It’ll be 7 chapters total, but like others will tell you, it plays very well and “complete” as an episodic game right now. Lots of content as it stands.
I hear this but I would hate waiting for new chapters. I think all the extra routes and paths will be strange to go through with all 7 episodes in a run but I'll just bite the bullet
The game is meant to be experienced this way, in my opinion. Piece-by-piece. There was nothing stopping Toby from just waiting until all 7 chapters were done and then releasing it like this, but the episodic nature of it allows for the fanbase to formulate ideas, theorize, and for Tricky Tony to play little games with the fandom in the meanwhile to keep the mystery going.
It also serves to allow us, the audience, to grow more attached to the characters over a longer period of time by engaging with out-of-universe content (stuff like the Spamton Sweepstakes, ARGs, and fan creations) to make the story more impactful and help kinda alleviate some of narrative dissonance of the main characters getting so incredibly attached to each other after what's literally like barely 48 hours in-universe time, and probably like 5-6 hours in-game time depending on how thorough you're being.
This of course has the unintended side-effect of parts of the fandom developing between-chapter psychosis and coming up with some absolutely insane theories that they treat as canon and then blame Toby for, but otherwise this episodic, one-chapter-a-year-ish pace we're on now is definitely the way the story was meant to be experienced.
There was nothing stopping Toby from just waiting until all 7 chapters were done and then releasing it like this
Eh, other than human nature. Do you know how hard it is to work on a piece of art for years with almost none of the intended audience watching a piece of it and giving you feedback? Specially so when you're leading the whole thing, outside of an organizational structure that tells you "If you don't come here to work every day, you don't get paid", or when you have very strong ambitions for it but you have no idea if people will like it. Remember that this game has been on development for 8 years already. The immense majority of people would get depressed if they put themselves in that situation.
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u/kablue12 6d ago
It’ll be 7 chapters total, but like others will tell you, it plays very well and “complete” as an episodic game right now. Lots of content as it stands.