Hollywood 1947 Review

It’s 1947, and things in Hollywood are tense. The House Un-American Activities Committee is investigating, looking for communists and communist supporters. If you’re found as a communist, you will never work in this town again. Or, let’s be honest, any town. If you’re a true patriot, you’re okay, but you have to prove it.

Hollywood 1947, from Facade Games, makes you part of a movie production during those fraught days. Each round, you are going to produce a movie, hoping that it shows where your loyalties lie (patriotism or communism). Whichever loyalty produces four movies first wins.

So let’s get rolling!

Gameplay Overview:

The game is described as part strategy and part social deduction for 1-9 players. Loyalties (patriotism or communism) are randomly distributed at the start of the game. Each round consists of three parts: Production, Post, and Premiere.

A movie poster is drawn at the start of each round, indicating the movie genre being made. Movies have loyalty biases indicated in the lower right corner. During production, you perform your job action (there are 13 jobs) as described on a randomly selected job card. These actions let you re-roll dice, exchange propaganda cards, or give other players tokens. You can also use an action to switch jobs.

During Post, select players add propaganda cards from their hand. Propaganda cards have symbols indicating loyalty (patriotism or communism). One additional propaganda card is added to the movie blind from the deck. The cards assigned to the movie are shuffled, and one is discarded without looking.

During Premiere, the cards in the movie are revealed. Count up the symbols on the cards along with one of the movie posters. The loyalty with the most symbols ‘wins’ that movie. This is indicated by an acetate overlay in red (communism) or blue (patriotism) placed over the movie poster. There is a final option called Rising Star with special rules, available only with certain player counts.

Solo mode, which is how I played, adds exceptions and changes. Most notably, four jobs are not available in solo. One of these, the Costume Designer, allows you to take costume cards that can add bonuses, so in the solo mode, costume cards can’t be used. Loyalty for solo is always patriotism. You play two jobs per round. Three ghost cards, which are randomly added to the movie depending on dice rolls, are laid out face down. Win conditions remain the same: four patriotic movies (since that is always solo loyalty) wins.

Game Experience:

Note: This experience is based on solo play only

First things first, this is a beautiful game. The artwork is thematic, and the production values are high. The gold colored tokens are adorable. There are loyalty tokens, which are nice thick wooden pieces with screen printing to make the loyalty even more obvious. The box has a built in organizer that actually fits everything (!!) and I absolutely love the faux-book box.

The actual gameplay isn’t as delightful. It falls flat for me. This was a high-tension point in history, but I don’t feel much tension in the game itself. Solo feels more like luck than strategy. You play two jobs per round, and once you’ve settled on a combination of jobs that works for you, there’s little reason to switch up.

I kept going back to the rulebook to confirm things or see if I was missing something. It’s a short rule book, as expected, since this is a lighter game. The rulebook could have used a little more detail. I am still not one hundred-percent certain I am rolling the dice correctly. I feel like they should be rolled at the start of every round, adding some variety, but based on the rules, I think they are rolled once at the beginning of the game and are only modified by card actions during the game.

This is never stated explicitly; I am extrapolating based on what the cards say. Costume cards are mentioned in the setup section of the rule book and no place else. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize solo mode did not use the costume cards. The only place their use is described is on the Costume Designer job card, which is not used in solo, which made it very confusing.

There are two types of tokens, referred to in the rules as ‘tokens’ and ‘loyalty tokens’. Names that are similar are confusing. They both allow you to add loyalty to the movie in different ways, which makes me wonder why they bothered with different types.

Gameplay is quick, I think it takes about 20 minutes, 30 at the most to make 7 movies when playing solo.

Final Thoughts:

Hollywood 1947 looks beautiful and has an interesting premise. I expected a light interlude between heavier games.

While it is a lighter game, it just doesn’t work for me. It falls flat with little tension and few decisions that effect the outcome. Even if the rules had been clearer I do not feel like it has enough there to make it more than a high production, luck-based game.

I am a solo player. I like games with full-bodied solo experiences. I am always impressed when designers find ways to make solo modes that are engaging to play, even if that means different rules from multi-player. This game isn’t that. I don’t think it is well suited to a player count below 3 or 4. I am not intrigued enough to want to try at a higher player count either.

I am not one of those solo players who think every game should accommodate solo (I mean it would be nice…) but I really feel like solo was tacked on to this game without much development.

Final Score: 2 Stars – The communists won every time I played. So I guess I am black listed from Hollywood 1947? I am okay with that.

Hits:
• Gorgeous production
• Interesting theme

Misses:
• Rulebook needs more detail
• More luck than strategy
• Not suited to solo