The story
One studio. Eight film sets. One very determined Seymour.
Hollywood, early in the morning. A star is about to be born, if only somebody could find the script.
Hollywood. The big day. Seymour has finally been given a starring role, and he turns up at the studio gates bright and early, ready for his close-up.
The doorman, to a star he doesn't recogniseOI! WE ONLY LET
MOVIE STARS IN
HERE!!
Nobody else is. Dirk E. Findlemeyer the Second, the studio boss, has gone to Miami. And the film script, the one thing nobody can shoot a picture without, is nowhere to be found.
Seymour, at receptionPIPPA, DIRKS GONE
TO MIAMI AND I
CANT SEEM TO FIND
THE FILM SCRIPT
So Seymour does what any star would do: he goes looking for it himself. Past the doorman, through reception, up a lift with a mind of its own, into the workshops and the props department, and out into the maze of backlots behind the studio, where locked doors lead onto the sets: a steaming jungle, a fifties high school, the Wild West, the foggy streets of a detective story, a giant ape's skyscraper, a mad scientist's laboratory, the yellow brick road and a base in outer space.
Everyone on the lot wants something, and nobody gives anything away. Carry up to three things at once, talk to everybody, and work out who needs what. Find the script and Seymour is a star... or so he thinks. That is only the beginning of his troubles.
The studio
The studio building. Reception, a lift that has seen better days, make-up, the props department, special effects, and the boss's big red door at the very top.
The backlots. Behind the building, a maze of identical studios, each with a locked door onto a film set. Bring the right key.
Eight film sets
The jungle
Tarzan's backlot: tree huts, a village and a river nobody swims in.
Grease
A fifties high school, a biker, and a malt shop where somebody is crying.
The Big Country
The Wild West, with a saloon, a staircase and a cowboy on it.
Sherlock Bones
Fog, gaslight and a library where something isn't right.
King Kong
A skyscraper, girders, and a very big ape at the top.
Frank Einstein
A mad scientist's laboratory, an operating theatre and a dog.
The Wizard of Oz
The yellow brick road, Munchkin Valley, and a castle over the rainbow.
Flash Boredom
A space opera with a strange machine, and Ming not far away.
The people
Seymour
Round, white, and ready for stardom. A film star in his own mind already.
Dirk E. Findlemeyer II
The studio boss. Currently in Miami.
Pippa
Reception. She knows where everything is, but she isn't in the mood.
And a cast of stars
Every one of them wanting something first.
Behind the scenes
Seymour Goes to Hollywood (also known as Seymour at the Movies) was developed by Big Red Software and published by Codemasters in 1991, for the ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC, then the Commodore 64 in 1992, and the Amiga, Atari ST and PC.
It began life as a Dizzy game. Movieland Dizzy was about 90% finished when the Oliver Twins, Dizzy's creators, objected to their egg turning up in a real-world setting. Big Red had twelve weeks to turn it into a game with a new hero: Pete Ranson drew Seymour from a Dizzy base, with a new shape and, for the first time, fingers. The real-world studio and its backlots were added then; the original had only the film sets. Five more Seymour games followed in 1991 and 1992: Super Seymour Saves the Planet, Seymour: Take One!, Stuntman Seymour, Sergeant Seymour Robot Cop and Wild West Seymour.
The DOS release, the one this remake rebuilds, came in 1993. Its title screen reads "Copyright Codemasters 1993, written by David Spicer, graphics by Brian Hartley, music by Gerard Gourley", with AdLib and PC-speaker music; the program file that shipped is dated December 1996, from a later re-release.
Reviewers of the day liked its size and its puzzles, more logical and real-world than most of its kind. Scores as Wikipedia lists them:
- 92%Amstrad Action, and its Mastergame award
- 85%Crash (ZX Spectrum)
- 77%Amiga Format
- 59%Zzap!64 (liked the humour and puzzles, not the C64 conversion)
Sources: Wikipedia, MobyGames, the Oliver Twins.
This remake is an unofficial fan-game remake of that DOS release, made out of love for the original and not connected with Codemasters: how and why it was rebuilt.