A few years ago, many people believed we would see ’episode-based’ game releases return, much like the shareware model popular with PC games in the 90s. They turned out to be right, and we’re seeing inexpensive games of reduced length showing up on WiiWare. Square-Enix is currently cranking out new chapters for their Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, and Telltale Games has found quite the market for their adventure games. Any given offering only lasts a few hours, but also costs a lot less than a full length game, so it works out pretty well.

Square-Enix’s FF IV After Years works in an interesting way; you have to buy the main game for 800 points ($8 US), and it includes the first three chapters built in. Extra chapters from there are 300 points and last a few hours, so you only need to buy as much as you care to play. If a certain character or plot point doesn’t appeal to you, you don’t have to buy that chapter; you can just play the others. Thus, your minimum investment is $8, but could get as high as $37 if you want the full game. This is a fantastic way to sell a game, and I highly encourage you to check it out.

Telltale Games has taken a different approach with releases like the Strong Bad series and their upcoming Tales of Monkey Island. Each episode builds up to an overall plot conclusion, but they’re also standalone games. You can play them in any order, you can opt to get Episodes two through five but skip the first one, get only the first one... whatever; however you want to go about it, it’ll work. Each game in a series tends to play similarly to the others, using the same engine and often reusing at least some assets, but the plot is different in each one. The benefits seem to be obvious: They cut production costs, games come out sooner, and you get to pick what parts you want to buy. Telltale has done very well for themselves with this strategy on a variety of platforms, and I hope it will continue to work.

While this may not be specifically breaking news, the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island is coming out on July 7. The price point hasn’t been determined yet, but Telltale has said they want to keep it generally in line with their Strong Bad releases (they’re 1000 points/$10 each), and that sounds fine. Details are currently limited, though a Telltale rep has confirmed that Tales of Monkey Island will use the Wiimote plus Nunchuk for control, rather than being a Wiimote-only affair. It will be interesting to see what they’re planning to use the extra buttons and analog stick for, in any case. For those of you familiar with the original Monkey Island games, take heart; Ron Gilbert has pretty much given his blessing to the project, and a lot of adventure genre veterans are working on this. Telltale has assembled a FAQ and development team list for you to look at. The main page for the series can be found here.

Episodic games may well be the wave of the future, or at least a great supplement to the traditional full game release. I’m convinced this is one good way to go, since it lets you buy only the parts you want, and in manageable little chunks of your wallet. And if you wind up not liking a game? Well, you’re only out a few bucks, rather than $50.