All About Sequels, Remakes, Uncut Versions

[DaFool]

What are the motivations behind people making sequels, remakes, and uncut versions?

* Is it that they still have a story to tell which they didn't get to do fully due to constraints in just getting a project out?
* Is it because their previous release proved popular that they want to build upon it?
* Is it because once proven that they can complete a game, now they want to polish it?
* Is it because they are most comfortable telling stories from an already established environment and cast of characters?

There is also the issue of how to list sequels, remakes, and uncut versions.
The way I justify things is this... let us say your game is called My Game.

My Game 2 -- should technically be a new story, no different from calling it another title and mentioning that it's a sequel (e.g. Silent Maiden games)

My Game (remake) -- with revised graphics, tweaked (but not really changed) text, addition of better music, voices, translation to another language etc. is technically an update of an existing game, no matter how substantial. If the file does not supersede the old version, I would usually lump them together, with links to the old version.

My Game Uncut -- this situation is a bit more complicated. If My Game and My Game Uncut were released in roughly the same timeframe, and if they shared many elements, then I would lump them together so players can choose. Minors would download My Game, adults can opt to download My Game Uncut.

But if My Game Uncut were released many months from My Game, it's pretty much given that it's almost a totally new retelling, a different game.

[monele]

To me as a creator, the attraction of a sequel comes from the established part allowing to quickly build something bigger upon it. For example, it's long to properly establish characters and a "first" game, especially the short ones we make, can hardly have a huge cast. If you make a sequel, you can more easily reuse existing characters and just a create a few new ones to keep things fun.
It's also nice if you consider you haven't explored everything, wether it's about characters or game or story.

As a player, I like sequels because it's "more of the same goodness", and sometimes you can hope there's a "better than before" effect. Of course, VNs being more like movies, they might be less good for sequels... whereas game-oriented VNs/hybrids would benefit from fixes and small additions.

[mikey]

Well, I'm a known adversary of the concept of Sequels, Remakes and Uncuts. I do realize all the good points - there are several. And even the below mentioned points against them can't be taken absolutely. But it's my viewpoint, and I try to explain:

So :

1.) I dislike (sometimes even feel insulted by) the fact that if I play something and I like it, the creator automatically assumes I want more of it.
2.) Also, the sequel is typically more complex and longer since, once again the creators assume that more means progress.
3.) Furthermore by creating a sequel, the creators are borrowing something from the original and making it less unique.

And why?

a.) Well, for one I want a work to feel complete for the author. Usually it will handle one topic and that topic should be closed. Everyone marries and they live happily ever after. The End really means the end and finished means finished.
b.) Though not always, often you can somehow feel a bit of laziness or lack of imagination in projects that use pre-established settings. Sometimes it's also playing it safe, sometimes wanting to please the crowd (or give them more). And I can't really buy any of the pro-arguments here - in most cases it's simply the creator not being able to let go.

This is mostly, of course, because I tend to view the games in a generalized way, without details - if I had to make up an example, let's suppose the game Black Pencil is for me about loneliness. This loneliness is expressed through visuals, and a story. They are the means to achieve the emotion of loneliness. Therefore, it doesn't matter how the story continues after the good ending, it doesn't matter what happens next, and it doesn't matter what happened before (uncut / sequel). Similarly, it doesn't make sense to make the graphics better (remake), since the original ones do their job sufficiently.

And I tend to look at a lot of games this way - filtering out some basic emotion and understanding everything else as a simple support for this. Therefore sequels rarely make sense to me - I'm not really interested in the story (in the "plot line" sense), since that's for me just a tool. And if there is a sequel planned, I assume it will also have a certain reason - just like Black Pencil was about loneliness, the sequel can be... about let's say helplessness. But using the Black Pencil setting for this is already taking away the uniqueness of the feeling associated to the setting. Therefore I'd always opt for creating a different (new) setting and characters to express helplessness.

Ugh, I hope that point somehow came across. I absolutely understand that not everyone will be able to agree, and I'm specifically not saying that focusing on plot or characters in games is something wrong - it's not wrong that when creating them one will actually make the characters or plots the actual meaning of the game (so in Black Pensil the meaning would be Yuki's story instead of loneliness). It's just a different way of seeing things.

And it ultimately means I don't *hate* sequels. They just don't go well with my approach towards playing VNs.

[Ivlivs]

Check #3 and 4 (of DaFool's original post) for me. And sorry, mikey. You don't have to play my sequel if you don't want to/if this germ of an idea never gets finished.

[Showsni]

The main reason for a sequel, in my opinion, is to finish the story. Of course, I've read a lot more books than I've played VNs, and the reasons for a sequel might be a little different; generally, a VN will be a complete standalone work, in which case a sequel isn't really necessary. But a game or book written specifically with a sequel in mind, leaving unanswered questions and loose ends, would be where I'd most want to see another installment to properly finish the tale.

