Episodic games

[Scootarooni]

Hello all! I'm fresh off of having finished Lost Records: Bloom and Rage (Don't worry, no spoilers here!) and I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on episodic videos games.

I want to specifically talk about episodic games whose chapters are released across several dates (for example Life Is Strange 1, whose 5 episodes were released in January, March, May, July and October of 2015).

Personally, I enjoy the wait! It works so well for the games that have a mystery to the story, because you can spend the time theorizing with others. I was so lucky to experience Life is Strange 1 as it was releasing so I got to see everyone's theories in real time. Where did Max's powers come from? Who was Rachel Amber? What caused the storm? Is Samuel the janitor a time traveler? Is the homeless woman behind the diner...Max from the future?!? Some of these theories went a bit off the rails in hindsight, but it was still such a blast!

Meanwhile it was pretty disappointing to me that a later entry in the franchise, Life is Strange: True Colors, was released in it's entirety all at once. Sure, the mystery wasn't as...mysterious to me as LIS 1, but it would have been interesing to witness everyone pepe silvia-ing about Typhon Mining and it's connection to the inciting incident.

Anyways, I'd love to read your thoughts! Do you like when video games do this? Do you hate it? Any stand-out memories or opinions? I'm interested to know

[fawn]

I think for myself it can be very hit or miss. Life is Strange is very special to me and I think games like LiS (back in the DontNot days, at least) and Lost Records do it well as you can feel that it's a labour of love when playing the game, and I don't get the feeling that I'm being charged money for an experience that may remain unfinished.

I think I feel a little differently when it comes to episodic horror games, though?  And I'm not sure I can pinpoint why. It might be a bias of mine the whole indie mascot horror game niche is something I'm fairly autistic about and is a completely unrelated can of worms haha.

Overall I think it can be done well in the right circumstances and with the right games, but I'm wary of this kind of thing nowadays with all of the general chaos in the industry.

[bby]

i love lost records! i haven't gotten around to tape 2 yet, but i'm super excited for it :) i didn't love a lot of the choices they made in the latest life is strange, but this one exceeded my expectations. also, like in the life is strange games, the music is phenomenal! 

episodic games are some of my favorites. when i play games, story is the most important thing for me. so naturally i gravitate a lot towards these games and visual novels.

life is strange is my favorite episodic game series. i played it before the prequel came out, but i loved the wait between episodes for before the storm. i feel like a lot of that game was heavier than the first one so i feel like i needed that time in between episodes to take everything in that happened.

[Scootarooni]

I think I feel a little differently when it comes to episodic horror games, though?  And I'm not sure I can pinpoint why. It might be a bias of mine the whole indie mascot horror game niche is something I'm fairly autistic about and is a completely unrelated can of worms haha.

I completely forgot some mascot horror games nowadays are episodic as well! I can't say I'm a huge fan of them myself.

For me, I think it's the heavy commercialization that turns me away from it. ofc it's unavoidable that there's gonna be tons of merch based on those types of games, but there's a noticeable difference in a game that is made to be a game and a game that is meant to sell merchandise. And I feel as though the latter doesn't use the episodic format as an intentional way to tell a story, but to generate hype around merch sales.

life is strange is my favorite episodic game series. i played it before the prequel came out, but i loved the wait between episodes for before the storm. i feel like a lot of that game was heavier than the first one so i feel like i needed that time in between episodes to take everything in that happened.

The wait between BTS episodes was such a crazy time!! I'm not the biggest fan of D9, but they knocked it out of the park with the presentation and atmosphere of BTS. I still regularly listen to Daughter's album for it :)

[candycanearter07]

The only "episodic" game I've played was well after it was finished, and that was Minecraft Story Mode. On the other hand, I remember being very excited about sequels and stuff

[fawn]

For me, I think it's the heavy commercialization that turns me away from it.

I completely agree with this sentiment! Especially because they are so targeted towards children nowadays (tangent but I recently watched this video on why we should stop santising horror for kids and I really enjoyed it, if you are interested!), a lot of them feel very predatory. I was super into Poppy Playtime when it first released and then the NFT thing happened and then the abysmal merch started dropping and it stopped being this thing where there was a lot of lore and character exploration potential and turned into a money printing machine as these things tend to go now. On a happier note though, the mascot horror genre led me to find the Welcome Home ARG which has since become a special interest of mine with a great creator/team and those merch drops are extremely high quality and few and far between. So thanks to that I now have the mascot horror void inside me filled without having to get frustrated at the state of the episodic issues haha.