Episodic releases?

Ya know, we are here, but CAPCOM can stop our fun real quick. We surely are trying to make a full game, and it would be a waste to have to close a project with a lot of work done.

Then, I suggest in doing episodes, or chapters. Each one having 2-3 hours of duration, so we can focus on small parts, and release them as we finish them, thus even if we are stopped, we were able to provide some of the game.
This way, we can be faster in doing some gameplay events, and etc.

Besides, we could try to make special animations for important events. Maybe, we shall try to use an animation made with pencil and paper, or some stylish work with pictures, so we can provide a good, satisfying view of the story, and it will be easier and won't stop the flow of the game production. 3D cutscenes may be awesome too, just one idea to take in consideration. ^^

I saw this discussed earlier at one point, and that actually isn't a bad idea. Even if we get canned, we can at least let out a teeny bit, and also it'll let us see how much people would be interested in the game's actual gameplay and story.

That would be a good idea, it's always good to have short term goals.

We still haven't make a final decision about this. However, we hope to release the Prototype "remake" first. After that we'll see what would be the most appropriate way to make/distribute the actual game with Trigger..

Let's worry about demo work and prototypes first. We can, however, do this and it'll work very well, so long as each episode can segue right into another one—we could also modularize the Prototype, creating a framework that will allow for content addition over time. So, while there may only be one mission, the player can still mess around town if he so chooses, while we play gopher in our work caves.

I support the episodic releases too , for many reasons already posted like the "fans feedback" not to mention that i would give us the opportunity to add new things on the way. for exemple if during the programation and all that stuff, we find some cool thing for a mini game wich was not implanted in the firsts episodes, then we can make it, no stress. well anyway, again i only give my ideas XD

I'm all for an episodic release. We could take the Sonic 4 approach of releasing an episode and listen to fan feedback of what gameplay elements to tweak or improve upon, but still keep our ideas for story, setting, etc unchanged.

I love this idea, it really can build up to a climatic ending

If we do this, every episode will have to be its own slice of perfected awesome. Because people will probably play to the end of each episode, wait for the next, then play to the end of that one, we have to make sure each episode is 100% DONE and PERFECT before moving on, otherwise we'll have no way of going back to correct mistakes without forcing the players to start over. Also, it will take players 3+ years (or however long it takes us to finish) to beat the game.

In short, great idea in theory, but I don't believe it will work so well in practice.

lunargoblin wrote:If we do this, every episode will have to be its own slice of perfected awesome. Because people will probably play to the end of each episode, wait for the next, then play to the end of that one, we have to make sure each episode is 100% DONE and PERFECT before moving on, otherwise we'll have no way of going back to correct mistakes without forcing the players to start over. Also, it will take players 3+ years (or however long it takes us to finish) to beat the game.

In short, great idea in theory, but I don't believe it will work so well in practice.

Have you ever played a Telltales Game? They make awesome games in an episodic format.

(Although I'm still not convinced to develop this game in an episodic format apart from release Prototype first.)

I have not played them, but I'll definitely look them up and give them a shot.

I'm just not convinced that episodic format would work for *this* game, but in the end it's not my decision

I'd release the Prototype first to gauge the market. If Capcom responds favorably or keeps quiet, then keep going with the rest of it. Least we could do is stick to our guns with that.

Adrian2040N wrote:We still haven't make a final decision about this. However, we hope to release the Prototype "remake" first. After that we'll see what would be the most appropriate way to make/distribute the actual game with Trigger..

CAPCOM actually didn't finish their "Prototype", so it's good to point out that we aren't doing a remake, but our own Prototype Version

LordGarza wrote:

Adrian2040N wrote:We still haven't make a final decision about this. However, we hope to release the Prototype "remake" first. After that we'll see what would be the most appropriate way to make/distribute the actual game with Trigger..

CAPCOM actually didn't finish their "Prototype", so it's good to point out that we aren't doing a remake, but our own Prototype Version

Actually, we ARE doing a remake. However, we will fill out everything that's missing from what we known with our own ideas. (And we don't know A LOT.)

We can, of course, take a lot of liberties with this project, considering how little we know about the planned missions and plot development, et al.

I don't think the actual MML3 portion should be episodic, but if you find it was a lot of fun actually making it and want to make extra episodes, that would probably be pretty swell, since Japanese companies tend to drop the ball HARD on 'dlc' additions (their tradition is to simply put out something when they feel it's 100% complete, so their attempts to emulate western DLC are laughable at best, outright insulting at worse, like Capcom's buyable palette recolours as 'new characters' or Soul Calibur 4 promising DLC but it turns out to be nothing more than "the data for the character from the other system already exists, 3buxplz to use them!")
therefore, you can probably get extra mileage(downloads, likes, whatever you're counting) out of it if you make the dlc full 'episodes' ala Fallout 3's expansion missions. And maybe some 'just for fun' or 'what-if' episodes or small sets of challenge missions. These kinds of things are common in the west but nearly invisible in japan. They will instead build a crapload of challenge levels and release it as a fully priced 'game' but when it arrives in the west, we'll chastise them for it because we recognize it as expansion content. Most recent examples would be that one MGS game that was nearly all VR missions, and Res Evil Mercenaries.