Hollywood Animal

About

Hollywood Animal is a single player economy city builder game with economy and historical themes. It was developed by Weappy Wholesome and was released on April 10, 2025. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Roadmap About the GameBuild exactly the studio you want In Hollywood Animal, you can decide to build a multi-billion-dollar monster that destroys everything in its path, with blockbusters made strictly according to formulas. But this is far from your only option. You might instead create a boutique studio, and conquer the festivals with avant-garde directors. You could build a trash factor…

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80%

Audience ScoreBased on 1,604 reviews

gameplay103 positive mentions

stability104 negative mentions

Deep and engaging management mechanics that capture the gritty and complex nature of running a Hollywood studio in the early 20th century.
Rich historical immersion with authentic events, characters, and cultural context, including the darker aspects of the era.
Addictive core gameplay loop involving script writing, casting, production, and business strategy, with strong atmosphere, art style, and music.

Steep learning curve and initial difficulty spikes, with some critical mechanics locked behind long and punishing research trees.
Numerous bugs, crashes, and UI issues are present in the Early Access version, including game freezes, glitches, and poor optimization.
Gameplay can become repetitive and grindy after early years, with limited replayability due to scripted events and lack of procedural content variation.

gameplay
430 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
24%
71%
5%
The gameplay offers a deep, immersive tycoon experience with rich, strategic mechanics and a compelling core loop centered on film production and studio management. However, it currently suffers from significant issues including poor tutorialization, unclear or overly punishing mechanics, balance problems, bugs, and repetitive mid-to-late game content that hinder its accessibility and long-term engagement. Despite these flaws, many players find its unique setting, depth, and addictive loop promising, anticipating that future updates will improve clarity, balance, and add more variety and replayability.
- “I am blown away by how much history is weaved into it, the depth of the mechanics and how much freedom the game gives you.”
- “The game has enormous potential to be something incredibly unique, the core idea and the systems presented work extremely well together and the meat of the gameplay is incredibly fun.”
- “The core gameplay loop is centered on strategic decision-making and resource management, offering a robust experience for fans of the tycoon genre.”
- “This is a real problem in cases where the target may not even have dirt or illegal tendencies and you risk a total loss of loyalty and the target immediately quitting if caught - it turned me off of using an entire gameplay mechanic.”
- “The tutorial is not good enough; it doesn't explain some of the more nuanced mechanics and if you don't research marketing asap, you will go bankrupt.”
- “The mechanics are opaque, the dependencies are hidden, and the punishment for experimentation is not inefficiency or setback, but outright loss.”
story
243 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
17%
81%
2%
The story in this game offers a richly detailed, historically grounded narrative set in Hollywood’s golden age, blending strategic studio management with creative screenplay building. While praised for its engaging story elements, character interactions, and thematic depth, many players find the storytelling linear, repetitive, and overly reliant on scripted events with limited randomness or sandbox flexibility. Additionally, pacing issues, slow research mechanics, and lack of meaningful player freedom hamper replayability and narrative dynamism, though ongoing updates are expected to enhance content variety and player control.
- “The story is well-written and delightfully controversial in ways that only golden age Hollywood can be.”
- “The ongoing story of the golden age of Hollywood and the studio system and the dark side to much of what went on is a great flavour to what is a great movie tycoon/sandbox game.”
- “Running a movie studio here is super fun, and all the story twists really add excitement and keep the game engaging.”
- “Developing technology or story elements can take years, and by the time you get what you want, you’re already close to the end of the game.”
- “When starting a new playthrough, many scenes and storylines repeat, which reduces replay value.”
- “Thus forcing me into total campaign deletion and starting anew—an eye-rolling experience, when you come to dread all the events and cutscenes you'll have to re-experience just to finally progress the story.”
stability
108 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
4%
96%
The game is currently plagued by frequent bugs, crashes, freezes, softlocks, and performance issues that often disrupt gameplay and require frequent saving and reloading. While the early access state explains many of these problems, and developers are actively issuing patches, the overall stability remains poor, making the experience frustrating and occasionally unplayable. Despite this, dedicated players recognize the game’s potential and appreciate ongoing improvements.
- “Hopefully I don't regret the following, but I believe by the time the game is ready to launch v1.0 the game will be running smoothly and mostly bug free.”