As to why you'd split what could be a longer work into several segments, released individually, there could be a number of reasons. Perhaps you don;t think the whle thing would sustain someone's interest played through at once, or you want longer to work on it - whatever. Or, of course, commercially, a sequel will make more money as hopefully people who bought the first one will want the rest too.

[mikey]

Check #3 and 4 (of DaFool's original post) for me. And sorry, mikey. You don't have to play my sequel if you don't want to/if this germ of an idea never gets finished.

No no no!

Really, no. I was afraid it wouldn't come across the intended way, because it's a complicated thing - I had two sequels (Black Pencil 2 and Married To Misato) in the making, both scrapped later on, and Kaori also plays around with being Black Pencil 2.

So... no. I mentioned this several times in the post, you can't take those points absolutely, and it doesn't mean I hate sequels. What I do is I *prefer* not to have them, if possible.

In short this means for the game-maker: If there is a way of achieving the result you want to achieve with your game that doesn't involve the sequel, then I prefer having a fresh game instead. For me, as a person who makes games centered around a certain emotion, it really makes sense, and I also tend to play games looking for a basic emotion like this - most of the games have it.

But while I look for this "heart", and it is the heart for me, it does not mean that the creators meant it as a heart. There can be a game that's hugely complex, based around a complicated murder mystery where in the end it's the mother that murders her son - yet I will perceive it not as a thriller or a story full of twists with a distinctive inspector in the leading role, but as actually being about the mother's helplessness that drove her to the murder. So there can be something only marginally inserted and for me it becomes the centre. From my perspective it's not really important how complicated the case is for the inspector, and how ingeniously he is interpreting clues - because I see something different in it.

You may think it's not the point, but I think it is - it's still kind of an art form, a VN - it's very subjective - so why not? And that's the way that above comment should be viewed - from this perspective it's really not necessary to have sequels, and I usually enjoy a completely new setting much better as a result.

As a maker - due to the fact of how I create my games - I always try not to need a sequel and I've become really fond of the feeling that once a game is out, the subject is kind of "off the table" - it's really refreshing once you get used to it. I did.

But of course this doesn't apply to every game in the world - and I could probably go on and list positives and negatives which could boil down to the fact that it's just in the way of looking at it - and it really is, and this is mine.

As for Jitteh Dawn 2 (incidentally you announced it today), that makes perfect sense for me - the first one was story-based, so will be the sequel, I assume. For this game I think the positives of a sequel will prevail - in the case of my games this wouldn't be the case (Embraced By Green 2 - there would just be absolutely no reason and no point).

So... anyway, all should be mud-clear now

[papillon]

But a game or book written specifically with a sequel in mind, leaving unanswered questions and loose ends ...

... could piss me off and make me not want to play your games anymore.

No, that's not always true. But I've ranted on occasion about a particular book that I picked up not realising it was intended as the beginning of a series, and got through to an ending that in my opinion, resolved nothing, and simply said "Insert $8 for the next three hours of story!"

I threw the book across the room.

If something is labeled as a series up front, then I know there will be elements left unresolved that will be continued in a later book/game/whatever, and I won't be upset, so long as the initial story reaches a conclusion of SOME kind for its own internal plot. Episodes have resolution without ending a series.

However, I get annoyed when people put out a game lacking some feature or resolution they had obviously intended from the start but held back to release in the full-price sequel/expansion three months later. This makes me feel like I was cheated and sold an incomplete game, and am being extorted in order to get the full game experience I thought I was buying the first time around.

Obviously this is not such a problem in freeware.

[PyTom]

Was it a bad thing that Darth Vader got away at the end of Star Wars? I'd say no, since the main story of that movie wrapped up nicely.

With mugenjohncel and others, we're reworking Moonlight Walks for the 2.0 release. The script will not change, but the new release will include two translations. The artwork will be vastly improved, a complaint people had about the original, but I'll probably include the original art as a bonus once the game has been completed.

In general, I want to put my best foot forward for each new release.

[musical74]

Here's my view of these...

The *uncut* version....honestly, why bother with it? That implies that they have things that are too *mature* for kids...either go all out and make the game Mature or leave the stuff out and make it Teen.

Remakes....depends on the reason for the remake. What's different? The graphics are improved but everything else is the same? PASS...have they improved things drastically? Made the game easier to play, made things that were frustrating in the oringal go away but still fun? might give that a go....

Sequels? VERY mixed view on this. I really don't like reading book or watching movies that say *we are going to leave you hanging"...Good example of that is Dinosuar Planet...the ending is *uh OK.....guessing there's a sequel?" The way it's done makes me suspect so....just about threw the book down in disgust.

