Episodic Game Ideas

The new TV shows of the year have begun to play, and stories are starting to be told. The episodic nature of the storytelling allows the characters to grow into interesting people to follow. How did Agent Coulson survive? What happens when Mr. Gold, and his happy family go to Never Never Land? We ask these questions, and then look at videogames. Can videogames be episodic? And can you do that within an open world game like Grand Theft Auto, Skyrim, or even Zelda?

Episodic gaming has been hit or miss for gaming. Telltale games has been the most successful with the idea. Many of their games are released in episodes every month. The Walking Dead game has become an incredible series of choices, and watching what happens next.

On the other end is SiN Episodes, which was cancelled before the second episode could even be released. Somewhere in between is Half Life 2, which had 2 episodes after the full game was released, and then nothing. In a way, downloadable content, or DLC, can be episodic in that it adds extra stories to games. This also works for expansion packs which can be just like DLC.

The basic idea is that as you play, another set of levels, or circumstances happen and you deal with them in this episode. Online games like The Sims Social, have episodic content all the time.  The game itself has a magical something or other that opens up, and the only way to complete the story is to do various tasks, and collect items. The items help build up the new levels, and are only for that particular episode. Once the episode finishes, the items are next to impossible to gather. This leaves unfinished things all over the game. In fact, the episodic content is probably what makes people leave the game so often. With so many unfinished items, it becomes difficult to enjoy playing the game, or even try out the next episode.

There was going to be a picture of various games played, but they have all fallen under since last play.

Animal Crossing has episodic content as part of the game, and plays very well with it. Every month or week there is an event the player can enjoy. When it is December there is snow on the ground, and a snowman asks for help. A reindeer dressed as santa leaves presents later in the month.

The reason it works is that Animal Crossing has a very non-linear gameplay style. There is no end goal, and the player does not have to try to win any of the episodes. Even if they do try them out, there is no box or item that needs to be constructed left over. You get the items from completing what you could, and that is it. Non-Linear also means that there is no set path to doing things. This means someone can play as much, or as little as they want, and will not be penalized.

Within giant games like Grand Theft Auto, World of Warcraft the way to explore is to complete missions. They are built like classic Role Playing Games where a person slowly builds up levels until they can defeat the monsters around them. In GTA, the area is said to be closed by police. Even if you go out into the other areas, they will not have anything because you need to complete missions to open them up. In other words, the entire point of the game is to fulfill the missions to open up the area.

When I tried to explore World of Warcraft, I found that my level was not enough. I could not really leave the castle area I began in, unless I fulfilled basic missions like delivering beer. I wanted to explore, but couldn’t. Eventually I figured out that so long as my level was very low, I could get unlimited rebirths. So I would run in a direction, and then die. When I was in ghost form I went a little further than my body, and then came back to life. In this way, I could daisy chain my way through the worlds. After exploring a bit, I turned the game off, and never played it again.

In a way Grand Theft Auto does have episodes. Every time you accept a mission, it could be considered another episode in the series. The problem is that sometimes the game forces the player to become someone. In their attempt to tell a story, the game becomes linear. Not only that, the character arc feels flat because you can never stop doing exactly what the story tells you to do. What if you wanted to sell brautwerst near a park? Even if you could, you would still be forced to be the gangster in the game.

Animal Crossing is very much so an open world game, and it would not be hard to play the game in an expanded world the size, and scope of World of Warcraft or GTA. For those about to jump in with Fable, I can not comment, I have never played it. If there could be an episodic theme within a giant world like San Andreas with Animal Crossing behavior? How would it play?

Instead of events like a reindeer, what if they were villains? The entire goal is to defeat the new baddy running around town. The entire world is open, and you can go to find new abilities and tricks where ever you want. You slowly get to know various characters walking around as they go about their lives. They may not live anywhere near each other, but will recognize you when you stop to talk to them.

When an event happens, the big baddy begins to do terrible things to the world. You work to stop them. For the rest of the game, they are loose, and able to do all sorts of things. Whenever you play the baddy may be up to something, and even tries out old schemes. The player can ignore it, or do something about it. They can live out their lives as they wish.

As more, and more villains break out, the world changes so that the player sees new things. If they can defeat the monster, or at least escape, the story changes. We find out what is going on, and why the main character seems to be centered on it. Big events like Halloween night when a giant monster is let loose can happen. If the player doesn’t do anything, the town is damaged, but life moves on.

Games like Tony Hawk Pro Skater would be really fun with a basic episodic model. Every month two or three more levels are released. The player gets to enjoy them, and try out all sorts of new ideas with them as they play the older levels. It may be viewed as DLC, or Expansion packs, but so long as new levels are opened it would be greatly enjoyed. Beat the game, and raise your levels up to the highest rate, and then attack the new levels, with new goals, and missions. It would be a lot of fun, and Tony Hawk fans would enjoy it.

Episodic gaming doesn’t have a perfect record. It has a lot of potential, and even different styles of episodes. Animal Crossing style would be a lot of fun in a giant world game like Grand Theft Auto, or -dare I say it- a Power Rangers game. Games like Tony Hawk could have new levels released every month, and they would be played a lot. Either direction, properly made episodic gaming can make some amazing improvements to good games.