Review: Roll Camera! The Filmmaking Board Game, a cooperative movie-making boardgame
Channel: Tabletop Bellhop
Date: 10/11/2021

Roll Camera! is a cooperative board game where you take on the role of a production company brought in to save a failing movie. If you aren’t able to complete this film on time, on budget, and at an acceptable quality level, you will never get work in the film industry again. The movie magic comes to life through a dice driven worker placement game where you spend dice to build sets, hold production meetings, deal with and resolve a never-ending stream of problems, place actors and equipment on set, and film scenes for your movie while trying the best you can to stick to the script. 

Roll Camera! The Filmmaking Board Game was designed by Malachi Ray Rempen, who also did the art and graphic design. It features a film reel shaped plastic insert designed by Bryce Cook. Roll Camera! was originally funded on Kickstarter and published in 2021 by a collaboration between Keen Bean Studio and Grand Gamers Guild in North America.

This review is one segment of episode 152 of The Tabletop Bellhop Gaming Podcast, The Games of AwShux. You can catch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/DFmCOz-gNCc

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Disclosure: Grand Gamers Guild was awesome enough to send us a copy of this game to check out as well as provide an extra copy to giveaway. 

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Timestamps:

00:00 INTRODUCTION AND SHORT GAME OVERVIEW
03:02 COMPONENT OVERVIEW
04:02 HOW TO PLAY ROLL CAMERA!
12:48 OUR THOUGHTS ON ROLL CAMERA!
19:48 SHOULD YOU PICK UP ROLL CAMERA!?
22:04 CLOSING 

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From the designer,

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!

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Links:

Head over to the Tabletop Bellhop blog where you'll find more tabletop gaming content, including game and game night advice, reviews, and more: https://tabletopbellhop.com 

Read the written review of Roll Camera! on the Tabletop Bellhop Blog: https://tabletopbellhop.com/game-reviews/roll-camera/
Check out our Roll Camera Unboxing video: https://youtu.be/jrxNBRCv2BU

Pick up a copy of the retail version of Roll Camera! (affiliate links)
In the US: https://amzn.to/31G3dy9
In Canada: https://amzn.to/3BWcjTT

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