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Roll Camera: The Filmmaking Board Game
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Description
You are movie producers in a failing film production company. You have one last chance to make a successful film - otherwise the company will collapse and you’ll never work in this town again! You have to use the resources at your disposal to produce this film on time and under budget, ensure it’s a high enough quality, and make some sense of the resulting story. No time to waste - roll camera!
Roll Camera! is a cooperative or solo dice worker placement game of resource management and a central geometric puzzle representing your shooting arrangement. You throw the custom D6 Crew dice, each face representing a different production department (camera, light, sound, actor, production design, visual effects) and assign them to actions, either on the main board or on your individual player boards. Your player board features a specific head of department (Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor, Production Designer or The Star) and contains unique action spaces that can be used on your turn.
Place the Crew in specific arrangements matching those on the Shot cards, resolve the constant Problems getting in your way, and hold production meetings to play Idea cards from your hand to help out. Everything costs time and money, and you lose if either one runs out. You must also ensure your film reaches a certain level of Quality in order to win!
At the game's end, you'll have a unique sequence of completed Shot cards which you can "premiere" using the story cues -- it's the filmmaking game that results in a "real" movie!
So, I need to preface this review by letting you all know that I am not a kickstarter addict like many of my fellow reviewers (and surely many of you). Not mentioning any names, you know who you are! I have been burned many times for backing cute looking games that turned out to be straight up stinky doggy doo doo. Here I WILL name names: Monstrosity – take-that chaos, Alien Petshop – straight up kids’ game, Dungeon Date – *shivers* there are no words egregious enough to describe. I feared Roll Camera might follow suite.
SPOILER ALERT! I would not be writing a review here for Zatu if Roll Camera actually did follow in the previous games’ stead. So just how did this game hold up? Now that requires a deeper dive…
Lean Bean Fighting Machine
Roll Camera is quite unexpectedly a totally cooperative undertaking. Usually, when you see cute looking games with gimmicky prefaces, they end up being take-that style games. I am thankful that it is not the case here. I think the world has by far enough games of this ilk. It was refreshing to simply see the word ‘cooperative’ attached to this game. Most cooperative games are big, chunky, intimidating looking games (by comparison). And in comparison to the take-that style games, I think the world could benefit from having more lighter hearted styled cooperative games.
This game is very easy to learn how to play. And if rule books make you groan then there is a very thorough, informative, and entertaining ‘how to play’ video on youtube from the designer himself. And another one for the B-side expansion if you have that too. The gameplay comes down to rolling some dice, assigning your dice to different spots that dictate actions, then removing the dice for the next player. It is that simple. But what is it you are actually doing? And why are you doing them?
Reservoir Beans
The aim of Roll Camera is to communally work towards filming the next big blockbuster. This includes everything from having the perfect script, building your set, and of course, filming your scenes. This is all determined by rolling dice and deciding where to place them. There are actions that can hold any die result, and actions that require specific die results, and there is also a VFX die result that acts as a wild result.
The nice little touch here is that some actions require several of the same die result. If you only roll 1 of the result needed, but that action is needed for the group, then you can still assign a die there. This means when it is time to take dice off the board to pass to the next player, you can opt to save any dice that didn’t trigger an action. If the next player rolls the result needed, then they can choose to complete this action on their turn instead. This gives a great sense of actually working together throughout turns.
One of my favourite actions in the game is the production meeting action. This allows you to pull together with your team mates to throw some ideas on the table. Quite literally. As well as rolling dice, you also have a small hand of idea cards that you are allowed to play when this action is taken. These idea cards essentially come in the form of little boons to help overcome challenges. There are always 3 idea cards presented, 1 from each player. Don’t worry, there are rules in play for 2 or 4 player games. The active player gets to play one idea immediately, bank a second one (that becomes an available dice placement option) and discards the third.
The Green Bean
The challenge in Roll Camera comes in twofold. At the start of each turn, you need to reveal a problem card. These are exactly what they say they are. From minor irritations to major thorns in the bum bum: these cards hinder your film making progress. In order to resolve them, you need to assign dice to their location. The longer you leave the problems unresolved, the further they slide down, and the harder they get to be rid of. These problems can stop you playing certain die results, make certain actions unavailable, and just all-round mess you up. But at least you are facing them together.
The second challenge comes from the budget and time scales that are perpetually winding down to your demise. That’s a bit dramatic isn’t it? A sprinkle of drama never hurts in selling a film. The dials actually just spin down to a studio shutdown. When either dial hits the lowest chevron then it is game over. (I wonder how many Stargate fans that sentence triggered.) Maybe someone should be offering up better ideas to help avoid this situation. The time dial spins down at the start of every turn, so you need to manage each dice roll efficiently to succeed. And the budget dial spins down mainly after every scene you film for your film.
