production. Completed films give you points and let you vie for the many movie awards given out during the course of the game.

Every player starts the game with a number of ‘contracts’, the currency used in the game, and three movies that they are trying to complete. The layout of the board consists primarily of eight spaces, each of which represents an opportunity to acquire tiles which show directors, stars, guest stars, cameras or special effects. Each of these tiles also has from zero to four stars, which add to the quality of the film to which they are assigned. Who gets the tiles from each space is usually decided by auction, but two of the eight spaces feature ‘parties’, in which each player gets to choose one of these in turn at no cost (the player who won the previous auction gets first pick and play proceeds clockwise). The players will traverse the board four times, each trip around representing one year of movie-making. That means there are only 24 auctions and eight parties to make as many movies as you can.

One of the interesting features of this auction game is that it features a closed economy. All contracts paid out by the auction winner are divided up equally by the remaining players. Any contracts that can’t be equally divided are left in the center of the board and divided along with the proceeds of the next auction. Spending money means it goes somewhere else so how it’s even more important to pay attention to how much you spend on an auction (and how much will be left in the middle).

The movies that players are trying to make are either blue, green, or yellow which correspond roughly to the action, comedy, and drama genres. Every movie requires a director and includes a spot for an optional guest star. Other requirements may vary greatly. Every movie also comes with a number of stars, based presumably on the quality of the script. When a player places all of the required tiles on a movie, it’s “in the can” and he counts up the total number of stars on the movie and the placed tiles and takes a corresponding scoring tile. Finishing a movie also means you get a new movie card, if there are still any left. There are a limited amount of scoring tiles (two for most values) and if they are already gone, he will have to take the next lower tile and score less points. Finishing first will often score you more points and counts as a tie-breaker when deciding who wins awards.

Speaking of awards, they are one of the most thematic and entertaining parts of the game. Awards for the first movie in each category reward you with five points, as do “best movie” awards for the first three years. The major awards are worth ten points each and are all given out when the game ends after year four. These awards are for best blue, green, and yellow film, best film overall, worst film, and best director (all of a player’s director stars for finished movies are added together). Everyone adds their awards to the amount of stars they garnered from finishing movies and the highest score wins.

The thing that I like most about this game is that it lies in the sweet spot of having enough strategy to entertain true gamers, while not being so daunting that family members would never dare to play. The theme of the game lies more in the board design and the names the game uses than in the actual game mechanics, but it is an inviting one and adds to the enjoyment of the game. The fact that the actors and movies are puns on those that are well-known adds to the appeal of the theme. The game is well-produced and easy to learn and play. Overall I score this game a 7.5 out of 10.