Episodic Games
At work I’ve been looking at episodic game narratives. This is important to me because I work with TV properties, and the idea of making something ‘appointment to play’ means you can tie game episodes to broadcast schedules. Looking at the model, I’d always thought there was something fundamentally ‘anti-web’ about it – getting people to engage as an event rather than having the option to do what they like on demand.
However, turns out I’m not the only one experimenting with weekly play. Gametap is a free / subscription based online games portal. You can play for free or sign up for premium games. They serialize games.
They’re currently running a game called ‘American McGee’s Grimm’ which is an action platformer being released in 6 instalments designed to last for about 30 mins. American McGee is a bit of a games legend – he worked on Doom and has since had hits with ‘Alice’ a particularly twisted take on Alice in Wonderland and Scrapland – a beautiful robotic noir game.
Somehow I love the idea of this now – it reminds of Charles Dickens serialising his novels.
This entry was posted on August 4, 2008 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized with tags American McGee, appointment to play, episodic games, gametap, Grimm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