There are of course some small ways to mitigate these problems and increase your time and budget, but they are very few and far between. You need to plan well and offer up good ideas at the right times to succeed. I presume. I have never actually won a game yet.
The Good…
There are some things that Roll Camera does really well. The set up for the three different difficulties with each player count are shown really clearly on the reverse of the dial counter that you use each turn. This simple little detail ticks my attentive boxes. I love that the way to win is to make a film that isn’t a flop, and there are two ways to do this. Slide the quality marker into one of the 6 top spots (out of 17) to achieve a film critique of ‘not bad’ to ‘cinematic masterpiece’. Or slide the quality marker all the way to the 1 spot on the bottom to win with a ‘so bad its great’ result.
Each player gets to choose from a whole host of different roles for making the film. From star actor/actress to film director and production designer etc. Each of these character boards have unique dice placement options for that player giving the game a small asymmetrical appeal. The best part of these boards however is that there is a male version of the character on one side and a female character on the other. Each of the characters also come with their own player aid that explains their unique dice placement options on one side, and those on the main board on the reverse side.
I also enjoy the script decks being separated into a top deck and a bottom deck. The top card of each of these decks combine to give you the title of your film, plus gives each game a unique end of game scoring result.
Little details like these really appeal to me and make me smile. They both give the game more depth, and a charming character. Which is only enhanced further with the charming artwork.
The Bean…
There is a lot to like about this game, but of course, no game is perfect. There are some caveats that you should be aware of. The main one of these being that the game is simply pretty damn hard, which contrasts its whimsical appearance. This mainly comes down to the game relying heavily on the luck of the dice dictating what you can and can’t do. The problem cards limit your options and some action spaces will often have banked dice placed on them. This beans you often end up with either not many dice to roll, or dice results you can’t use. Or both. This is especially frustrating when there is a lack of many dice mitigation options.
The problem cards also get on top of you very quickly. Only 3 can ever be out at the same time, but that can still be some heavy restrictions on the game. Sometimes it feels like the game is easier if you manage to fill the three slots with minor inconveniences and just play around them. This is less resource heavy than simply assigning dice every single turn to get rid of them.
…And The Ugly
This subtitle is a little misleading. It is simply there for the comedic continuation of the previous sections. There is nothing ugly about this game. Unless you are not a fan of the artwork. Then I guess the whole game is ugly for you.
For me though, I am pleasantly charmed by the artwork of Roll Camera. I love the stylised bean characters and find all the little details comical and interesting. I love the easy to recognise symbology. I love that the problem cards have a symbol on the reverse so that you have an idea of what the problem will affect. I love that the scene cards are monochrome to reflect the genre the scene is. And I love that when you film the scenes and move them over to your film reel, you flip them over to reveal their full colour side.
The component quality in Roll Camera is simply outstanding. Every piece from the rule book to the box to the dice to the game tray have been expertly crafted. The rulebook, main board, player board and all cards have been produced to the highest standard and have a such a lovely, tactile feeling to them.
That’s A Wrap!
I think Roll Camera is a game that you can tell straight off the bat if you are going to enjoy it or not. It is simple to understand with very few components, which makes it easily accessible for a wide age range of gamers. It comes in a uniquely shaped game box that opens and closes like one of those film thingies you always see being snapped shut before a take of a scene starts to be filmed. You know the thing I bean. Sorry, the thing I mean. The component tray is also in the shape of a film reel. It is gimmicky true, but with the box being designed vertically instead of horizontally, it is great that the component tray comes designed to close tightly shut without components falling everywhere.
I don’t think there is much here for seasoned gamers. I can see this game appealing well to those who game with their families, with different age groups or those with various gaming groups. It is a decent little all-rounder that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.
Roll Camera is a co-op game for 1-4 players about making a movie, where if something can go wrong it will go wrong. The theme and aesthetic instantly appealed to me as I have seen things go wrong from working in a theatre and problem solving is a reality. I also really like cartoony graphics and don’t own many co-op games (as someone who’s friends with people who want to win alone and who can blame them?). I think Roll Camera is an excellent thematic game though I find it hard to pinpoint who it’s for, as it seems too difficult for children yet there may be too little to do for adults. I’ve been playing on the Easy setting and it’s hard! I will probably struggle with the actual hard difficulties. There’s no doubt that the game does feel like a pressure cooker with the timer ticking down and the money draining fast. The production meetings and special abilities are incredibly important and you will definitely lose if you don’t utilise those.
