Scorsese movies are infamously bloated nowadays. You should actually be trying to cut as much content as you can to have a coherent story and making what's left as polished as you can make it. That's how you make a good impression.

I can tell you that I've never finished episodic video-games and each instalment felt like it lacked the coherence and dramatic hook to stand on its own. You should be wary of this as I am specifically thinking of Song of Horror, which was trying to be the next Silent Hill 2-4. It had its own specific gameplay problems, but I had no idea what was going on or why I should care three very separate chapters into the game. Don't let that happen to your game.

Again, I strongly advise you against episodic releases and encourage you to narrow your vision.

I'm personally not keen on episodic releases, I tend to wait until its all out to play the full experience in those cases. My thought is take all the time you need to polish it to a point where you're happy with it, and release it no earlier. Though, if you want feedback as to whether or not the finished game will hit that right spot with us players... maybe do a "Prologue" release I've seen some games do, not so much a demo, but like the first chapter, first 30mins, however long you'd want that to be. Then you can use that feedback and reception to inform development for the rest of the game, however long that may take :)

Take your time and do your thing. This is your art and you should do what's best for it and most importantly you.

Honestly my interest and excitement for the project won't go anywhere if you need two or even three more years to complete it, so long as you get to make it the way you want it. 

Releasing a game in episodes is always neat in theory, but in practice it can be become way more convoluted and time and energy consuming, especially if you originally envisioned a single story/game. You will end up needing double or even triple the amount of polish and bug checking because suddenly you have two or three releases, albeit each smaller in size. The worst feeling for a player is when there's a part 1 to a really promising project and a part 2 never comes out because part 1 took so much out of the developer, and wasn't quite a big of a success because a lot of people decided to wait for the "full thing". It can be really challenging.

I think ultimately it's your project and if you're confident you can split the story into episodes without destroying yourself, then sure. But if you can afford to keep working on a single game and release the full thing, even if it takes a few more years, everyone interested in the project will absolutely be more than willing to wait. There are so many games coming out, there's more than enough backlog to play.

I am in support of releasing a demo to give people an idea of how the game plays and how the tone is, and it will give you a taste of the kind of polish and extra work a "smaller chunk" of game will end up being.

If you're concerned about whether people like what you are doing than releasing a demo is probably your best option. I agree that making the game episodic may cause people to fall off or forget about your game.

I'd probably rather release a short demo and not a full episode. By the way Are there any gameplay videos of the fighting game you're working on? Regards

Hey mate!

I actually think sticking to your original vision and release a full game opposed to Episodes. I'm sure all fans who are eagerly anticipating the game will understand that delays can occur but would prefer you taking your time on making it right opposed to rushing anything.

Also I really believe episode structured games (as in 1x Episode per couple of months) has been phased out; Even TV Series are opting to releasing a full Season at once opposed to one episode per week as people prefer binging a season instead of watching it week by week.

Either way you choose; I m eager to try this game out! Good Luck!

Hi!

I'm also not a big fan of splitting the game into episodes for the same reasons you talked about. Particulary, what I think you could do is put a quick recap at the beginning of each chapter, definitely not a perfect solution but I think it's enough to have the big picture fresh in my mind when a new chapter comes out.