Oplay goes live!

[AudryT]

I mentioned on this forum about a year ago that manga publisher Go! Comi was working on a secret "dating sim-like" project. Well, that project has been launched! It's a new kind of gaming called "Oplay" and you can read about it by clicking here. Our first "Oplay" game is called "Dragon Academy" and is set in the Black Forest of Germany. While it has otome leanings because you play a female character, don't despair if you're more of a ren'ai fan. In later episodes, some cute female characters also join the cast -- and we are not placing any limits on who in the cast you can become friends with, who you can try to pair up, or who you can get to fall in love with you. (Not that romance is the only point of an Oplay game, since the games are designed to have complex plots, but it is a very appealing aspect of the gameplay!)

[gekiganwing]

Creating an interactive story in the form of episodic content is an interesting idea. Maybe not the perfect idea, but it lets the public see the beginning for free, and decide if they want to pay to continue. And I do admit that Dragon Academy looks rather cute.

...It's just that I was hoping for a translation. The ren'ai game translation scene is still small and fragmented, kind of like the way manga was 10+ years ago. (Back then, there were occasional big licenses like Ranma and Nausicaa, but they were in awkward, expensive formats. It was sometimes easier to just purchase some Ben Dunn or Adam Warren comics.)

I haven't personally tried O-Play yet. But would this release method work for the various segments of Higurashi? If anyone's familiar with the original doujin VNs, please feel free to reply.

[GLACIER]

AFAIK, Higurashi differs in that it's non-interactive (what we might call a kinetic novel in the English-speaking community), so breaking each chapter down into small chunks would be simple. Whether that format makes any sense is another matter, of course.

As a customer, I'm not fond of episodic content. However, I've always been interested in the idea when it comes to long-running, community driven creation. Theoretically, a core team could concentrate on a main storyline, while soliciting original standalones/side stories (written within the constraints of existing art + music assets) from prospective community contributors. Naturally, it would take a great deal of motivation, talent, and communication/management skills to pull this off, but it could be a great way for English language development to grow and stand out.

[monele]

I love the art (the first full screen picture was full of emotion) and I like how it plays out. Making regular choices into an emotion interface, while not changing the core of the system, gives it some originality too ^_^. But it's too short! XD... Now I'm curious about everything, guh! Are the following episodes just as long or longer?

[azureXtwilight]

Awww, Damn I have to pay for this.

[Der Tor]

it looks very promising... it has the potential to be a great game - or it could all just be a scheme to cheat people out of their money... okay it's propably not a scheme but a great game - but i don't know... the introduction was great but so short that it is impossible to know what to expect. I mean hey i might have still bought it right away... if it wouldn't ask for all my informaton BEFORE telling me what the price is and what i get for it. How long is the episode i am buying? How many of them do i have to buy to complete the game? How do theese episodes differ from the tutorial? What does an episode cost? I don't know, and you don't seem to be telling it to people untill after they bought it... that defintely scares people away... even those who would otherwise have great interest in the game and would have normally bought it...

[Vatina]

You should try and go to their forums and say this - it seems that they are good at reading their costumer's thoughts and replying to them.
If anything can be gained from it isn't known yet But I like how easy it is to talk to them so far.

(Although, since Audry started this thread, she may check here too.... who knows)

[azureXtwilight]

Some of my friends have played this, but they said the episode was a bit too short.

[victorita9]

ok so i am completely disappointed about o play. I didn't even care that it was kind of shot but what got me mad is the lack of update. The creators said it was going to be updated monthly and then ever since then they have put in nothing in their site. Not even a word of delay. As a monthly customer you expect some consistency and if you don't get it you can at least expect an update saying that it won't be out for a while. I'm not sure that i will play oplay again, at least not until i see some consistent releases come for a few months.

What a disappointment it was a fun game.

[jack_norton]

From my experience, offering a monthly update of such complex games to make (if you want to offer a professional product) requires lot of effort and planning ahead (I mean having at least 4-5 episodes ready in advance the day you open to the public).
Curiously is a thing I've been thinking about a lot, to do it myself. But I'm not going to try it right now, too risky

[papillon]

Episodic games have high hurdles to clear. The buyers don't trust you, so they're not eager to buy, then the seller gives up because of poor sales and stops selling without completing the story, then future buyers are even LESS trusting...

I suspect episodic games would work better if you actually had more of the game ready to go before you started and if you did them as freeware traffic drivers, something to make people keep coming back to your site again and again to see what's new...

[Vatina]

Hmm it's too bad, looked promising to me. When it launched I decided to not buy anything until a couple of episodes were released... but still no episode 2.

Maybe I should go poke them on their forum <_<

[Fox Lee]

Hah! This is exactly what I was going to do with my game XD This was the one with multiple main characters showing different parts of the same storyline, so the idea was to release two per episode (or thereabouts).

[Steve]

does anyone know what happened to this game. First it was around and then suddenly the people who created it mostly disappeared never to make another episode. Weird.

[Maverynthia]

I thin it pretty much died. From what I recall the episodes were $7.99 each and were super short. Also it was first introduced as an otome game then if mutated into something that wasn't one. GxG and stuff... like thos other non-otome games lurking around here.