CAYOM Player Guide (How to Play)

[Water Bottle]

How to Play CAYOM:
The Ultimate Playing Guide

CAYOM stands for Create-a-Year-of-Movie. It's a rather simple, yet complex, game in which a player gets to create a movie. The player gets to cast the movie with their own cast, director, and any other crew member the player choses to specify. After that, there's predictions on how a movie (along with reviews, some which are soft, others which are honest) will do followed by the official Box Office being released by a player. Finally, the Oscar season will come and your movie may get an Oscar nomination, or the even rarer Oscar Best Picture Win. This is how to play the game.

Part I. Create the Movie

Every year, there will be a week or two of time in which Part One is open. During this time period is when you turn in any film you may have written using the following format:

Name:
Director:
Genre:
Date:
Cast:

Plot:



Theaters:
MPAA Rating:
Budget:
Previous Film Gross (if a sequel):

Where you post the film is in the Part I thread. In the opening post, you'll notice a schedule of dates. There will be movie names in some of those dates-that means those movies are to be released on that date. Chose a date, whether an empty one or one which already has competition in it. There is no real limit to how many films can be released on one date, but the unofficial limit is 4 films. Except for a couple of weekends, like the post-Thanksgiving weekend, every date needs to have a film before Part I is over.

Questions:

[*]Is there a word limit, or a word minimum?

There is no official word limit, nor is there a word minimum. Your plot can be as short as a couple of sentences, to 10,000 words. Most films tend to be around 2,000-3,000 words long. It should be noted that if you're going for an Oscar, a paragraph-long film won't stand a chance.

What is a filler?

A filler is a short, paragraph long film that is usually generic. These are meant to fill some dates that have no serious films, or to ensure that a lot of the dates have at least 2 films.

Can I describe the musical score, and attach a composer?

Yes. Describe the score right under where you name the composer, which should be right above the plot. You can also write the song titles, along with a description of the song (or write the song if you feel it'll be better), and attach it to musicals along key areas of the plot. Some players have also integrated actual music into their film, telling you when to play the music as you read.

Can I make a trailer/poster?

Sure. There's a whole separate thread to post a trailer or a poster. Posters are usually done on paint or photoshop. Trailers are usually written as scripts, though actual Youtube trailers are not unheard of (but extremely rare). The trailers/posters will have no impact on the box office, usually only meant to make the CAYOM universe fill more real.

Is there a limit on which actor/actress I can use?

Sort of. If an actor/actress has too many films in one year, then you'll be asked to pick a different cast member. The same goes to the director/crew.

How is aging handled?

The actors are however old they are in real life, regardless of which CAYOM year it is. Consider it a magical world where aging has considerably slowed down.

Can I use my own made up actors/actresses and Directors?

Yes.

How much money do I have to make my film?

Unlimited money. The budget is how much money got put into the film. If a film fails to make it's budget, and it's part of a series, you lose no money yourself. For realism purposes, most flops don't really get sequels. The budget must also be realistic.

What is the FYC thread?

The FYC (For Your Consideration) thread is where you post your movies and which Oscars you want it considered for.

Part II. Predictions and Reviews

Predictions

You can predict how each movie (or the big blockbuster ones only) will do at the box office! This is usually where the official Box Office of the year's numbers are based, though a film may totally surprise by flopping or being a hit. If a film always did as predicted, it would get boring. The only place to put predictions is on the official Part II thread. Some people go week by week (some even with write-ups!), other people month-by-month, and more by only predicting the big blockbuster films or the serious Oscar contenders.

Reviews

You'll also be able to state your opinion in your review thread! For every year, you can create ONE review thread, where you can post your reviews. Some people just do a top 25 lists, and other people go week-by-week (usually followed by a top 25). It's your choice on how to write reviews, and even consider doing something original if you want. Be as honest or as harsh as you want to be. Reviews will rarely affect a film's opening weekend (but they can), but they will affect a film's legs.

The Critical Consensus

Every review thread who ends up doing a top 25 gets put in the Critical Consensus, which is like our version of Rotten Tomatoes. Anyways, every film that is on a top 25 list will be on this list. Based on the ranking of the film on all the lists will determine the spot of the critical consensus. It is rare for a film to get all number one rankings. The Critical Consensus can really help with legs, and may be served as a basis to predict who will actually be participating in the Oscars.