So, yeah I agree with papillon...leaving me hanging because there's a sequel planned...could result in me saying *the heck with it* and not bothering with later games or books in the series.

[Ivlivs]

I'm all right with remakes, so long as they include more than just newfangled artwork and an art gallery. Why should I get the same thing with a larger megabyte count?

Sequels are good, so long as the stories are about particular incidents and end those incidents. The next story should involve a new situation, even if it retains the same themes, characters, and settings. Don't cheat by just releasing an unfinished work as "the first in a series" and releasing the rest of it as "the sequel." You'll know that you're writing a true sequel when you have to think of something completely new when you try to use established characters and settings.

One of these posts gave me an idea I could use in my Jitteh Dawn sequel...I'm not saying what, though.

*Edited to remove a misspelling.

[lordcloudx]

For making uncut etc versions:

This statement pretty much summarizes it.
* Is it because once proven that they can complete a game, now they want to polish it?

For my work-in-progress (anytime now mugen) sequel: It's just because it carries the same mood and writing style as the original even if the characters, settings and pretty much everything else is completely different.

For my soon to be released prequel: I started writing this story long before the sequel, which actually got finished first and was made into a kinetic novel.

[DaFool]

The interesting thing is that while anime and manga tend to be adopted into series, VNs rarely are -- one-shots are the norm. If there is more than enough story, then they just release it as just one big novel. The commercialization occurs when they make Limited Editions vs Standard Editions, and especially when they make Fandiscs and Side Stories. I guess these are blatant commercializations which I've gotten used to, so I just accept their existence.

For me, it really depends on the execution.
I enjoyed Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha and Nanoha A's. I was really excited about Striker S, but got severely disappointed and dropped the series. The irony is that they decided to go for 24/26 episodes instead of 12, and each episode rarely felt satisfying, as if the screenplay was purposefully trying to use delaying tactics. They should have just ended it at Nanoha A's, which was the best.

Nowadays we have bishoujo anime that run forever, for example Da Capo... although, to me at least, it wasn't too bad. I just miss the old days when bishoujo VNs would get turned into non-H two to four episode OVAs. I tend to view bishoujo anime like iyashi-kei anime... to get the relaxing feeling, so the resulting plot compressions is not so important to me.

Now as for Aria the Animation / Aria the Natural... it did its job, but I feel as though they could have been more effective if they shortened the series and spent more time polishing the animation. When a series is all about feeling rather than plot, then the atmosphere becomes paramount, and good graphics helps in that.

I also want to clarify the difference between "Moonlight Walks 2.0" versus "Moonlight Walks 2". This is just a technical designation, but 2.0 means it's an updated remake, superseding the old version (and indeed it does, while keeping the original graphics as a bonus), while "Moonlight Walks 2" is really "Moonlight Walks 2 1.0" -- a sequel. So anyone else out there making sequels, remakes, and uncuts... please get your designation right so we won't get confused. One shouldn't have to play the game from beginning to end to realize its a sequel... it should be stated out front in project announcements. Some people just want to know what they're getting into, such as those who prefer branches versus points-based games.

[Adorya]

For commercial VN, there is also the "don't have time/money" argment.
Suppose you have great ideas but you lack time /fund/abilities to finish your game. You end up with an "ok version" but you are still frustrated by not including everything you wanted.

There are several cases for a sequel in that way :
- 1st version is a success, so as stated above next version surf on the same ideas/chara designer/gameplay but the story is different (most niche commercials Hgame are doing that).
Typical exemple are the Green Green series.

- Next version is a "complete" or "add-on" version. Same game but remasterised and a bit more content. Thoses games try to get new customers or sack a bit more the fans.
Infamous exemple are the Custom Slave series, almost 5 or 6 re-releases for the same game but in a different packaging.

Imho, I think a re-release in the "try to get new players" with the same content but new packaging is ok, but the add-on unless a new independent game which add a lot of new content is not ok. (eg. FSN / FHA).
I am for unused/dropped ideas brainstormed to make a complete new game.

[monele]

Remakes : are mostly nice for newcomers. In that regard, it's a cool idea to upgrade Moonlight since it's the official first Ren'Py game. But except to see the new graphics, I don't think it'll interest me any further

The *uncut* version....honestly, why bother with it? That implies that they have things that are too *mature* for kids...either go all out and make the game Mature or leave the stuff out and make it Teen.

Actually, I like the idea of either two versions or at least an "option" to remove 18+ material. Sure, it means it was probably not necessary to begin with, but hey... sometimes it's nice to have it... depends on the mood... And often, I've wanted to show a good game/story to my parents, but it had H in it so I couldn't. Wish I could turn it off sometimes.

[Adorya]

"Good games" don't have H-scene at their best, so you could just save to your favorite scene, "hiding the rest" and show them