It is coincidental that you bring this up, as I am engaged with others in a discussion of this nature … because it leads to off-topic areas, I will just say that this consideration is part of the entire developmental process to begin with; at the time you decide on your work (or body of work) being a series, a compendium or just a stand-alone … this consideration should not be part of the equation.
I still am unclear, why you would see this as risky and potentially alienating. That was the purpose of my post, to try to understand this … not to focus on the ability or lack of to “shrug” something off.
The discussion of “can changing protagonists work in a series/how to do it well” might be worth a spin off thread.
I’m not sure its inherently alienating, but I think the only surefire way to prevent it from being so is to just write out the old protagonist every single time. In the works I can think of that have changed protagonists, it seems like the issue only really feels egregious when the old protagonist shows up under the dev’s/devs’ control, rather than under the player’s. How avoidable that is, or whether it even is avoidable, I think would vary from work to work. In some places it makes complete sense that an old protagonist(/s) isn’t relevant to the current events and wouldn’t be involved (lookin at you, Skyrim)–in others, finding a reason for the old protagonist(/s) to be absent can feel just as controversial as taking brief control of them (hello, Dragon Age: Inquisition) and it’s hard to say what the best course of action would have been.
I personally favor series over a single book. More than length, it allows you to break your story up into phases. Each part of the lost heir series is slightly different. It also allows the author to gain valuable insight into their story from players outside the forum community.
I bought the crypt keepers of Hallowford the same time as the hero of Kendrick stone and enjoyed both more because of the way they play into each other.
Finally length can become an issue. Tally ho and games of similar length, while highly enjoyable, can become frustrating in the amount of time you have to put in to reach your previous point in the story if you miss click or some other unexpected complications ruins your play through.
So a long story is great, but it’s better to break it up into good sized pieces.
To be fair, with the same logic, writing the same protagonist could alienate those who are new to the franchise. I think this is just about flavor, really.
Besides, I’ve designed my setting to accommodate different stories with different MCs but still tied up in a single, big, linear timeline.
I actually agree, I’m not convinced writing from different protagonists is really a problem? Novels do it all the time (GOT, Wheel of fire, etc) to let you see how things are happening from different perspectives, get background on characters you wouldn’t otherwise know and see events that the original mc was not part of. It’s less common to write a series of books, with each book from the perspective of a different single character but they are out there and can be really good (and would probably be easier to make sense with in a choice game format than skipping between multiple characters all the time). There’s also spin off series that happen all the time. You have the original book or movie, it’s popular, one of the characters within it gets their own story. (Like they’ve done with half the superheroes out there at the moment. There’s so many origin movies and reboots!) If the original mc makes an appearence and there’s anything specific that might bother people (like if they ended up with a particular RO re heroes series) that could be easily set with a savegame or a few questions at the start of the game. Personally I wouldn’t find it alienating, I’d find it interesting, but that’s me
I can see how writing from a different protagonist could be alienating. I flipflop on the idea personally.
It really depends on the genre, I think. If it’s an adventure game, I want to build my character up, see how they grow, like in Lost Heir or HR.
If it’s more of a romance game…well…I don’t generally play romance games to get to the “and now we’re together, fighting all the time, in an eternal soap opera”. I play romance games to get the butterflies and excitement of the first weeks/months of knowing someone in a more intimate fashion and dating them. I’d rather just play a different character and have the chance to romance someone else.
Know your genre, if you’re planning more of a compendium series versus a linear plot with one protagonist, or a linear plot with multiple protagonists.
I feel torn on this topic. On the one hand I like staying in a universe I loved already so more games would be great but at the same time I feel like in my experience with some games here, that usually means more player agency has to be sacrificed. Can’t end up making big major decisions cause generally speaking that would require a ton more writing and effort for each way the next book could turn out. Basically stuff can’t differ too much unless the writer is feeling up for that challenge.
While one-off stories tend to be more open to having different outcomes for player choices since you don’t have to worry about continuing the series.
I guess a solution for me would be having maybe a universe with several one-offs in it so that way I get to still experience the great world and it’s rules while also getting a new story.
