Sorry for late reply. Admin Issues.

I like the idea of the banana-slip comedy for younger children, but your instinct for ‘serious comedy’ may be the first and most approachable form for adults. Then again, the success of Mr Bean and Benny Hill around the world suggests there is still room for broader adult fare.

Apologies for late reply. Admin issues.

When I play these kind of games I experience the feeling of loosing sense of place, and becoming one with the character and his/her world. You make the decisions and feel the emotional consequences. I personally play to get the best ending, and really struggle when the decisions become more and more difficult, when there is no right or wrong, white or black, but only what you define as “righter” or “wronger”. So the psychological behaviour of the character I play, and the response of the characters I interact with trough the story will defiantly be a selling point for me. The smarter and more believable this interaction is, the more I’ll like it and want to experience it, and thus the idea of episodic games is most intriguing. The important fact for me personally is that the enthusiasm to create innovation doesn’t ruin the storytelling.

But could I play episodic games with duration of one hour? It depends on how the time fact will be determined. I can play games within 10 hours. Others might use 5 – 20 hours. The way people play differs a lot, so the danger would be that one hour gameplay may only last 15 minutes for some and two hours for others. 15 minutes is not enough time to get emotionally attached to a character. But if these episodic games would be a follow-up to a “pilot” game, where you’ve already familiarized with the main characters, and already made some crucial choices, then I would really want to play some more, as often as I can- as long as the choices makes sense to the end – story.

The choice of genre really doesn’t bother me. I could easily play an empathy game formed as a comedy, and afterwards see it as a tv-series or movie. It just needs to be smart comedy that deals with serious consequences, and not “Haha – I slipped on a banana peel”, though the latter would be good for children.

This was supposed to be a short comment, so I better cut it here

Episodic downloadable games could also present some challenges in regards to how much free space people have available for downloads on their consoles. If the industry wants to get serious about DLC, then they’ll need to spend some time brainstorming solutions to this problem. Not every gamer will be willing to (or can afford to) run out and buy an expensive new hard drive every time they start to run out of memory space. Selling “seasons” of episodic games is one idea, or perhaps some kind of remote data storage option could be implemented?

I personally like the idea of moral choices having a significant impact on the story in *some* games, even to the point of cutting off storyline avenues in that playthrough. The game industry has been doing an admirable job of letting us have our cake and eat it, too…but giving us such choices without letting them make a significant impact on the game’s story lessens their meaning somewhat. I think it’ll take a brave company to risk the wrath of gamers and be the first ones to do that, though! As for comedy in games…well, it can be done (and it *has* been done), but usually it’s part of a larger narrative and not the basis of the game itself. Like with reading a good fictional book, I think gamers are often looking for an escapist experience that takes them into another world. Pulling that off as a comedy might be a bit tricky.

Thanks for posting your ideas and asking for feedback