aw damn, and i just thought up a decent topic too you can change it now dunno how and even if i did, it was something i'd wanna get cloudy's opinion about type /topic #baka-trio Better than the current one Plus, I'm curious now well, it would've been something like: "Serialized VNs: Yay or nay" * xRENx changes topic to '#baka-trio "Serialized VNs: Yay or nay"' I like this topic more. Never played one myself, do you have any examples? Go figure Maybe it's a hypothetical question? well, Higurashi would be one, as it came in 8 chapters Starlight is supposed to be planned to be Oh! I remembered my topic suggestion now. I'll write it down so I don't forget it again. Huzzah? =P Mmmh Would those mystery games in the archives count? Wandering Child, etc. I haven't played them myself, so I wouldn't know Neither did I, does that mean I can only play a series of Kinetic novels then? well, vaguely i suppose they're sorta related sorta not they do have the recurring characters, but they don't really build on one grand plot They don't? not really Hm. two of them are kinda related... Silent Maiden and Worthy Bride but that's more about the romantic subplot Ohh, I thought you meant in general. well, i mean, if it's just sequels and so on, then it's just sequels i was thinking something that builds on a grand connecting plot Yeah, I was thinking that, too. Kinda like how some anime start with the villain-of-the-day routine. And build into a larger-scaled problem. Hm. I dunno! When it comes to anime, at least, I like to wait until the entire thing is aired before I start watching it. that ruins half the fun Or wait until the boxset for the entire series comes out. The problem with following it as it's being aired is that the series could get licensed partway through... Or you somehow miss an episode on TV so you don't want to watch any more. * Quits: Jake` (kubrick.freenode.net irc.freenode.net) sure but a lot of the fun is not being able to find out what comes next as soon as you're done an episode * Joins: Jake` you've got a week or so to ponder just what might happen and that's part of the fun * Jake` shakes fist at heinlein.freenode.net Maybe. I generally don't spend too much time speculating such things, unfortunately. =P wb, Jake Welcome back Mmmh, I can see something good and something back about serialized VNs (Did any of the stuff I said come through before the split?) I don't think so (The last thing we got was that you remembered your topic.) Well, apologies then if I duplicate anything that's already been said. It seems to me that the main weakness of serialisation is the necessity to stick to one reality which exists at the end of one part in order to begin the next coherently. So I wonder if the kind of approaches which work best in a serialised VN form are markedly different from those which would work well in a series of novels, for example; it may be better to have each installment only nominally related to the previous one, perhaps One could use something like Ren'Py's multipersistent data store to keep information from one part to the next in order to write around any different endings, but then you're doing far more work than if you presented the several parts as one single work in the first place. It may be more work, but people who thrive on user comments/praise may find it well worth it. =P (And in the only-nominally-related option,one wonders why the parts are related at all in that case. Unless there are small branching subplots which resolve neatly within the space of one episode while building an archplot across several episodes. Why would one necessarily get more comments from a serialised work than from a single stand-alone? What about all the potential audience who wouldn't start reading until the whole was finished, in case it never was? I would be tempted to be in this group myself, given the number of announced projects which never make it. well i guess i can see some cases where there could be more discussion It's not necessarily *more* comments but *more frequent* comments =P like take higurashi for example... b/w chapters, you might find a lot of people discussing and evaluating theories Kinda like... WIP threads. Yeah, if it's that kind of story. but if someone reads higurashi in its entirety, what's the point of dicussing theories when you already know what happens... yeah, if it's that kind of story i'm just saying i can see /some/ cases where you might find more comments/feedback/discussion But it's worth noting that that kind of story is a whole extra layer of work again, on top of the more-work you need to successfully serialise something. Yeah, I guess I can see some cases. It's just that I can see some cases where you'd ultimately see fewer, as well. FWIW, I think the subplots/archplots concept is the only way to pull it off *well*. All the same, though, you lose some archplot flexibility like that. You can't have the main character die in any of the subplot endings, because he has to survive to the end in order to have his big climatic scene, and so on And you can't have the archplot place the main character alone or in a one-way-out situation for any length of time, because