Stop playing before you get bored.

In principle Bientôt l’été is endless. It consists of two areas (single player and multiplayer, beach and café) that can alternate indefinitely. Since a lot is left to chance (especially in the multiplayer part), I want people to play more than once, to get different versions as it were.

Since I am counting on repeat play, I’m using the outside-inside cycle to introduce new elements. Every time you leave the café, something will have changed on the beach. I’m thinking of having these elements appear in a certain order, linearly, back and forth (like the tides of the sea). There’s only a small amount of elements, though, so after 4 or 5 cycles you may have seen everything (except for the randomly distributed phrases and objects that can be collected of which there are many).

That doesn’t mean you could no longer enjoy the game. Bientôt l’été is not an exploration game. A lot of variation is introduced through the multiplayer aspect. But it also offers a certain mood, that you might simply want to return too.

Given that the cycle is endless, it’s perfectly possible for people to continue playing forever. And I worry that they may continue playing until they get bored. And when they got bored, they might look back at the entire experience as a waste of time, even though they were enjoying it before they got bored.

So maybe I should add a way to encourage people to stop playing, to stop playing before they get bored, i.e. when the game is still fun for them. Perhaps I could add a notification that tells them that they have seen everything there is to see. And then they can still continue playing, but as a warned man.