TroyHepfner
July 4th, 2011, 07:27 AM
Last time (http://www.mygamecompany.com/forums/showthread.php?t=635), I talked about why I chose to release Dirk Dashing 2 before it is done, and my decision to break up the story into episodic installments. Today I want to discuss some of the ways I thought about doing that and why I chose to do it as a pre-order.
There are a number of ways to break up the story into episodes. One of the first I thought about was how Amanda over at Amaranth Games broke up her latest Aveyond story into 4 different episodes. Each episode was sold as a separate product. But I didn't think this would work for me, since each stage in my 5 part story contains only 8 levels. There's just not enough content there to sell each stage by itself. And besides, when the project is finished, I would really like to have a single game containing all of the content, not a bunch of smaller products.
There are other episodic games I thought about, like the recent Tales of Monkey Island, Back to the Future, and Sam and Max. But those games don't really offer any different models to follow than Amanda's.
Then I thought about selling Dirk Dashing 2 as a single product, with each episode packaged as an add-on that could be sold separately. Customers would install the add-on into the same directory where the main game is installed (similar to how I packaged Dirk 1), and the game would pick up the new content and use it. But there are a few problems here. First, that approach would probably work fine on Windows and Linux, but Mac games aren't typically installed that way. Mac games are usually packaged as a single file (an app bundle) that contains everything, and I'm not aware of a good method for patching app bundles to add new content - usually developers just release an updated version of the app bundle. Second, this approach assumes that only new content would be added and the game executable wouldn't change. But that's probably not going to be the case. Along the way, I'm sure I'll be fixing bugs and probably adding some new features too. So I would also have to be releasing updates to the main product. I can foresee problems when customers install the new add-on they bought but don't update the main game, and then it doesn't run right. I want to minimize support issues as much as possible.
So I decided that a pre-order similar to what Puppy Games did with Revenge of the Titans was the way to go. Their game had 5 stages too, if I remember correctly, and only the first 2 were done when the game was made available for pre-ordering. As they added more content, they released updates to the game for their customers. Plus the feedback they received regarding game balance, level design, and suggested new features really helped make the game better and contribute to its success.
So that's what I'm doing with Dirk Dashing 2.
There are a number of ways to break up the story into episodes. One of the first I thought about was how Amanda over at Amaranth Games broke up her latest Aveyond story into 4 different episodes. Each episode was sold as a separate product. But I didn't think this would work for me, since each stage in my 5 part story contains only 8 levels. There's just not enough content there to sell each stage by itself. And besides, when the project is finished, I would really like to have a single game containing all of the content, not a bunch of smaller products.
There are other episodic games I thought about, like the recent Tales of Monkey Island, Back to the Future, and Sam and Max. But those games don't really offer any different models to follow than Amanda's.
Then I thought about selling Dirk Dashing 2 as a single product, with each episode packaged as an add-on that could be sold separately. Customers would install the add-on into the same directory where the main game is installed (similar to how I packaged Dirk 1), and the game would pick up the new content and use it. But there are a few problems here. First, that approach would probably work fine on Windows and Linux, but Mac games aren't typically installed that way. Mac games are usually packaged as a single file (an app bundle) that contains everything, and I'm not aware of a good method for patching app bundles to add new content - usually developers just release an updated version of the app bundle. Second, this approach assumes that only new content would be added and the game executable wouldn't change. But that's probably not going to be the case. Along the way, I'm sure I'll be fixing bugs and probably adding some new features too. So I would also have to be releasing updates to the main product. I can foresee problems when customers install the new add-on they bought but don't update the main game, and then it doesn't run right. I want to minimize support issues as much as possible.
So I decided that a pre-order similar to what Puppy Games did with Revenge of the Titans was the way to go. Their game had 5 stages too, if I remember correctly, and only the first 2 were done when the game was made available for pre-ordering. As they added more content, they released updates to the game for their customers. Plus the feedback they received regarding game balance, level design, and suggested new features really helped make the game better and contribute to its success.
So that's what I'm doing with Dirk Dashing 2.