it reduces the scope for subplots for that period Can you give an example of that latter point? Have you read [i]The Count of Monte Cristo[/i]? With or without the markup? I haven't read it but have seen a movie adaptation. Right. So you know there's a fundamentally important part of the main story where Dantes gets imprisoned for many years? Indeed. Well, during that part of the archplot, it would be very difficult to do anything but have a strictly linear story for the majority of it His conversations with the Abbe Faria are only, chronologically speaking, a small part of that period, and it's important to instil in the reader-player a proper sense of how long he's imprisoned for. Otherwise things like the later scene where Monte Cristo visits the cell won't have nearly so much impact, for example. Ah, I see. Actually, that story lends itself quite well to this kind of episodic approach, I think. =P Probably because it was published episodically in the first place, but most of the subplots are fairly neatly discrete * Quits: xRENx ("ChatZilla 0.9.83 [Firefox 3.0/2008052906]") (Obviously this can be a problem with straight fiction as well, since prison cells are /supposed/ to be boring. I seem to recall that the book broke it up by showing the reader some of the things that were happening outside the cell, particularly with Villefort... which wouldn't be so appropriate in a first-person POV VN) of course there's no grand law that VNs /have/ to be first person pov either On that note, would jumping between characters' POVs be that jarring? =P Fate did it every once in a while Like in 'When I Rule the World' of course you knew when Drake: No, not at all. I'm just noting it as an illustration of a general point. ;-) mostly the cut in screen that said Interlude, and the slight change in font size and such I tend to think that jumping around between points of view can work well, but it's harder to do right than single-protagonist. With an episodic style, it might be easier to jump between protagonists. =P * between the viewpoints of different protagonists Mm, true. But one would have to be careful that doing so doesn't detach each part too much from the previous one well, enough talk about the technical stuff what about wants? do you wanna play one? make one? I thought I was going to, at one point. End-of-episode cliffhangers: do not want. =P those are the best parts! Jake: what happened? I was planning on writing a series of games set in the same story as the comic I draw, detailing side-stories Then I figured it was silly, and rolled the more-interesting of those stories into the main comic plot and discarded the others. But hey, I got a couple of nice character portraits out of it! ;-) =P Re drake: They're fine except when there's one at the end of every episode. =| that's /also/ the best part Arguably, though, every episode /needs/ to leave the reader feeling that there's something not complete, not tied off yet, or there's no motivation to continue with the series. i couldn't imagine a show like geass without its episode-ending cliffhanger /every/ episode (in fact, the last one was especially awesome) True on that, Jake. I was thinking more like Bleach or DBZ where fights *never* end in one episode any more. =| And to top it off, they show another fight that doesn't finish the next one... Oh, mean. That's happening concurrently, of course. *man Last time we were over at Jasper's he insisted on showing us what was happening in Naruto recently In Shippuuden? =P There were a bunch of guys fighting in a cave, and some other guys chasing some more guys through a canyon (you didn't seem to complain about Kaiji and how its games never end) (especially the last few episodes of the E-card arc where they only play /one/ hand if that) Then every now and again he'd get up and skip - like - /ten episodes/, and they'd still be fighting in the cave and running through the canyon Ahahaha Yikes... that's actually the first arc of Shippuuden or so. =X And now they're on Ep. 60?? drake: That's because it doesn't happen for 30+ episodes in a row. =| true but it's a matter of scope and proportion Kaiji also does a relatively good job of keeping you engaged during that hand, too, I thought. you just knew they were trying to eat up air time because they had very little left to cover in fact, akagi is probably worse in this regard T.T there's only about 4 mahjong matches in the whole series and one of them is about 13 episodes long Well... matches go for many hands, right? oh yeah I can live with that. =P but... there's only four games in the whole show not that they aren't continuely awesome As long as they don't pull a Bleach. =| The last episode was an hour-long special. Which really means it's actually 40 minutes. And then they had a recap at the beginning... i think the last episode is a little anti-climatic unfortunately And then another one halfway through. =| but the episode before that has one of the most memorable scenes in the entire show ooh (And the recaps were at least 3 minutes long. Each.) all this talk about akagi makes me wanna rewatch it =P at least the beginning anyway I watched the first episode and that