Episode (video game)

Last updated
Episode
Episode video game logo.png
Developer(s) Pocket Gems
Platform(s) Android, iOS
ReleaseFebruary 20, 2014
Genre(s) Interactive fiction
Mode(s) Single-player

Episode is an interactive fiction software and video game developed by Pocket Gems for mobile devices. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] It is a virtual storytelling network and platform that features interactive stories; users enter one of the stories and make choices as the storyline progresses. The product also has a user generated content creation platform that enables users to create their own stories. [6]

Contents

Gameplay and content creation

Gameplay screenshot of a story with the player able to make a choice in dialog Episode gameplay.png
Gameplay screenshot of a story with the player able to make a choice in dialog

The game is structured as a visual novel, with many stories to choose from. Players customize their character, choosing their hair, makeup, and facial features. As the player progresses through the story, they are given action and dialogue choices that can influence the plot. Featured stories have micro-transactions that allow the player to unlock premium choices using in-game currency. [7] Players have a set number of free chapters they can read each day, after which point they must purchase story packs to read more. [8]

Community members can also create and publish their own stories for others to view. The app has its own proprietary scripting language that is designed to help users without animation or computer programming experience. [9]

Development and release

Developed by Pocket Gems of San Francisco, USA, [10] Episode launched in beta in 2013. It was released on February 20, 2014 on the Apple App Store, Google Play Store and Amazon Appstore, by which time already 10 million chapters had been played during the testing phase. [11] There were some early controversies about inappropriate stories submitted to the platform; Daniel Terry, co-founder, and chief creative officer of Pocket Gems stated in an interview that the stories are directly monitored to flag inappropriate content and that the company will "always have a monitoring system in place" as the platform increases in scale. [8]

Over the years the game has been updated with new gamemodes as well as collaborations with figures like Demi Lovato and movies such as Mean Girls . [12]

Reception

Episode has been highly popular. As of 2021, there have been over 150,000 individual narratives, with more than 9 billion views, and 12 million story creators. [12] The platform has been well received among its content creators who have praised its diverse possibilities and potential for creativity through making stories. [13]

Controversy

Despite the app being marketed to children, many of the stories available on the Episode app feature sexually suggestive elements. [6] User-generated stories are filtered for profanity, but this process does not eliminate sexual themes. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

Kongregate is an American web gaming portal and video game publisher. Its website features over 124,000 online games and 30+ mobile games available to the public. The company also publishes games for PC, mobile, and home consoles. It was purchased by GameStop Corporation in 2010 before being acquired by Modern Times Group MT AB in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roblox</span> Multiplayer game creation platform

Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system developed by Roblox Corporation that allows users to program and play games created by themselves or other users. Created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 and released in 2006, the platform hosts user-created games of multiple genres coded in the programming language Lua. Early in Roblox's history, it was relatively small, both as a platform and as a company. Roblox began to grow rapidly in the second half of the 2010s, and this growth was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spil Games</span> Dutch video game developer

Spil Games is a Dutch video game developer based in Hilversum. The company publishes free-to-play games for Android and iOS devices, as well as for the Facebook Platform.

<i>Pocket Gamer</i> Website and magazine focused on video games

Pocket Gamer is a video game website and former print magazine that focuses on mobile, portable and handheld games. It was launched in 2005 by Steel Media Limited.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woozworld</span> Virtual gaming community and social network service

Woozworld is a virtual gaming community and social network service founded in 2009 and headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Woozworld allows users to connect with each other through customizable profiles and interactive activities.

<i>Sonic Dash</i> 2013 video game

Sonic Dash is a 2013 endless runner mobile game developed by Hardlight and published by Japanese game studio Sega. It is Hardlight's second Sonic the Hedgehog game, the first being 2012's Sonic Jump. The game was released in March 2013 for iOS, November 2013 for Android, and December 2014 for Windows Phone and Windows, along with an arcade release in November 2015 as Sonic Dash Extreme. It was initially released as a paid application, but was made free-to-play a month after its iOS release.

QuizUp is a discontinued mobile game originally developed and published by Iceland-based Plain Vanilla Games and later operated by Glu Mobile. The game was a mobile trivia app similar to the game Trivial Pursuit. QuizUp was a multiplayer game where one user competes against another in seven rounds of timed multiple-choice questions of various topics. There were over 1,200 total topics available to users to choose from, and all the questions were voluntarily submitted by content contributors. Most topics were available in several different languages.

<i>Monument Valley</i> (video game) Puzzle video game

Monument Valley is a puzzle and indie game by Ustwo Games. The player leads the princess Ida through mazes of optical illusions and impossible objects while manipulating the world around her to reach various platforms. Monument Valley was developed over ten months beginning in early 2013 based on concept drawings by company artist Ken Wong. Its visual style was inspired by Japanese prints, minimalist sculpture, and indie games Windosill, Fez, and Sword & Sworcery, and was compared by critics to M. C. Escher drawings and Echochrome. The art was designed such that each frame would be worthy of public display.

