Do you have what it takes to survive in Hollywood?

 

The yelling producer, cheating boyfriend, fired actor, insecure writer, and a gorgeous make-up artist; you’ll meet them all in the first few minutes of playing the new live action, interactive dating game “The Fame Game: Welcome to Hollywood’ available in pre-launch on Steam.

 

Cakewalk has partnered with International gaming company Snail Games (ARK) and their subsidiary Interactive Films LLC, to produce “The Fame Game: Welcome to Hollywood” a first of its kind live action, interactive dating game built in the US market.

 

Now in pre-launch on Steam,“The Fame Game: Welcome to Hollywood” creates a first hand  experience of on-set drama on a Hollywood Soap Opera set. The player can listen to or ignore the producer, try dating the show’s star or the make-up artist, face off with the fired actor and risk their life for fame and fortune, or suffer abject rejection from the audience. It’s all in a day’s work in Hollywood.

 

“This was a wild and amazing experience for our team” says Matt Dean, CEO of Cakewalk, a production and post company based in Burbank California. “It was beautifully shot, wonderfully cast and the options we created for the players are extensive.”

 

“The Fame Game: Welcome to Hollywood”’s live action production was produced by Matt Dean and directed by award winning director Julia Verdin (Merchant of Venice) for Cakewalk, and overseen by Executive Producer Erin McFarlane and Producer Julia Newman for Interactive Films/ Snail Games. 

 

Snail Games produces the global smash hit ARK: Survival Evolved, one of the more popular games on steam in 2025.

 

“The Fame Game” was the second partnership between Snail Games and Cakewalk. The first partnership was the vertical series “My Ex’s Best Friends” for Snail Game’s production division Interactive Films, and became the number one vertical series on their app “Salty TV” from February 2025 to the time of publication. A second vertical series “Hollywood Heatthrob” is being released this fall.

 

Director Julia Verdin was asked about her experience on this gaming platform. “Directing an interactive game is a lot of fun,” Verdin said. “It really keeps you on your toes as you have to make sure you get all the pieces and know how to connect them to each of the player’s choices.”

 

Cakewalk worked closely with the development team at Snail Games to come up with a way to keep track of all the elements and make sure they ended up in the right place. “There are over seven thousand elements in this game,” says Dean. “Everythign was shot and posted over a very tight timeline.”

 

Very few companies in the world have experience creating projects of this magnitude. Asked if creating something with such a wide variety of game play was difficult, Matt said, “With seven possible women to date in this game as well as several career paths, this leads to an enormous number of player options. We had to film and map out everyone of those options, keeping track of hundreds of paths and choices. It was a daunting task, but it was worth it to give the players the best possible gaming experience.”

 

At the center of the game, the player faces off with the antagonist, a soap opera star forced out of his job and replaced by the player’s character. To bring authenticity to this role, Director Julia Verdin hired long time friend and real soap opera star Emryhs Cooper. Star of the popular "Coronation Street” in the UK, Emryhs was the perfect villain for this game, giving the player a true-to-life soap opera experience they won’t find anywhere else.

 

“The Fame Game: Welcome to Hollywood” also stars numerous actors from popular vertical series genres including: Céline Planata, Vanessa von Schwarz, Noelle Victoria, Ariel Yasmine, Natalie Cooper, Katiana Borja, Vincent Ranola, and introduces newcomer SJ Baehler, and well known actor William McNamara as the frustrated on-set director.

 

Interactive dating games have been extremely popular in China and Korea, but this is the first of its kind specifically built in the US market. Subtitled in both English and Chinese, “The Fame Game: Welcome to Hollywood” is in pre-launch now on Steam. Come find out if you have what it takes to survive in Hollywood!