I’ve been struggling with Talon City for so long because of the issues you cite. One one hand, doing it as a stand-alone allows me to get nuts with tons of exciting goals and explosive endings! But…embracing that approach would make it damn near impossible to write another story, because many of the endings would affect the setting going forward. (is the city in ruins? thriving? who is alive? who is dead? etc)
I think one way writers can get around this is to steer clear of a set setting (so the opposite of what I did! lol) You could have an adventure saga where the main cast travels from dungeon to dungeon, or planet to planet, or galaxy to galaxy, never really looking back, and never having to reflect too much on all of the specific things they have accomplished. If you’re always on a new planet, does it really make a lot of difference if you blew up the last one or not?
So yeah then the other aspect to making it more “series friendly” is to make the goals/endings more intimate, focused more on characters, relationships, smaller stakes items and outcomes that are still important. But you have to figure out how to make those smaller stakes: 1) feel important, 2) but not so important that they screw up your take-off points for subsequent entries in the series.
I honestly prefer single books over a series. The issue with series is that it’s always hard to live up to the first if it’s really good, and it’s hard to write a sequel if the first book flopped. Personally, I could never see myself writing a series, but I respect the authors that can/do write them.
In linear writing, it’s probably more feasible to write a series since there’s always one ending. Interactive fiction is probably harder, since you have to account for different endings at the beginning of the sequel while also accounting for the different endings of the sequel. It seems like so much to keep track of.
And some series go back to previous episodes to rework them every time they make the next one. Which is annoying and undoes the save I kept from the previous version.
Well that complaint is more about a game that was trying to be like Tell Tale.
This is why I always only make one ending for my games that are in a series, unless it’s the last installment, in which case I would finally write the many different endings. Not that I’m even close to finishing any of my series.
It’s much more manageable this way, and I think it can also be a bit more natural to go for a certain message or tone, or whatever it may be, since you know there’s only one ending to account for, instead of several. Out of the 5 games I’ve made with only one ending, I’ve only recieved a handful of bad reviews where people noticed and were expecting several branching endings. This always amused me, since those endings would all have to funnel back to a focal point in the next installment, anyways, unless the author wanted to lose their mind writing several novels in one.
Exactly. I speculate sometimes on the possibility of writing several volumes that run a concurrent timeline, but from different locations or POVs, but as a reader, I always get a bit frustrated when a novel does this. Maybe because it usually happens after several sequels, when the author has been raising the stakes more and more, and has finally completely broken the setting’s premise…
I am going to assume this is what you were driving at when you claimed:
I think the keys to avoiding making such a series that run a concurrent timeline, either from different locations or PoV from becoming alienating is right in your statement.
First key is not to switch creative gears in the middle of the series. Consistency is the key to keeping your market steady. If, after several sequels, you change the PoV, for example, you run the risk of alienating your readers.
Second key is to keep the focus of the story the same throughout the entire series. A forest and a tree can both make for very interesting and engaging stories, both of which will attract a certain fan-base. Again, consistency will maintain that fan-base without creating alienation.
If you do change creative gears or the focus of the story, it might be a successful switch but it might also alienate readers. It can also do both. Eric Flint is an author that serves as a successful example within the linear novel realm but I believe the same principles and lessons are analogical examples we can learn from.
I think the genre is part of accepting series more than one title. Scifi and fantasy are good for series however others as mistery or terror aren’t except there are presented as One detective etc that each game is a different standalone case. Another genre each time i don’t like series is romance as turn romance in something that is painfully sloooow filled with cliches to expand the game ro make series.
The only thing I know about ASOIAF is that 100% of the book fans I’ve met spend 95% of the time they talk about the books grousing about getting too many POVs from the characters they hate, and not enough from the characters they love. And it’s still not equivalent, because switching POV for a sequel would mean never seeing your MC again. And because MCs in CSGs are reader self-inserts as often as not. And because they are meant to be customized by the player, which an ordinary character in a linear novel is not. There’s no equivalence at all. Your argument holds no water.
