Brainstorming (Spoilers!)

So I'm rethinking the overall structure of Laugh Track. This is INCREDIBLY spoilery but I need some help brainstorming an alternative approach that uses the same general idea and assets I've cooked up.

Please note that if you do contribute an idea I end up using, you'll get a special thanks in the credits but won't get legal ownership of the story -- the ideas are considered DONATED to the work.

I've also started an identical thread on the Discord, if you'd prefer to contribute there.

Blank space to protect against people not wanting to see naughty spoilers.

Seriously.

Okay.

THE CURRENT PLAN

Laugh Track is a game where you're in charge of a strange cosmic horror sitcom, tasked to keeping ratings nice and high by tormenting four kids trapped in an eternal series of mishaps, hijinks, frustrations, and disappointments. Each episode has 5 ratings opportunities, an odd number, to force a high or low majority rating. The overall rating of the season is determined by playing through 5 episodes as well -- a pilot, three normal episodes, and a season finale.

So, the driving idea is to get to one of two endings, a High or Low ratings ending. Each one grants you a different way of solving the problem of these kids trapped by "Management," the cosmic horror entity keeping them here.

But here's the trick: This is a stealth sequel to Penny Larceny. As a result, each ending has a mentor to guide you there -- Farsight for low ratings and Captain Infinity for high ratings.

The Low ratings ending, aligned with Farsight, gives the kids enough emotional breathing room to realize they don't deserve to be trapped here and they manage to escape to a new timeline where they can be happy. But picking this ending means Management continues to be a menace and will start the whole show over again with new kids, possibly eventually conquering the Gigaverse.

The High ratings ending, aligned with Captain Infinity, sacrifices the kids in order to destroy the entire pocket reality of Management. Everybody within that sitcom world dies, but the monster is defeated and can no longer threaten the entire Gigaverse.

But here's the REAL trick: Because you are a gigaversal protagonist, you can use the knowledge you gained from Captain Infinity to restart time and give Farsight the means to both save the kids AND destroy Management. So a third ending, unlocked after seeing the other two, completes both goals.

THE PROBLEM

There's a few main issues here.

One: There's not enough content for a 'third ending.' There's only enough episodes for two complete playthroughs. What's more, if you do them in Infinity/High and Farsight/Low order, you don't actually need a third playthrough at all -- so doing it the other way around is a bit of a time penalty. This could be fixed by "fast forwarding" through a fake third playthrough to get to the golden ending but that's very, very clunky.

Two: This is a retread of the entire time loop and golden ending concept from Penny Larceny, but on a smaller scale. Penny had five timelines, this only really has two. So it feels like there's not enough meat on this bone to pull the same trick, and even if there was, well... it's the same trick! It's been done.

Three: There's three cast members you can build a relationship with, but only two real playthroughs. On top of that, it could be you decide "I really like Cat!" and do her story first, but because you didn't really finish the game, now you feel obliged to either re-do all of Cat's content or go with a different character next time you start when you don't actually want to. In Penny, we got away with this by having the "golden ending" let you pick who she ultimately ends up with. Could do the same here, but again... that's retreading the same narrative gimmick and is clunky.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION #1: THREE ACTUAL PLAYTHROUGHS

This would require me to write more and more episodes, possibly more than I feel I can, so there's enough unique content to sell the idea of multiple timelines. Three full playthroughs of unique episodes would certainly get the job done and would let you explore Cat, Daniel, and Remy in full.

But even aside from "that is a LOT of content to write," it calls into question... what ratings do you want for the third playthrough? High or low? There's no third ratings option to give this its own spin and no way to balance the ratings. So the ratings end up being effectively meaningless and this playthrough is really just killing time until you can enact your ultimate plan.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION #2: ONE LONG PLAYTHROUGH

So let's resequence this. Instead of two or fake-three or full-three, we just sequence all the episodes in order of your choosing and then you get your ending and you're done. Shadow Over Cyberspace and Arcade Spirits played like this, so it's not like it's a boring formula -- it's just more narratively standard.

In this situation, you'd have 8 episodes (pilot, 6 normal, finale) to spread your ratings over. We could still have high and low ratings endings with their drawbacks, but a third one becomes possible: "Balanced Ratings Ending."

Let's say Farsight needs 4 low ratings episodes to dig an escape tunnel, and Infinity needs 4 high ratings episodes to lock onto Management's frequency and create a bomb to destroy them. If that's the case, a 4/4 split gets you both objectives.

Now, gamers being gamers, gamers want to WIN. If you tell them "A perfect 4/4 balance will get you the best ending" then that's what they're going to do. So does this really give the player a choice? Who would actually choose a 5/3, or an 8/0, if they had a 4/4 available to them?

But Shadow Over Cyberspace was plenty satisfying even with people always, always pushing for a "four gods ending." I only saw ONE streamer do anything other than that, but nobody walked away feeling unhappy or railroaded because they had to plan their tactics and earn those trust points and despite so many other endings being available, the most popular one still satisfied.

So, maybe this approach will work. It's less interesting than a timeloop but it's still solid. Or is the need to try to hit 4/4 too limiting? What do you think? Is there another solution I haven't considered?