Hey guys,
After making some silly little games that sucked, I've been working on the script for my first proper adventure game.
So far I've developed a pretty comprehensive back story, mythos and universe for my game (most of which won't ever even be revealed to a player) and I'm now fleshing out the first in what I hope will become a series of games.
I'm drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources, and I want to create something with a lot of depth that will keep people guessing over several games.
I've finished the skeleton script for my game but I was just wondering how long the first game should actually be? I've played a lot of AGS titles and often I feel they are much too short (especially the first of a series). At the same time I don't want to create something that just drags on (like the Longest Journey series - even though I enjoyed them). There's a lot of room in my story to develop my characters early on, and I do feel this will help engross the player and make the world more alive.
There are currently about 28 key scenes in my story, but I feel this may be a bit short.
What would you say is the ideal play length for an adventure game?
I'd say you really shouldn't compare AGS games with commercial titles, length-wise: Only very few will stand up to the playing time of commercial games. And it's hard to say how long a game will take. My first playthrough through Day Of The Tentacle was about 13 hours, and then we tried to speed-run the game and found out it can be solved in about 20 minutes (granted, that's if you click away all text and skip all cutscenes).
For an AGS game, even half an hour of tight, solid puzzling can be considered "okay", but of course that won't satisfy someone who just handed over 20 monies for a DVD.
Personally, I like games that last, that really have some meat on their bones. I'll happily play a 20+ hour adventure game as long as it doesn't rely on filler (too much). But when I hit the AGS database and download something, I'll settle for much less.
But actually, the ideal game length is how long it takes for you to tell the story and fill it with puzzles that entertain and challenge the player. The game "is as long" as it takes the player to solve it.
Thanks Ghost,
It's a bit of a tricky one. I really do want to give the story the time it requires to really draw you in, but by the same token I do need to actually do all the work on said scenes as well. I guess I'd like the average competition to take about 8 hours, but I'm struggling to interpret how long that might take someone (as the speed at which you move through an adventure game is so variable). I guess that would come out in beta testing.
It might be easier to script scenes that develop the meta story or characters but only develop them into the actual game it it plays too short, at least that way the story wouldn't suffer from a shoehorned in 'filler' scene.
I agree, it's hard to gauge the actual amount of time a player needs to play through a game. There's always someone who will just blaze through your puzzles and there's always at least one who'll get stuck on something you thought was a simple little puzzle.
About the filler, there's a good side to that, too: If you go out of your way to create responses or even little animations/scenes for actions that aren't part of the main quest, many a player will not only spend more time on your game (trying out stuff), but they'll also fell the game to be "larger" and richer.
You mention backstory and lore; such details can greatly add to a game's plot even with just a few hints about them scattered in (otherwise useless) hotspots/dialogs etc.
For me, as a player, it also depends on how an episode ends. If it has a self contained story that is resolved satisfactory, I like it if it's several hours (although shorter is no problem for freeware). But if it ends halfway with a 'to be continued' I definitely don't want to wait for a year to see how it continues and again not ends.
In that situation I'd try to make the episodes short so the wait between them won't be too long.
Difficult to say. Most commercial adventure games I've played recently took me about 10-12 hours to complete; most indie adventure games have tended to take 6-8. Freeware games... well it can be anything.
But like Ghost said, it really depends how long it takes you to tell the story - and anyway each player is going to be different (some might get stuck at one point, some of those will look for hints, others won't...)
Personally I like little details that act like rewards for the player trying unusual things. Little in-jokes, references to other adventure games, unexpected responses when you'd normally get a generic response, little graphical details, things like that. What I don't like is frustrating, illogical puzzles of things that require to to travel repeatedly to do something simple which is part of the "filler" you've already talked about.
Why not ask for some playtesters and see what they think of the game's length?
I think that a couple of reviewers thought that Resonance was towards the short side, at around 6-7 hours of playthrough...
Then again the eat adventure games for breakfast, plus they decided to compare it to proper AAA titles (which is only to show how amazingly great Resonance is! ;))...
No idea, but in reality I think that I'd like to be able and play a game through more than a single day (so more than 3 hours or so...)... That's about it... something to keep me occupied.
I don't really care about overall game length. I love long games with a good story, but only if the puzzles and story aren't long-winded.
Take Syberia 2 for example. I was actually really enjoying that until I got to one section. I soon worked out exactly what needed doing, so in a sense I'd solved it, but I knew that doing it was going to be so long-ass-winded, that I just haven't been able to bring myself to bother finishing it.
Ah, another one of those "damned if you do, damned if you dont" -situations.
If you make a long game, some players will get bored halfway through the game and quit, especially if they come across one or more puzzles they cannot solve on their own (this may or may not be affected by puzzle and story design).
If you make a short game, and you make it a good one, a lot of people will be sad that it ended too soon and will want more. But then again, if this happens, what's keeping you from making a sequel? Prequel? NOTHING! Thus I would say a short game is a better solution of the two, as it also requires less effort from you as a developer.
Then again, I wouldn't really bother planning the length of the game beforehand, as it is one of those things that will take shape as the game takes shape. I always feel my games are too short to be taken seriously, but whenever I see someone else play them, the playtime easily doubles. This is simply an illusion I think we all have as we examine our own games, as we know how they work and thus underestimate the time consumed by gameplay.
It's kind of a silly question, I mean what's the ideal length for a novel or a song, it depends more on the internal structure of the game and it's pacing, if they're done correctly and good then it really doesn't matter how long the game is.
Thanks for the responses guys! I'll just aim to fill out the script of the story as I intend it to flow and see how it plays with playtesters I reckon.