Week 3: Launch
IN THIS LESSON: PREPARE YOUR FIRST EPISODE
Episode 1 Matters More Than Any Other Episode
On Dorian, Episode 1 is your audition.
Before a player falls in love with your story, spends Hearts, or commits to a full season, they make one very important decision:
“Do I keep playing?”
That decision is often made in the first 30 seconds.
⚠️ Top Dorian games thrive on a weekly release schedule, and most creators finish this step in 1 week or less!
Start with a template
To help you follow our best practices, we created two templates using two different gameplay loops, based on some of Dorian’s top games. These will break down each part of what makes an engaging episode 1, and give you a general sense of how long your episode should be.
What is a gameplay loop?
A game loop is the core cycle of actions a player repeats throughout the game, such as:
On Dorian, the most common game loop you will find looks something like this:
Each stage of this loop relies on different features already available on Dorian:
Use the memory bankand relationship system to let players earn points through interactions with love interests.
Let players level up through achievements.
Use the text importer to write and implement long, complex scripts in the most time-efficient way possible.
Our templates offer a simpler one and a slightly more advanced loop. If you’d like to try something different, you can still use these templates and simply adjust them to fit your own!
Simple Progression Template
Advanced Progression Template
What Is Drop-Off?
Before we talk about building a strong Episode 1, let’s talk about drop-off.
Drop-off is the percentage of players who stop playing between episodes.
Imagine you just published your first game:
1,000 players start Episode 1
600 players finish Episode 1
350 players start Episode 2
That loss in players is called drop-off. And here is the important part: drop-off is normal.
This is not automatically a sign that your game is bad. It is simply how player behavior works on an interactive platform.
Remember: players on Dorian are browsing.
They try multiple games, compare stories, judge covers, test genres, and decide very quickly what captures their attention.
What can we do about drop-off?
You will never eliminate drop-off completely, but you can reduce it significantly with just a few proven rules.
The best performing Dorian games are designed to constantly reward attention and create momentum. Here are some of the most effective ways to improve Episode 1 retention:
1. Give players frequent choices
If players go too long without making a choice, the experience starts feeling passive, more like reading a novel than playing a game. A good rule of thumb for beginners is to never go more than ~15 steps without a choice.
Choices don’t always need to be huge branching moments. Small choices matter too, especially if they’re used to establish the MC’s personality, their taste, or their dynamic with each love interest. These help players feel ownership over the story and become invested in their version of the MC.
3. Start in the middle of the action
Avoid slow introductions whenever possible. Ask yourself: “What is the moment where the story becomes interesting?” and start there.
4. Show character art immediately
Players came for your characters, and especially in dating sims, emotional attachment starts visually. Showing character art on the very first tap can make a significant difference for your game!
So don’t make players wait through long narration or exposition-heavy intros. A compelling character visual creates immediate emotional investment and gives players something to latch onto.
5. Prioritize dialogue over narration
Interactive stories thrive on momentum. Long narration blocks slow pacing and create friction, especially on mobile. As a rule of thumb: if something can be shown through dialogue, show it through dialogue
Player experience
At this stage, you want new players to be able to answer these three questions:
Who are the love interests?
Why do I want to romance them?
What do I get if I pay?
Who are the love interests?
If you completed our lesson on Character Design, you already know! Now it’s time to figure out the most iconic way to introduce them!
Some characters are most recognizable for what they say, some for what they don’t say. Use this opportunity to make a first impression wisely.
Check out this article on how to develop character voices for more inspiration!
Why do I want to romance them?
This should already be built into your game’s concept, and you should be introducing it just as concisely in your demo as you did in your pitch.
The stakes should feel immediate and personal to the player. Romance should be the solution to a problem the MC is directly experiencing right now, rather than distant or abstract goals like saving a character, a city, or a world before the player has any emotional attachment to them.
You can check out this article on building your hook to get a better sense of how Dorian creators do this in their episode 1, but you have an advantage: a demo doesn’t need to introduce the plot to the same degree of a first episode!
What do I get if I pay?
On Dorian, creators earn money by charging Hearts for the most desirable choices in their games. Since the rest of the experience is free-to-play, a successful game depends on making premium choices feel appealing, and clearly communicating their value to players. We do this through what we call a lead-in, the scene that leads to a premium option.
Even the most dedicated player may skip a great scene if they don’t know what they’re missing.
What is a lead-in?
Did you understand where the scene would lead you by the way it was introduced? If you didn’t, the lead-in may not be showing the full value of the scene!
The lead-in is where you tell your players:
What they can expect from the scene
Why it’s worth their money
The importance of a lead-in
Can you guess where this scene is going by the way it was introduced? If you can, that’s thanks to the lead-in! By the time players get to this choice, they know that:
They will touch the love interest’s tail
It will be fun 🔥
They will earn character points
Episode 1 is a tutorial
In episode 1, you are introducing a player who knows nothing about your game to a completely new world. This may seem overwhelming, but there are a few tricks that can help you!
Instead of delivering lore through exposition, turn it into fun playable moment that reinforce player agency. This is especially effective when applied to your first paid choice. You can use it to explain players how your mechanic works, while delivering some information about the rules of the world they’re in.