Blog - Episodic Mobile Phone Games?

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Is it just me, or has anyone else thought of how perfectly suited to mobile phones episodic gaming (like Telltale Games' Sam and Max series) is?

Telltale's episodic game "episodes" are shorter game experiences, which would seem to work well with mobile phones given the limitations of the mobile phone hardware...

Also, mobile games are downloaded into the phone, which seems to be an efficient way to acquire new (small) episodes of an episodic game series.

Stuck waiting in line at the post office? Download the next adventure for your favorite characters, etc. etc. Especially interesting would be to do an RPG series that saved your characters and continued to use and advance them in each adventure you download!

Of course, the catch to making a successful episodic game is doing a series that can actually last. Telltale's Sam & Max series is working with a well-loved license that allows them to write some really hilarious dialogue to keep players coming back for more.
A game for mobile phones couldn't rely on dialogue nearly so well. I'd imagine it would be difficult to create a mobile game experience players will want to keep coming back to again and again, with each new episode that comes out.

If one could, however, manage to make something that worked... well, that sounds like a golden opportunity to me.

Labels: episodic games, mobile games