- “I haven't encountered any bugs in the short time I've played it, it runs great on Steam Deck, and it looks quite nice.”
- “GG, runs great on Linux, CachyOS.”
- “The game was a buggy mess at release, making it a miracle if you could finish a run without encountering a save breaking bug.”
- “Extremely buggy, I've had hard crashes, softlocks, scripts have rolled over 10 times and come back to 2 because the game doesn't understand what to do.”
- “Don't buy in early access though - currently a buggy mess that hard crashes constantly.”
graphics
106 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
54%
3%
The game features a distinctive, stylized art deco-inspired visual style that vividly captures Hollywood's golden age, with beautiful artwork, smooth animations, and an immersive atmosphere enhanced by fitting music. While generally praised for its aesthetics and detailed presentation, some users note occasional minor graphical bugs, limited graphics settings, and slow UI animations that can affect gameplay fluidity. Overall, the graphics are considered a strong asset, effectively complementing the game's theme and narrative, though some desire more customization and zoom functionality.
- “Hollywood Animal, just like Rebel Cops and This Is The Police 1 & 2, has a beautiful aesthetic, a soundtrack worthy of adding to your daily Spotify playlist, and gameplay so addictive, that if you let it, will completely throw off your circadian rhythm.”
- “The art style of the game is very 'right' and distinctive, giving a minimalist, diorama-like aesthetic with soft sepia tones to bring out that Hollywood golden era.”
- “The atmosphere, the music, the art style are all beautiful and transport you right back to the golden age of Hollywood.”
- “It is necessary to add options to adjust graphics settings, including the ability to disable weather effects and other performance-heavy features.”
- “The lower end graphics are just that, easier, lower end and cheap graphics which doesn't help balance out the lack of depth, odd difficulty, inconsistent writing and story that is all singular and locked into a one way/one choice to success gameplay.”
- “When you are playing you can notice this is still on early access, love the premise, art style and how it doesn't shy away from showing stuff from the time, but from the few hours I've had playing the game I have found a handful of bugs including scripts despairing, the UI on the preproduction despairing or being off-screen and the game making it so my bank balance went from 2m to -1m in an instant (for multiple of these I reloaded the save or quit-out and restart the game).”
music
78 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
42%
54%
4%
The game's music is widely praised for its sophisticated, jazzy, and orchestral score that perfectly captures the glamour and atmosphere of classic Hollywood, greatly enhancing immersion and narrative. Many reviewers highlight the soundtrack as a standout feature, with beautiful, non-repetitive tracks that complement the art style and storytelling, though some desire more variety and volume improvements. Overall, the music contributes significantly to the game's stylish, cinematic vibe and is often regarded as one of its strongest elements.
- “Hollywood animal, just like rebel cops and this is the police 1 & 2, has a beautiful aesthetic, a soundtrack worthy of adding to your daily Spotify playlist, and gameplay so addictive, that if you let it, will completely throw off your circadian rhythm.”
- “The atmosphere, the music, the art style are all beautiful and transport you right back to the golden age of Hollywood.”
- “The music score: the soundtrack typically features a sophisticated, often orchestral and jazzy score, reminiscent of classic Hollywood films.”
- “Please, please, give me the option to shut it off or give me period-accurate music but I always find myself clicking on everything as fast as I can just to beat the horrible song before it plays.”
- “The background sound/music is a bit low, would need to be patched since I maxed it in settings and still need my external speakers to decently enjoy them, from my default PC speakers.”
- “I find music repetitive and distracting.”
monetization
62 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
5%
95%
Players find the game's monetization mechanics, especially advertising and marketing, confusing, poorly explained, and often frustrating due to opaque systems, locked content behind tech trees, and unclear audience targeting. Despite the strategic potential of choosing ads and theaters, many feel the systems are unbalanced, buggy, and punishing, making profitability difficult even with top-tier films and advertising efforts. Overall, players urge improvements in clarity, usability, and balance before the monetization aspect feels rewarding or fair.
- “There are 0 microtransactions and additional fees.”
- “A perfect example is the casino advertisement; whether by design or not in my game you could not use the same star twice for casino advertisements, forcing you to remember who you'd sent in the past and possibly hire specific actors/actresses for just that job.”
- “Monetization is worse, you make a movie, double the amount you put into production, then suddenly you find yourself spending all that money to make the next movie or pay for all the workers.”
- “The advertising system - nobody knows how this works (even online guides don't provide proper scores), and it doesn't explain anything; it just seems really random. I implore the developers to fix this system because it actually sucks.”