was enough for me. :/ Ouch =O It was quite nice, but I couldn't bring myself to believe that they could make a whole series out of it. you have to like that kind of show the "game" show Also I have absolutely no idea how Mah Jongg works, and felt left out. like Hikaru no Go or whatever else Speaking of serialized VNs with multi-persistent data, it sounds... inconvenient if the player would have to replay older episodes to see changes in the later ones. =P Hmm. It won't be so bad for shorter series, of course... Why would it be any worse than having to play through a single work of the same length as the combined episodes? Hm. well outside starting and closing multiple games in order to work through the series and possibly the need to redownload an episode because you deleted it... i guess it'd be mostly the same If the episodes are of substantial length, I wouldn't have thought that the overhead would be proportionally that great Yeah, I think I was thinking about starting and closing the games. Follow-up question - presume you've released an episodal series which has been met with community approval - (And partially that the episodes are a way to avoid having one game of substantial length. =P ) is it then desirable or not desirable to compile them into a single compendium edition with everything within a single 'game' ? i'd say so, mostly as a matter of convenience Indeed. much like there are batch torrents, box sets, etc OK, but those still retain the episodic nature of the original, they just put them all in the same box. exactly so wouldn't it be the same? I'm talking about putting them all in the same /game/, rather than compiling a single zip with all of the episodes in. well, what do you imagine would be different? Which would be more like editing the episodes of a series together into a single 8-hour-long movie Well, you lose the discrete chunk format, Ah... the cliffhangers/whatever at the ends of episodes will sometimes appear a little odd when they blend straight into the next scene At least, having them in discrete chunks let you jump to a particular section at any given time... you could always mark them off somehow There are fewer obvious breaks - and probably in different places - to stop and resume later like a New Chapter image or something Something not unsolvable by saves. Yeah, I suppose I'm asking specifically about a format where you don't mark the episode boundaries particular or have the game return to a main menu that has an "episode select" *particularly The chunks would be easier on the slower-connection folks. If you have an episode-select than that's really still the boxed-set approach, just with a tidier box. well, that's what i thought you meant and honestly, that's probably how /i'd/ approach it because it'd still keep some of the sense of being a serialized work... just all together in one neat package Mm. So you would specifically avoid editing together into a single, longer work, or just not have thought of it in the first place? both actually having not really thought if it the way you do, but now knowing... i'd still do it my way and specifically avoid all that editting *of like i said earlier, it'd be mostly for a matter of convenience then any real editing work if i make a serialized or episodic work, i'd still want it to be episodic, even if i put all the episodes in one box and tie it with a pretty ribbon I'd probably feel the same way. it would also feel like the distinction b/w a serialized work and a continually updated work in progress i mean, you can keep releasing a demo for a game every so often that grows with time but at the end of it, it's not really serialized... just work done and released in parts (if you catch what i'm trying to convey) Mm Like how I got bored and stopped keeping track of /Controlled Chaos/ but still read many serialized webcomics. ;-) exactly! Controlled Chaos is the perfect example for the latter point Ouch? (well, i suppose it doesn't help that the chapters themselves aren't complete with missing art and voices...) (To be honest, that was one of my concerns regarding people implementing such a 'serialized' approach) Mm. But I found it pretty interesting in the first installment. Despite having no graphics at all. it was, i kept reading it up until about chapter 8 or 9 or so actually I can't remember precisely how long I kept it up. I just know I stopped before BCS did. I didn't plan on even starting until it was done. ^^; though i don't think i was turned off by the incompletedness of it, but more some recent plot twist that just left a bad taste in my mouth (that i stopped reading) ... Serialized visual novels? Well, all I can say is that branching them will be pretty hard... If you have thoughts, we'd like to hear them ;) If I really enjoy the first playthrough, then I'll play them a second time and take a substantially different tack, and see how it goes. But if it's like an anime like kinetic novel with episodes, then I guess I wouldn't mind them Ah... for the most part, I usually start playing again immediately after. =3 The only problem is that we might be cut off mid story if the creator decides to stop working on it.