I’ve noticed (as a user) that when ZESH part 3 got released, the game was treated like a new release once more (it was discounted and at the top of the Bestsellers list for a week) on the omnibus. By opening the game, I could see the DLC (part 3) and purchase them if I wished. In short I’ve never had DLC operating issues in omnibus.
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But once it comes off sale though? I guess this is coming from someone who only gets sporadic reading time and would easily miss something like that compared to a new game popping up on a list. (I’m on the forums so less likely for me to completely miss a new release announcement of a game I’m following, but a lot of people reading the games on the stores are regulars on the forums.)
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Until accidentally finding this and reading that Discord post I thought that Grandparenting Simulator was canceled. To say I was busy at the time this was posted would be an understatement on the level of “nuclear fire is a little toasty.”
I’m glad that you’re doing it though, there were one or two WIPs that scratched a similar itch, but not as well, but I won’t be going there as they’re not what this is about.
As far as in Grandparenting I don’t know what you have so I can’t say much but one small suggestion that I probably said before but I think it’d be cool that if you adopted your kid that they’d do the same. I know that happens in reality (I’ve seen it before, and it makes logical sense even if I couldn’t find statical data from like minded dweebs.) Also I hope the artist comes back as she has a fitting style, and it’s kinda hard to seperate the two of you.
As for sequels in the rest of Hosted Games
Well a few issues I’ve had are sequel baiting that feels like the worlds slowest highway robbery, I liked “I the forgotten one” more on my second more evil playthrough but I was hesitant to make it because the story was long, which wasn’t bad in and of itself, and is actually good for value, but without spoiling the loyalist ending just felt like advertising. Though the ending where you get to give false queen Elya what she deserves is much better as it actually felt like an ending to the story meaning that I wanted to see what the sequel would bring, but I hesitated to go there as I didn’t want to go through the whole thing again after being burned by the first ending.
ZE Safe Haven (and the first one.) Have/had a similar issue where the parts just end until the next one comes out. When it’s all said and done the end result is beautiful and seemless, but in the meantime it feels like I’m going to the movie theater and the film just stops 50% of the way through so I have to come back a year later for the same thing to happen 75% of the way through. In this analogy it’s a great movie that’s a fun rewatch but the endings are still frustrating. The best solution I can think of is to have it end as an actual ending that you can continue off of unless it’s all you’re working on and you know the next part will be here soon enough for me to come on that same bat time and same bat channel.
Another (smaller) problem in sequels in Hosted Games is how some of them don’t escalate the stakes properly, for example The Demon Wars /Spoiler The second one was the best, the third one begins with you infiltrating a magic school which is probably something one of your underlings would be better off doing for a host of logical reasons including but not limited to possibly being recognized, and having more important things to do like leading the campaign. The real problem however is that after all the cool diplomacy stuff it feels like a demotion and I just want to get back to good part. Which wouldn’t be a problem if this was in the second part and have the cool diplomacy stuff in the beginning of the third instead because then the stakes would feel like they’re going up instead of down. /spoiler The Demon Wars are still good. Even if the 3rd is the worst one the second half of it is still mostly good, and the content in the first half would also be good if it had switched spots with the second half of part 2.
One way to fix this would be to make sure the scale was planned ahead of time. Not to say that there should never be a break in the action, the side plot in the second half of part 3 was one of the best parts and I think that did a much better job at changing up the tone while not being a slog.
The other way to fix this and the other problem would be something I never really saw done outside of Ice Raider Peak, and that is to have the story be released around the same time, but afterwards release what is essentially side stories. After Icepire peak was released what was released was side quests that added to the main game but wasn’t required reading, and Life As A Litch, which wasn’t handled in a way I 100% agree with, but it the content for it was just a fun improvement for wizards (though I wish other classes could transfer as well.) That you could ignore if you wanted, or have it be in Tokyo instead. Aside from the class exclusivity I love how it was done, and if the author made a full on expansion sequel for Icepire I’d definitely want to see it.
I also like how the sequel to The Critical Mass is also more of a spin off than an actual sequel, but I don’t have much else to say about that.
I like all of these examples and that’s why I stuck with/am sticking with them, and giving them word of mouth as opposed to other worse titles. So don’t get the wrong idea there.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk a year late, and now back to your regularly scheduled doom scrolling.
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VtM Night Road also did this with the auction sidequest thing as DLC.
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Never played it, but thanks.
I didn’t do an adoption route for the first grandkid. However, I am going to have an option for them to have a second one, depending on how things go, and them adopting for Kid Two is going to be a possibility.
As long as Isa wants to do Grandparenting’s art, I’ll be glad to have her. I think her cover illustrations perfectly encapsulated the feel of The Parenting Simulator. But I’m still a long ways off from getting art done, though. I had originally hoped the game would be out by the fifth anniversary of TPS getting a Steam release (which would be next May), but I dragged my feet throughout 2023 and at this point it’s more likely to be the sixth anniversary in 2026. If I’m really lucky and fast, maybe the sixth anniversary of the general release in September of 2025, but that might be too ambitious. I’m not fast.
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