Timer access is a feature that allows you to make episodes that are content-locked on a schedule— meaning, you can set up episodes to only unlock for a player after a specific amount of time! For example, once a player has finished episode 3, you can make it so episode 4 won’t show up for them until the next day!
This can encourage your readers to build habits to return to the app, rather than binging your whole story at once. It’s also a method of rewarding players that pay attention— some paths in your story could let your players move onto the episode immediately, while other paths
First, create the new episode you intend to be locked content as you would normally. You’ll be able to toggle if an episode is locked or not after you create it. When you create it and fill in the create fields, you’ll see “Bonus” and “Locked” show up on the modal, but they won’t be pressable yet! That’s expected.
Once the episode is created, use the “Options” button on the left to edit the episode. From there, you’ll be able to check the Locked button! This makes the episode locked.
Now you’ll want to set up the achievement that unlocks it. Use the Achievements button on the left.
AchievementName - This is the technical name, the players won’t see it.
When:
This will contain memories and episodes. Choice memory variables, when selected, will act as before— see this page for more info.
Choose the Episode you want to come BEFORE your locked episode. For example, if your locked Episode is 6, and you want it to unlock 24 hours after players finish Ep 5, put Episode 6 here.
Reward Content - choose the Locked Episode that you’ll unlock after the previous field’s episode.
Time delay - number of hours you want to delay.
So to summarize, the following screenshot would unlock Episode 2 24 hours after episode 1.
When the timer is up, the player will receive a push notification that the episode is unlocked!
The below screenshots show what a timed episode will look like for the player from the Episode page and on the Discover page.