<i>Monster Strike</i> 2013 video game

Monster Strike is a mobile Japanese role-playing physics game with elements of puzzle, strategy and cooperative multiplayer. It is developed by Mixi for iOS and Android platforms. The game was created by former Capcom game designer Yoshiki Okamoto. In Japan, its name is often shortened to MonSt. The game can be summed up as a cross between Nintendo's Pokémon and Capcom's Metal Walker; the former in that it centers around monster collecting and the latter in that battles take place using catapult mechanics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CM Games</span> Independent video game developer and publisher

CM Games is an Estonian independent video game developer and publisher based in Tallinn, Estonia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Discord</span> Online communication software

Discord is an instant messaging and VoIP social platform which allows communication through voice calls, video calls, text messaging, and media. Communication can be private or take place in virtual communities called "servers". A server is a collection of persistent chat rooms and voice channels which can be accessed via invite links. Discord runs on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, Linux, and in web browsers. As of 2024, the service has about 150 million monthly active users and 19 million weekly active servers. It is primarily used by gamers, although the share of users interested in other topics is growing. As of March 2024, Discord is the 30th most visited website in the world with 22.98% of its traffic coming from the United States. As of March 2022, Discord employs 600 people globally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plarium</span> Video game software company

Plarium Global Ltd. is a video game developer, publisher and subsidiary of the Australian gambling machine manufacturer Aristocrat Leisure. It is known for creating mobile, desktop and browser games in various genres including MMO, RPG, action, strategy, and casual.

<i>Lifeline</i> (2015 video game) 2015 adventure video game

Lifeline is a text-based adventure mobile game developed by Three Minute Games for iOS and Android. The player guides the main character, Taylor, through a texting conversation, to survive an unknown moon after their spaceship crashed. Lifeline was written by Dave Justus and published in 2015.

<i>The Sims Mobile</i> 2018 mobile game

The Sims Mobile is a life simulation game based on The Sims 4 for Android and iOS, published by Electronic Arts and initially developed by Maxis. It was announced on May 9, 2017, and was released on March 6, 2018. It features a multiplayer component and includes story elements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pixelberry Studios</span> American game development company

Pixelberry Studios is a mobile game development company based in Mountain View, California, United States. Founded in 2013 by Oliver Miao, Keith Emnett, and Winston She, Pixelberry develops episodic narrative mobile games for Android and iOS, aiming to create "games with heart," beginning with Surviving High School and Cause of Death, which deals with themes of bullying, eating disorders and capturing serial killers. Since then, the company has fully released three more mobile games: Hollywood U, High School Story and Choices: Stories You Play.

<i>Lineage 2: Revolution</i> 2016 mobile MMORPG video game

Lineage 2: Revolution is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Netmarble for mobile platforms under license from NCSoft, taking place 100 years before the events of NCSoft's Lineage II: Goddess of Destruction storyline. It is part of the Lineage series.

WeGame is the flagship game portal of the Chinese company Tencent.

Free Fire is a free-to-play battle royale game developed and published by Garena for Android and iOS. It was released on 8 December 2017. It became the most downloaded mobile game globally in 2019 and has over 1 billion downloads on Google Play Store. In the first quarter of 2021 it was the highest grossing mobile game in the US. In November 2019, it surpassed $1 billion in lifetime revenue. As of 2021, Free Fire had surpassed 150 million daily active users. In September 2021, Garena released Free FireMax, a graphically enhanced version of the game with improved textures, lighting, and sound effects.

<i>Bury Me, My Love</i> 2017 visual novel

Bury Me, My Love is a visual novel developed by The Pixel Hunt and published by Arte France. The story follows Syrian couple Nour and Majd as Nour tries to flee the Syrian civil war to Europe.

References

  1. ↑ Spangler, Todd (14 December 2016). "'Pretty Little Liars' Offshoot Debuts on Episode's Interactive Story App". Variety . Retrieved 21 September 2017.
  2. ↑ Takahashi, Dean (16 August 2017). "Pocket Gems' Episode brings back Clueless as an interactive mobile game". VentureBeat . Retrieved 21 September 2017.
  3. ↑ Jarvey, Natalie (10 June 2015). "Pocket Gems Reviving 'Mean Girls' With New Mobile Game". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved 21 September 2017.
  4. ↑ "How Episode became the world's biggest interactive fiction platform". Gamasutra . 17 March 2017. Retrieved 21 September 2017.
  5. ↑ Ha, Anthony (21 February 2014). "Pocket Gems Launches Episode, A Platform For Interactive Mobile Stories". TechCrunch . Retrieved 21 September 2017.
  6. 1 2 Cooper, Janine M. (2 December 2019). "Episode – Choose Your Story: the inappropriate game your kids have probably played". The Conversation. Retrieved 2020-01-22.
  7. ↑ Marshall, Cass (17 June 2019). "Fame, backlash, and money: Meet the young women making games for millions of fans". Polygon . Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  8. 1 2 Diener, Matthew (27 February 2014). "Storyboarding success: Pocket Gems opens the book on its new Episode platform". Pocket Gamer . Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  9. ↑ Cowley, Ric (26 April 2016). "Demi Lovato, Mean Girls and moderation: The making of Episode". Pocket Gamer . Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  10. ↑ Jordan, Jon (2014-10-21). "The story so far: Pocket Gems on five years of growth". www.pocketgamer.biz. Retrieved 2024-10-31.
  11. ↑ https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140220005367/en/Pocket-Gems-Launches-First-Interactive-Mobile-Story-Platform-Episode
  12. 1 2 Author, Guest (2021-03-01). "The neverending story of Episode's interactive story success". www.pocketgamer.biz. Retrieved 2024-10-31.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  13. ↑ Marshall, Cass (2019-06-17). "Fame, backlash, and money: Meet the young women making games for millions of fans". Polygon. Retrieved 2024-10-31.
  14. ↑ "Content Guidelines". Episode Support. Zendesk.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.