Sounds to me like Designer is exactly what you should try, instead of Hollywood itself. If you dont have previous programming experience, then even to get to graphic novel level with just the language (and not just Hollywood, but any language), it is somewhat long way to go.
With designer however, you will be there very quick.
And best of all, whatever Hollywood has, you can use with designer. What I mean by this is, that you are able to write Hollywood code to your designer programs, and hence be able to do anything that Hollywood can.
Of course, main idea with designer is to use it as graphical designer software, but in case some element is missing, you can then turn to programming instead.
Depending what that missing thing is, it might be very natural, or not natural at all to do.
That lets say you want a rectangle that keeps moving to the direction that you move your joystick (this might actually be doable through graphic system, but im not sure, but for this example, lets suppose it is not graphic design doable).
In this case, you would first create rectangle.
Then you double click to change this rectangles name to for example "moving rectangle"
I am simplifying this a bit, but basically you go and click on that rectangle, and you will one way or other choose an option of "run code" where you can now write this code.
Now you will write in way of (not real code) "If joystick=left then move "moving rectangle" left, if joystick=right then move "moving rectangle" right...
And there you have it. Now you have a rectangle that keeps moving according to joystick movement.
Suppose you now want to do same thing to a circle. Well, you can just copy the code from this rectangle, and paste it to a circle and just change "moving rectangle" into "moving circle" for example, or whatever you named that circle.
This is one way how you can add code to designer projects in case something is missing from graphic functions that you want to do.
I havent used powerpoint much, but comparing my experience with Powerpoint vs designer. Powerpoint is sligthly easier to use, but not much, but Powerpoint also restricts you much. Designer gives you much more freedom and possibilities. I would even think that if Designer would be released by microsoft or something, it would perhaps even kill powerpoint, or maybe it would just be the next step from powerpoint for people who would want a bit more control on their projects.
While designer might be harder to start that powerpoint, it however becomes easier to do new things with designer than with power point. That lets take a three part example.
I want to make three buttons, which all make it go to different page. I dont actually know how to do that in powerpoint, but i suppose there is some menu option or something to make a button like that.
With designer, you first make for example rectangle, then you double click rectangle and choose for example "On mouse click" option. Then it gives you list of options what happens after "On Mouse Click" (as example, "run code"), from here you would choose "go to page" or something similar.
I admit, Powerpoint was probably easier.
Then part two. Lets do the same thing, but i want it to play some animation before it jumps to that new page.
With powerpoint, perhaps they have something like that, and it is probably behind some menu option that you have to figure out where to find it.
Now with designer, you already saw that "On Mouse Click" thing. Go back there, and before "Go to page" add another option of "Play animation", and now you have animation playing before going to that other page.
I suppose designer is winning this time.
Part three. I also want it to change variable "buttonclicked" to "true" so i can later check if that button have been clicked or not.
Im not sure if powerpoint can do that or not. I would imagine it can, but i have no idea from where, maybe some menu option again.
Well, designer, i again go to "On Mouse Click" place, and now i add third option there, which i could for example do "Run code" and write "buttonclicked=true", and it is done.
As you can see, with designer, all those three things all happened with same logic. And even if I am thinking of doing something i havent done before, and I am not even sure what it is called, i still know to go to "On Mouse Click" and then I just scroll through the options and see for example "hey, there is HIDE OBJECT command there, I guess i can use this to make something disappear from the page"
In the end, designer is quite simple to use, you just have to learn its working logic, which isnt that hard, but is not as easy as powerpoint, but what you lose in getting started, you will many times gain when it comes to situation where you want to do something you have never done before.
With power point it is to google how to do that new thing and figure what others call it, while with designer, as long as you have figured out the logic, it is easy to find how to do it.
And if powerpoint dont have that feature you are looking for, then you cant have it. With designer if some feature is missing, you can always use "run code" and get it done anyway.
I have done couple of Hollywood with designer tutorial videos. They are mainly aimed at teaching Hollywood coding, but it will anyway show you about designer too, especially the first video. However, those were done with older version of Designer, and new Designer added some very good new features to it, making it much better than the previous one in my opinion:
Tutorial 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgMhmEUMWOM&t=
Tutorial 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpOs8ABe9XQ&t=
Tutorial 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OF8gfDHuNg&t=