Those are my general thoughts, but as you’ve gathered Roll Camera also has a solo mode so you can make all the key production decisions yourself without being hampered by other people! If only things really worked that way. But does this improve or hinder the game?
Setting The Scene
The set up for a solo game is exactly the same as a multiplayer one. You may get an idea card that you can’t use but this is indicated by a multiplayer symbol on the card. Your aim is the same, make a film that’s good or so bad it’s good! You start with two idea cards and your character role. I used to think the Director was the only viable option since you’re so scrapped for time (and the Director can compromise to get extra time) but actually everyone’s abilities are useful and they can all turn things around. You’d also arrange the scene, script and problem cards as usual. The script being the main way you score points as it values the emotions of certain scenes (for example, angry scenes for a film called ‘Bloody, Bloody Murder’) and you’ll get more quality points, the more angry scenes you shoot.
Every turn your schedule goes down by one and if you move the set or shoot a scene your money goes down. Every turn begins with a new problem, like the set designers deciding to paint everything with gold leaf or the lights melting the set. And problems get harder to solve the longer you leave them, from needing two dice to two matching dice to three matching dice. But any time you use your valuable dice to solve a problem, you have fewer dice to do other important things like hold production meetings and actually shoot scenes. For every five problems you solve you can choose to get $2 or 1 time. You shoot scenes by completing the dice formation on the scene cards.
And shooting scenes is important as it’s how you finish the game, if you run out of money or time at any point you lose the game immediately. So it’s all about resource management. I found that often it was better just to shoot a random scene than wait for the perfect one cause time is a-tickin’ and another problem will probably come and ruin your carefully planned out storyboard.
I did have a game where I got myself in the unfortunate situation of production meetings, new scenes and gaining quality were all blocked, leaving me in a bit of a pickle. And since you need quality to win the game, I was in even more of a bind. And losing quality (to make a so bad it’s good film) is harder than you think as that problem makes you go back to the start point if you do lose quality before the end of the turn. I did lose that game, but it was interesting to see all those problems basically destroy my chances of a good film.
So you continue to do these actions: having production meetings, solving problems, getting interns, arranging the set and shooting scenes until you either complete five scenes and win or you run out of money or time and lose. Hopefully you will find your inner production manager and be able to find ways to solve your problems and make your film work.
Rolling!
It’s a dice game, so if you roll badly you’re pretty scuppered. You do have the option of using an intern to change the die face but that creates new problems. The Producer has the ability to change unassigned dice for a die and $1, so that’s definitely something to utilise if you’ve chosen that character. Like a lot of co-op games, using your character’s unique abilities is really important as it bypasses some of the normal rules. The characters are really fun too, I am a fan of The Star as they get to play an idea for one die and they are the star. Though naturally the player privileges are not as fun when you’re playing solo. There’s no one to generate applause from.
It’s easy to see how this game could get really frustrating if you never rolled what you needed and you couldn’t really see a way of getting out of that situation. Lots of the actions feel expensive too and every resource is precious. That’s probably the point of the game, but it’s not for everyone. Some games just shake out better than others, perhaps you get a script that works great with the scenes. Or you turn your problems into opportunities. Maybe the set keeps spinning round, but if you can make a scene fit that set, then you’re flying. There’s enough variety to have a couple of fun games and make different kinds of films. Though there is a limit on the content in the game and once you’ve seen everything, the puzzle and theme aren’t really enough for me to see real longevity with the solo game.
There are some production company challenge cards you can use (like always have a full spread of problems, which does not sound like a fun challenge), but if the mechanics of the base game have run its course, then you won’t get much out of them.
That’s A Wrap!
I found Roll Camera! a little bit mixed as a co-op game. It’s not the easiest to access and felt difficult to get a handle on. It also has my general problem with co-op games that when someone knows the game well, they can effectively play by themselves and just tell everyone what to do (maybe the Director role is supposed to lean into that), removing the other players’ agency. But as a solo game, I felt much more control and I liked it a lot more. It countered the multiplayer solo game but just being a solo game where you can make all the decisions and it becomes more of an interesting puzzle that way. Maybe you’re not meant to have control in this game but I think it helped the experience.
The game continues to shine in its theme and aesthetics and I love the dice, they’re really cute. I’ve found as you learn the game, a bad dice roll is less likely to ruin you as you can find a compromise. Learning how to best utilise your role and how to make problems work for you gives the puzzle more depth too. This might not be a game you’ll be able to play over and over again solo, but it’s fun while it lasts.