Episodic VNs: Is it possible to code a game in episodes?

[pyopyon]

I have this idea for a VN series where the plot is in arcs, almost like TV episodes, and you download and play through each episode-- each week, depending on your ending, you get a pass code that will allow you to download the next episode/installment. I guess it's kind of inspired by TWD game, and how it's kind of altered by your perspective and choices made in the game.

I wonder-- do you think it's a viable option?

Not so much is it possible (which I'm certain it is)... just do you think people/ would you play a game like that?

[Dragonstar89]

The idea reminds me a lot of the Surviving Highschool series by EA. I've written down story ideas for a sort of similar thing, except I wouldn't have thought of offering different types of episodes depending on the endings. From anything that I've played that does this sort of setup, I can say that it's a very interesting and fun thing to have a VN series; they usually end up popular (provided of course that they have a good story and a nice setup). The problem though is about given a code to let players download a different type of the new episode depending on their ending in the last one: That will be very, very, very tedious to do, especially if you're by yourself in this project. Reasons why is:

• You'll have to edit new episodes many times that will contribute to one of the endings to a previous episode
• Unless you have some highly intelligent system setup where people connect an account to the episodes and the system can tell which ending they chose and send them an email with the new episode corresponding to their ending: you're going to have a very tough time sending a download code to players (unless you provide them freely in say a webpage or forum)
• For players that would take it seriously as a series, it could be confusing to have them following different paths, and if they tried to discuss say the latest episode with each other they would have a very hard time understanding anything.

Not to mention, making a episodic-style of VN series is tedious by itself without those mentioned in the list, because if it get's enough players the demand for new episodes can be very stress-inducing.

It's your ideas though, so if you believe you can handle it (or just have a large dev team :p ) then you should take a shot at it. I just know it can be a very tedious task, especially if you wanna have the series weave out different endings and routes.

[pyopyon]

I just laughed because I was just watching SnK before I checked this forum.

Anyway, I had never head of that game! (I downloaded it, haha) And that's true... Hmm, Maybe instead, it would be cool to have a main story and then have little episodic type games that came afterwards that talked about the futures of the individual characters!

It would have to be a good enough storyline to make people like the characters, but still, I think it could work! (I definitely don't have a large team, so maybe at THIS point the project is too big for me... but... one day!)

[ddalziel]

Sounds like a great idea, pyopyon. Also sounds really difficult as pointed out by Dragonstar89. Perhaps instead of having different branches of a story, each episode gives the player the assigned values instead? So if you chose considerate options in the first episode, you'd be given a code or option in a list of codes that means you start the next episode with 5 kindness. Same could be done for objects, encounters and skills.

[Dragonstar89]

I just laughed because I was just watching SnK before I checked this forum.

Anyway, I had never head of that game! (I downloaded it, haha) And that's true... Hmm, Maybe instead, it would be cool to have a main story and then have little episodic type games that came afterwards that talked about the futures of the individual characters!

It would have to be a good enough storyline to make people like the characters, but still, I think it could work! (I definitely don't have a large team, so maybe at THIS point the project is too big for me... but... one day!)

Haha Anyways, if you would happen to make a VN with great characters and a compelling story, good enough it got a good amount of fans then making little side stories in the future for the other characters of the game would be good. Fans of a game that did that would definitely appreciate it.

Sounds like a great idea, pyopyon. Also sounds really difficult as pointed out by Dragonstar89. Perhaps instead of having different branches of a story, each episode gives the player the assigned values instead? So if you chose considerate options in the first episode, you'd be given a code or option in a list of codes that means you start the next episode with 5 kindness. Same could be done for objects, encounters and skills.

Nice idea, but it too is still a tedious task for any average person. A video game should have very little and limited physical interaction to be played (unless it's some game for the xbox kinect). Having your player memorize which code they got and having to enter it for a boost in a new episode would be tedious, and doing things like such could cause a major loss in interest. This is why most episodic VNs and games along the lines simply base their stories around a certain protagonist overcoming different challenges each or every other episode without having it determine what happens next time. It keeps players interested, because the idea of making episodic VNs is to have it be like your own little TV series: the watcher isn't involved but feels very much so because of how it all plays out.

If anyone would still want to take the tedious route though, a decent idea would be to insert a program that sees which choices were made the most in the last episode, and secretly use the feedback to determine the outcome of the next one but then again that would require a very good programming job inserted into each game.

[pyopyon]

Hmm... even though that second reply wasn't to me, it made me think! A while ago I had an idea for a comic called 'fizzle!' (It was about personified soda brands, mainly surrounding the family feud between Pepsi Cola and his brother, Cola) which basically was episodic but with a floating storyline... so I definitely do feel like something like that def more plausible.

If one could make relatively short (let's say... an hour long) episodic game to be released monthly, it would be awesome- especially if it was mystery or adventure, and the game involved central story arcs and had a variety of characters that could be explored! In theory there could be some flexibility within the game but all in all, each episode would be a reset... so besides maybe a few key episodes, they could be played in a any order...

[seitensei]

Instead of providing separate downloads, why don't you just download a content pack into the visual novel that contains new assets and scenes- thus being episodic releases, but within the same game. Think of something like DLC for games, but bundle in the new content into new releases of the game.

[pyopyon]

I understand the concept, but not how it could be executed;;

[noeinan]

I would also be interested in how that would work. One of my favorite games, Winter Voices, operates that way-- the main game is the shell and each new episode is DLC.

[Anima]

You can share data between Ren'Py games with multi-persistence. That's pretty much all you need for an episodic game.

[pyopyon]

Oh! I see!

So in order to add the new DLC, is it just that they have to save it inside the renpy folder manually or... how does the user actually add it to their game file?

[Steamgirl]

I'm actually trying out something similar-ish at the moment, using the web updater. Basically my thoughts were that if I could do a weekly or monthly update, I could roll out the game in short installments. A bit like webcomics do.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to get the web updater to work (yet). Happy to post my method once/if I do.

[Anima]

Oh! I see!

So in order to add the new DLC, is it just that they have to save it inside the renpy folder manually or... how does the user actually add it to their game file?

It wouldn't be an ad in like an expansion, instead each episode would be it's own game and they can share data trough the multi persistence. So the user just needs to unpack the new episode somewhere and start it with the exe/app/sh as usual. The data from the former chapters would be supplied by the multi persistence without any further actions from the user.
It would be rather easy to make a compilation later on with everything in a single game after it's finished as well.

[pyopyon]

Ohhh, I see-- so technically they are still downloading a separate file-- but they can still open the same original game file and the downloaded information will automatically be there?

[Anima]

The process works like this:

1. User downloads episode 1
2. User extracts episode 1
3. User starts episode 1
4. User plays episode 1
5. User finished episode 1
6. Game saves variables into the multi persistent object
7. User downloads episode 2
8. User extracts episode 2
9. User starts episode 2
10. Game loads variables from the multi persistent object
11. User plays episode 2 with the decisions he made in episode 1 available

You can also simply add new rpy files and assets with the auto updater but that's more like an unfinished game than an episodic game.