Please vote for Lethe in the wishlist if you're interested in this style of game, seems to be in a similar vein to games such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Penumbra, Bioshock, Outlast, F.E.A.R. etc. It was 3 years in the making and released August 1st 2016 on steam with very decent reception. Here are some links for ya:

Lethe website
Gameplay
Wishlist
Lethe steam game page

It theoretically might get my vote, but not before all episodes are completed and available with trailers for each and they all toot my horn. Like many, I buy no game before it's ready, and I consider episodic games that haven't completed their final episode to be as incomplete as an "in-dev" or Early Access game. If a game bunches its episodes into a "season" then I'll consider a completed season to be a full complete game (such as The Walking Dead series of games).

If it takes them 3 years to make another episode though then well... :)

I wish I had the spin of the OP really loving this game, but also - would I pitch it any better? Hum... not really.

As to your point - I am frankly pleased that Life is Strange could publish before having all of its episodes ready... I do not typically enjoy such a game - but I am glad some gamers had bit of a benefit of a doubt. Just because I love "Life is Strange" and if everyone bought it now like me - probably it never would have been finished.

Now, that would have been a pity.

Timewind yer comment, lol? ;-)

I'm not fond at all of the episodic development model for a variety of reasons. They're more or less the reasons anyone who isn't fond of episodic game development model is so I wont expand upon that here, but once all episodes of a game are released to the public, I'm open enough to consider it to be a complete game and consider it. I own a number of such games now including the Blackwell Bundle, Wallace and Gromitt, Back to the Future, Adam's Venture, several of the Telltale games which seem to be of the higher quality amongst episodic games overall (IMHO). I just want to buy a complete game, not some 1-2 hour long game fragment that leaves me hanging with half a story for a long wait of 2/6/12 months until the next 2 hour episode drop, all while there being a possibility the game sales don't do well and the developer decides to shitcan the rest of the project.

I wont man the battlestations if an episodic game shows up for sale somewhere, but even if the idea looks interesting to me my reaction is going to more or less be "hmm, I'll pass" for most of them with a possible "I'll bookmark it and see if it is complete in another year". Until a game is complete it is more or less dead to me, or it is unreleased - whether or not it is available as early access or in fragments like episodic games. So if they exist and others like them for whatever their reasons are, that's fine by me. They'll never get my money though until the game is branded complete and only if it still looks appealing and passes all the other usual tests.

I've got the 1st episode of a few games that did not and probably will never receive any further episodes now from what I can tell. I didn't purposefully buy any of them so I don't really care, but if I had, I would be upset about it and have nobody to blame but myself.

Yet the general idea of Life is Stange is fine? ;-)

The OP is about Lethe - and should it it be episodc, I am not default against. But otherwise ignorant.

I played through the free Life Is Strange episode 1 to try it out and wrote a Steam review about my thoughts on it, as well as posting my thoughts here in the forums. In short I thought it was ok but not 10 out of 10 or anything like that. Forget my rating, but maybe 7-7.5 or something. Anyhow, I might consider buying it sometime to play the rest, but not before they put it on sale for like $4 or so in 1/2/5/10/whatever years.

Concerning Lethe or other incomplete episodic games though, mostly neutral until the final episode is out. :)

As to me - I love "Life is Stange" - and hope other games could do as well, in the genre.

Yeah, it was of a much higher calibre than your average episodic game for sure.

Well it pretty much explains the nature of the episodes on the store page:

Episodes
Each Episode is considered to be a stand-alone experience. Any future Episodes will expand upon Lethe's lore and backstory, but not necessarily the same protagonist's story.

...and in a thread by the developer on the forums he states:

--
Is this game episodic? Will there ever be another Episode?

Yes, it is "Episodic" in the sense that there is more to the story than what you see in the first installment. And this is also why we would like to create more than one Episode. It isn't however just a small piece of the the entire story and it that sense it is more like a game with a shorter duration, like you would see in a "Novella" in written media.

We wanted to create a game with an experience that would be able to stand on its own. Something that would leave us with enough room to expand the story further and wider. The reasoning behind this is that as a studio of five core members without financial backing, we can't sustain the production costs of a full-length title. Thus we opted to create a shorter experience, containing what we wanted to show and tell.

Was the episodic naming a good move? Probably not considering the concerns we have noticed, but we didn't want people to think this game was all there was going to be from the start.


Spread the word about Lethe and support us if you like what you've seen so far and would like to see more!