Part III. Box Office

This is the part where you simply sit back and relax, unless you're doing the official Box Office of the year (or as we call it, Actuals). Here, you will see weekend-by-weekend how every film in the top 10 has done domestically in the box office. These are the official numbers, and are rarely disputable. The Box Office is done as realistically as possible. After the Part is over, the person who did Actuals will also reveal Total Domestic gross and Overseas numbers.

Part IV. The Oscars

The Oscars! The Big award! In this game, Best Picture is the ultimate award as it is in real life. But there's other Oscars to win.

Nomination Phase

First is the phase where every player gets to turn in nominations, in public. Five films per category (unless otherwise specified), the order you put them in doesn't matter. The films with the most nominations are officially nominated for an Oscar! There is a required of 2 nominations to be considered unless otherwise specified.

Tie-breaker

Every now, there's enough films who have gotten the same number of nominations, enough to be nominated, but not enough spots. If that's the case, there's a tie-breaker in which you rank the films to break the tie. Whichever one is overall better ranked wins the tie-breaker.

The Voting Phase

Now is the time to vote for Oscars. Unlike the first two phases, this phase is done by PM to whoever is doing the award ceremony. You send the person a ranking of each nomination, putting your preferable choice as number one and your least preferable choice as number five. Based on the ranking average, the vote is then tallied.

The Award Phase

The Award phase is where you see the Oscar ceremony! Good luck if your nominated! After the ceremony, there's a couple of days of waiting before it all begins again.

Insert any questions here.

[Impact]

Awesome post WB.

[4815162342]

Good summary

[Smallville944]

I'll defintly play this game

[JohnnyBravo69]

I wanna play but I'm gonna sit back and watch for the first time.

[Hunch]

I wanna play but I'm gonna sit back and watch for the first time.

You don't have to participate in every single stage...you can just make your film and then see how everything else goes, besides, it's pretty easy to get a hang of things when everything is set in motion.

[tommycruise]

How long do the years last? Like how long does it take for part 1, 2, 3 and 4 until we go on to the next year?

[Water Bottle]

How long do the years last? Like how long does it take for part 1, 2, 3 and 4 until we go on to the next year?

It depends on how fast people go.

[CJohn]

This game is just too complex to me and I am already in 3 other games right now. Maybe after those end I will find some time to this.I am completely lost right now with all I am seeing in other threads, that doesn't help either.

Edited October 29, 2012 by CJohn

[Alpha]

Trust me, CJohn, it is SUCH a fun game. Try it out sooner or later

[Water Bottle]

This game is just too complex to me and I am already in 3 other games right now. Maybe after those end I will find some time to this.I am completely lost right now with all I am seeing in other threads, that doesn't help either.

Right now you just need to pay attention to one thread: Part 1, that is stickied.

[CJohn]

I will start to play when I am able to. I have no idea if you guys are in the middle of a year or something.

[Water Bottle]

I will start to play when I am able to. I have no idea if you guys are in the middle of a year or something.

We're just beginning a year so you can jump in any time. I believe the deadline is at the end of this week.

[CJohn]

So I can create a few movies before this phase ends. After that I have to wait until year 6?

[Water Bottle]

So I can create a few movies before this phase ends. After that I have to wait until year 6?

To make more movies? Yeah, but you can also play in the other parts when you feel ready.

[Alpha]

So I can create a few movies before this phase ends. After that I have to wait until year 6?

You can create any film any time you want as of now, though I don't think you'll have enough time to work on big films. Year 5 will be epic, so you might as well join in

[CJohn]

There are so many threads. I am completely lost.

[CJohn]

And I have to start posting about movies for Year 6 and 7? I am lost. Can someone help here? Rules in the first post didn't help very much, especially with the crazy amount of threads in this forum.

Edited October 29, 2012 by CJohn

[Alpha]

I'll give a description of the threads:Year #: Part 1 - We list our films here, there's info about what to put aboveYear # Discussion - Where we discuss our films and everyone's elsesCrowd Report Thread - Where you can do crowd reports of films (as of now, we can't do Year 5 films until Part 2 begins)Marketing Info - Pretty self explanitory, you list your films marketing here.Magazine - Post fake updates on your film in the form of a magazine article.These are the only threads you should pay attention to, until Part 2 comes. Then there will be Part 2 itself and (possibly) a Club ThreadHope I helped!

Edited October 29, 2012 by etr906

[Alpha]

And I have to start posting about movies for Year 6 and 7? I am lost. Can someone help here? Rules in the first post didn't help very much, especially with the crazy amount of threads in this forum.

No, you post for the current year, which is Year 5.