“Designing Episode’s Interactive Fiction in Three Phases”

This is an outline of a polarizing GDC talk by Michael Dawson.

• The mobile audience is an interrupted audience.
  • It wants bite-sized stories.
  • Five-minute episodes.
• Pick a concept that your audience will love.
  • Ask what they already like and analyze it.
• Use the best practices from Hollywood screenwriting (Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder, Story by Robert McKee).
  • Three-act structure.
  • Story outlines.
• How is mobile different?
  • Change the pacing. The setup, the first act, should be in the first five-minute episode.
  • Design in portrait. Have fewer characters.
• Have interactivity in mind from the start.
• Go from script to playable ASAP.
  • Have authoring tools with stock art.
  • The comic timing may not translate.
• Internal review loop.
• Pilot/soft-launch -> iteration.
  • Ratings (feedback scores).
  • Drop-off.
  • Look for 50%/50% choices.
  • Dollars earned per story start.
    • Premium choices (like bonus outfits). Emphasize the pay-off of the choice. Choices about the player character work better.
• Cover design.
  • Face close-ups are good.
  • Two guys in a picture does better than two girls for the Episode audience.
• Support agency and identity across stories.
  • One avatar across stories.
• Nothing about the story should feel sacred. You can change anything to make it better.