- “Some ads are clearly meant for specific audiences (like “for men” or “for adults”), but there’s no label, filter, or targeting system, making ad planning feel random, ineffective, and disconnected from your marketing strategy.”
- “If you don't research and build the marketing office in time, you get no advertising at all for future movies until you build the capability. This mechanic is frustrating and poorly explained.”
replayability
51 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
65%
10%
Replayability in the game is mixed, with some players enjoying its challenging, experimental gameplay and variety of paths, while others find it limited due to repetitive scripted events, lack of randomness, and unskippable sequences. Many feel the game’s replay value is currently hindered by unclear mechanics, a linear progression, and mandatory tasks that can feel tedious. However, as an early access title, improvements such as added random events, more varied gameplay loops, and skippable content could significantly boost its replayability in the future.
- “It’s challenging but fun and endlessly replayable because of the ways the game encourages you to experiment and play differently.”
- “The mechanics are slightly repetitive but very enjoyable and it has a surprising amount of replayability for a tycoon game.”
- “Deep mechanics, insane replayability, and a killer vibe — it’s all here.”
- “All the scripted events happen the same every time, so the replay value is extremely low at the moment.”
- “Ignore the tags, this isn't a simulation game - it's an exercise in trial and error with the player essentially having to restart the game 4-5 times after failing because they guessed wrong on the multiple choice options and didn't know the exact moment to expand - once you have memorized the one exact sequence of events and timings to reach the end of act one without going bankrupt, you've essentially finished the game. There is zero replayability value once the 'gameplay maze' has been figured out.”
- “The game also starts with a scripted sequence and doesn't have a sandbox option, so offers no replayability, which is a horrible choice for this kind of game.”
grinding
45 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
2%
2%
96%
Grinding in the game is widely described as tedious, repetitive, and monotonous, with many players frustrated by slow animations, excessive micro-management, repeated contract negotiations, and frequent pop-up events disrupting gameplay. Although some core mechanics like scriptwriting and talent management are engaging, the overall experience is bogged down by grind-heavy, slow-paced systems and lack of quality-of-life improvements. Developers are actively updating the game, but currently, the grinding aspect detracts significantly from player enjoyment.
- “The core mechanics of working up scripts, producing them into movies, and releasing them is very engaging and not tedious at all, especially as it centers on your pool of talent who develop and evolve and frustrate you as you go.”
- “The research tree is a sprawling, tedious, and uninspired grind (landscaping needs research? really? hiring a maintenance crew needs research?).”
- “You always click the same boxes to make a movie, you pick the same heads, you do the same contract negotiation over and over, it gets really tedious after a while and the shady business side of the game is buggy and useless.”
- “Because of the difficulty you will be reloading saves and restarting games quite a bit in order to learn, but the enormous unskippable tutorial movie is such a pain to go through, as is the handholding for constructing your first buildings, learning about cash, influence, etc. If these were things you could just click to close it'd be one thing, but every animation, tutorial or not, takes very long and can get tedious, especially when you are renewing a bunch of contracts since you have to wait for the animations for entering and leaving discussions to play over and over and over again.”
optimization
34 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
12%
73%
15%
Optimization in the game is inconsistent, with many users reporting performance issues such as crashes, stuttering, long load times, and graphic glitches, especially on certain platforms like Linux. While some find the game playable with decent hardware, others note a lack of graphics settings and slow UI responsiveness that detract from the experience. Overall, the game needs significant optimization and polish to improve stability and performance.
- “It is necessary to add options to adjust graphics settings, including the ability to disable weather effects and other performance-heavy features.”
- “Performance of the game is not consistent between runs (or feels like it) and different parts of UI, which surprised me, how can 2D UI run at 30 fps while 2.5D main part of the game itself runs at 240? Must be some unoptimized shader or something.”
- “Games should be optimized and released in a playable state, even in early access.”
- “The game is way too unoptimized right now.”
- “It does have visual glitches and bugs, misspellings, menus and windows not properly wanting to open/close, stuttering, long loading screens especially when you have 15+ save files, soft locks with small parts broken for the rest of playthroughs (for example I have 1 security guy perpetually stuck in his task, not available for anything else since first in-game year and his action cannot be cancelled) and many things like that.”
- “This game is so slow, frustrating, poorly optimized and badly designed that it clearly needs much more polish.”