Thank you.
--

Well pretty much states that they can't sustain the costs of a full length title. This episode doesn't seem short though, some people state that they easily got a 10 hour experience out of the game already.

Would you guys prefer a game never to be made or to have to wait many years because it's too expensive and slow to create this kind of game by only 5 people? I reckon stand alone episodic releases are a good option in this scenario, there's other developer's that are taking the same route for similar reasons, an example are the games Kona and Kentucky Route Zero and they are of excellent quality and value already.

Of the two options you've presented, I have no such preference.

It's a big world out there and there are a great many game developers making games and doing so however they see fit, and that contributes to a very diverse gaming ecosystem which gives gamers a wide range of choice on the types of experiences they want to experience, how they want to spend their money and what they want or expect to receive in return. Some games will naturally become highly popular classics, while others fail, and others become cult classics or popular among certain niches. Some developers will have good ideas, and some bad ideas, some will have good funding, and some will struggle to find enough money to eat breakfast. Some will have a good solid business plan and be well organized and execute it with clock-like precision, and others will fumble around aimlessly without direction or knowing where they're going. There are endless other possibilities as well, all of them ending up somewhere on the sliding scale between success and failure, and it's all really up to the developers and their business associates/partners and how well they are able to build a small or big business based on video games with their ideas and execute it successfully and develop a fan base.

Who are we to tell them how they should do it really? Have we ever written a successful video game and built a business around it? Perhaps someone else here has, but not I. I have ideas about it and I'm sure many of you do too, but we're no experts with the golden keys to success in the video game industry.

So I think video game developers should chase their dreams and goals with their passion assuming they have passion, and do it the way think it should be done within the confines of the resources they have available or are able to raise, within their scope of expertise. They may succeed or they may fail, but that remains to be seen until they put out the fruits of their labours and the market decides what their game(s) are worth and how they stack up against everything else out there. Doesn't matter if the games are big or small, short or long, complete or episodic or any other variables - the market always decides in the end one way or another collectively, and no one opinion out there is the end all be all magic formula as to how things should be done or what is or is not acceptable.

I've stated my own thoughts concerning episodic games previously and that I'm not straight out opposed to them although I'm not particularly fond of the idea myself, but that I own and have enjoyed some episodic games also, acquired once the entire series or season was complete. That's what I am looking for as a gamer, an interesting looking game that appeals to me in some manner and which I feel is complete by my own definition and terms and worth the money being asked for it. If a game does not meet my expectations then I probably wont buy it or be interested in it. If it's a work in progress, then I may potentially withhold making a decision about it one way or another until it is complete in my eyes and revisit it again in the future for consideration.

Whether the game gets made or not, or whether the developers need to do X, Y or Z to be able to fund their masterpiece and find a way to eat or other behind the scenes details are matters I do not really need to know or be concerned about for the most part. They can do whatever they want, make full games, episodic games, artsy fartsy games, walking simulators, retro, whatever else is cool or exciting to them, others, myself or whatever and do it however they want. They can put it out in installments as episodes, or as a full game, they can charge money for it or make it free2play, they can offer DLC for it or not, they can use microtransactions or not - I don't particularly care either way.

At the end of the day, I simply surf what's available out there and choose things that interest me and which I think match my expectations and needs. If games exist that were developed and marketed in a manner different than what appeals to me, that's fine. I'm not obligated to buy them or be interested in such games any more than such games developers are obligated to create their games the way that I might think they should be done, or to build things that appeal directly to me personally.

So I have no preference for what the developer of this game does at all. I merely see it as a game and ultimately look at what it has to offer me and see if it has to offer something I wish to have or not as-is. If it does, I may be interested. If not, I may not be interested. If it isn't finished in my eyes under my own view of what that means for me - I may withhold my judgment call for a later day. It's not right nor wrong, it's just what is right for me, and someone else's way of determining it is what is right for them.

If someone is developing a game a certain way because that is the only way they can survive and put food on the table, best wishes for them and their family in being successful at it. The game may or may not be my cup of tea, but it doesn't have to be either. At the end of the day, the Earth still rotates and orbits the sun. :)

Bump

Sorry, had to test the Necropost highlighting addition to Barefoot Essentials.

Also, really want people to know about this game

Thanks for sharing your thoughts everyone. And thank you X-com for being so enthusiastic about our game!

Hi, so is Lethe coming to GOG or have you at least contacted them about releasing here? Would be nice if it did come here.

We have contacted GOG, but unfortunately we're currently unable to release on their platform.