Cinemaster Cinema Simulator Review (PC)

The bog-standard business simulation game is a lot like a cheap bag of microwave popcorn: bursting at the seams with tasteless seeds that look like absolute garbage, and not to mention tediously packaged in a dime a dozen food aisle that you would usually gloss over without thinking twice. I’m not saying all of them are bad — just that there’s a formula that is a little too comfortable in its own skin. Take Cinema Simulator, for example. Like popcorn (it’s a fitting metaphor at this point, I’ll leave it at that), the bag mostly contains a mismatched collection of good and bad seeds, with the latter half being as palatable as—you guessed it—a cheap bag microwave popcorn. But there is some good to this product, and it wouldn’t be doing it justice if I didn’t spend a bit of time trying to applaud its finer points.

Of course, if you had said to me that I’d be spending my weekend shuffling popcorn and sorting the week’s movie schedule for a flock of cinema goers, I’d have referred you back to the comment about cheap bags of microwave popcorn. Surely, I don’t have the intent of ever becoming a popcorn merchant, but then, I can’t say I’ve ever had the intention of becoming a goat, a fish, or a power washing operator, either. But that’s just it: I don’t plan on doing any of these things, yet there’s a small part of me that wishes to peek beyond the curtain of certain trades to see how their cogs rotate. And, as it turns out, the movie theater is no exception to that. Do I want to make popcorn? No. But will I do it anyway? Sure — and then I’ll go and power wash Shrek’s swamp.

Popcorn & Promos

Cinema Simulator doesn’t break tradition by being anything other than a run-of-the-mill, rags-to-riches chore core gig — and I mean that in the nicest way possible. In a similar fashion as its peers, it essentially consists of a wall-to-wall routine—a typical shift, if you will, that involves carrying out basic tasks, like stocking the shelves, serving customers, applying for room upgrades, and maintaining the structural integrity of the building in question. The only major difference between this and other career simulators, of course, is that you don’t stock tomatoes — you stock movies. Aside from the plethora of various silver screen attributes, though, Cinema Simulator is, when all’s said and done, a bit like Supermarket Simulator, only with reclining chairs and a tailorable catalog of PG-13 flicks. And you know what? It’s actually a lot of fun to play.

As with any game of this kind, Cinema Simulator does take a bit of time to transition from a barebones chore into a slightly more immersive and, let’s face it, satisfying experience. Sure enough, it begins simple, mostly with a barren room, a worrying amount of decor, and a couple of movies that, quite frankly, nobody really cares about. However, if you make the effort to progress deeper into the job, then certain perks eventually unlock, which is where the game eventually finds its feet. And there are quite a number of upgrades to pursue, too, surprisingly, with some of them being locked behind a progression system, and others requiring a set amount of experience or cash to unlock. It’s reaching that point in the process, that’s the issue. Well, that is, providing you don’t have the patience of a saint, anyway.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

As I said, the process itself can be a lot of fun, more so once you’ve spent enough time whittling down chores and unlocking the necessary ingredients to grease the hinges, so to speak. It’s a slow burner, I’ll admit, given that the vast majority of your time is devoted to your work and not, for example, sourcing innovative ways to make certain aspects shine a little brighter. And that’s where a lot of people tend to fall from the tree — in the opening chapters, usually where goals mostly consist of completing the most mundane things conceivable, like filling buckets of popcorn, for instance. Yet, there’s a rewarding schematic in place here for those who choose to progress, which in turn helps ease the burden of juggling mindless tasks that take their toll on your patience.

The journey is incredibly straightforward—to the point where you could easily build a profitable business just by clocking in and earning a bit of pocket change on the side. That isn’t to say that there isn’t a strategic element to it, though; in fact, the game does often require you to create screening schedules—timetables that you can alter to accommodate a myriad of different genres. The strategic element here is that you have to keep up with trends, as well as allocate peak screening times to movies that are far more likely to net you more money. For example, where a cheap movie is more likely to save you money, it is also likely to result in fewer visitors — which means a lower intake in the long term. In other words, if you’re not filling seats, then you’re missing out. And frankly, it’s all about finding that balance.

Swings, Roundabouts & Ticket Stubs

If you had high hopes of strolling into Cinema Simulator with the expectation of finding a visually compelling piece of moving art, then you might want to ditch the ticket stub and take on another project. It doesn’t come as too much of a surprise at this point, given its association with textbook job-centric sims, but the fact is, Cinema Simulator isn’t the best-looking game on the carousel, for it does foster some pretty janky components and a mechanical design that is oftentimes a bit of a headache to navigate. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t all doom and gloom, as the basic functions are simple to understand. But, to point out the elephant in the room — you can tell that it’s a low-budget title and not, for example, a triple-A IP with the firepower of an entire nation of developers with limitless power and the resources to back it.

Verdict

Cinema Simulator sticks to the familiar formula by leaning on a lot of the same mechanics, features, and progression hoops, effectively making it a clone of its adversaries’ adjacent worlds. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that it’s “just another job simulator”, as it does manage to generate some great material for you to carve away at, including a sizable chunk of room upgrades, ever-evolving screening timetables, and a supply-and-demand system that will surely keep you on your toes for a dozen or more hours.

To cut a long story short, if you enjoy titles like House Flipper, Supermarket Simulator, or just about any other game that allows you to clock in and simulate a rather generic job, for that matter, then it’s likely that you will probably enjoy sweeping up popcorn and mopping up soda spills in Cinema Simulator. It isn’t the epic blockbuster you might want to throw yourself into, but it should keep you busy through to the final credit roll, anyway.