atmosphere
34 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
62%
29%
9%
The game excels at creating a rich and immersive atmosphere that vividly captures the golden age of Hollywood in the 1920s-1940s through its detailed art style, thematic music, and narrative elements. Players praise its nostalgic, dark, and satirical tone, complemented by strong world-building and era-specific aesthetics. Overall, the atmosphere is widely regarded as a standout feature that deeply enhances the experience despite some rough edges in gameplay.
- “The atmosphere, the music, the art style are all beautiful and transport you right back to the golden age of Hollywood.”
- “They have really nailed down the feel of being a 1920s film director, and the atmosphere and characters, as well as the art style that brings all that to life, is absolutely flawless.”
- “The overall feel and atmosphere is perfect—they nailed the era specific details and seedy underbelly of 1930s Hollywood.”
- “I really like the feel, atmosphere and potential of what this could be, but the balance issues combined with the frustration of not being able to fire dead weight just won't let me give this a thumbs up.”
- “The focus is more on the thematic music to set the atmosphere.”
- “I wouldn't recommend playing it now, but it's incredibly fun right now, at least if you value an immersive, historical, hilarious and cynical atmosphere.”
humor
29 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
97%
3%
The humor in the game is praised for its dark, satirical, and sometimes absurd comedy, especially highlighting industry quirks and ironic situations like firing staff or unexpected movie successes. Players find many moments genuinely funny, with jokes woven into gameplay events and bugs that add to the amusement. However, humor can be uneven, with some events slowing down over time and certain repetitive elements slightly dulling the comedic impact.
- “The fact that you can't fire screenwriters after hiring them and you can accidentally drive yourself to bankruptcy paying for employees you don't want is hilarious.”
- “I've encountered a hilarious bug, where one of my movies, which is basically perfect (10/10 commercial and critic scores), scores a D- on the audience feedback and then proceeds to make -2 billion at the box office.”
- “I love the black humor by the developers.”
emotional
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional impact of Hollywood Animal is mixed; some players appreciate its wholesome tone and moments of genuine sadness, such as the heartfelt death of a staff member, while others feel emotionally disconnected due to weak character investment and jarring tonal shifts. The game evokes both heartfelt and unsettling emotions but struggles to deliver a consistently rewarding emotional experience.
- “One death that really hurt emotionally: a staff member who went on leave early in the game, for whom I even wrote several tailor-made scripts, ended up committing suicide just a few years later.”
- “The first bankruptcy was heartbreaking.”
- “In conclusion, as much as I want to love Hollywood Animal, there’s a core piece missing: the reward and emotional connection you should get after producing a movie.”
character development
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
67%
100%
The game’s character development is closely tied to its challenging gameplay and dark humor, providing a unique and engaging experience through repeated failures. However, some players feel that deeper individual character development is needed before progressing to the next act to enhance overall engagement.
- “I love this studio's commitment to unforgiving playthroughs that basically end with 'sorry chump, better luck next time' and this latest iteration of the 'plug-n-play' character development nails the delivery and the comic relief these games make necessary to fail again and again.”
- “If they do not concentrate their efforts on individual character development before they start the work on act 2, my opinion might change.”
- “The research also feels like part of your studio’s character development, so to speak.”
- “I love this studio's commitment to unforgiving playthroughs that basically end with 'sorry chump, better luck next time,' and this latest iteration of the 'plug-n-play' character development nails the delivery and the comic relief these games make necessary to fail again and again.”
- “If they do not concentrate their efforts on individual character development before they start work on Act 2, my opinion might change.”

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Hollywood Animal
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16h Median play time

21h Average play time

10-30h Spent by most gamers

*Based on 28 analyzed playthroughs

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Frequently Asked Questions

Hollywood Animal is a economy city builder game with economy and historical themes.

Hollywood Animal is available on PC, Mac OS and Windows.

On average players spend around 21 hours playing Hollywood Animal.

Hollywood Animal was released on April 10, 2025.

Hollywood Animal was developed by Weappy Wholesome.

Hollywood Animal has received mostly positive reviews from players. Most players liked Hollywood Animal for its gameplay but disliked it for its stability.

Hollywood Animal is a single player game.

Similar games include Mad Games Tycoon, Software Inc., The Executive - Movie Industry Tycoon, Mad Games Tycoon 2, News Tower and others.

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