What defines the length of a game?

[Afflict]

Ok so I have been thinking about what defines a short, medium & long game from each other. I basically think it is the time the user takes to complete the game.

So what are the time spans that rank a game into each of those categories.

1 hour or less short ?
1 hour and up medium?
2 hours or more long?

I remember playing police quest for about a week. So how does that filter into the equation ?

[LimpingFish]

The length of time it takes the player to move through the game, making only the required moves/choices to complete the game?

The original Resident Evil can be completed in under two hours, but isn't considered a short game.

Most of the time, it's how long it should take the player on their first play through the game to completion, I would think. That's time actually spent playing the game, not in total. A game might take you a week to complete. But if you only play it for an hour a day, then it's taken you seven hours.

[TheJBurger]

From the games page:

Short:

Short adventure games, good for a quick play when you've got some spare time.

Also, they are defined as being able to complete in under 30 minutes on the voting page.

Medium:

Most AGS games fit this category - should take up to a couple of hours to play through.

On the voting page they are defined as taking at least 30 minutes to complete.

Full:

The elite of the amateur adventures These games should keep you playing for a while, and are mostly very high quality.

I really don't know if I'd agree with that statement. 

But still, using those definitions, you may get weird results. Linus Bruckman is a one room game, yet it definitely takes longer than 30 minutes to complete, and it is in the medium game section.

Full games just appear to take at least 2 or 3 hours to complete, rivalling an old Lucas Arts or Sierra game in length (most of them anyway).

[Afflict]

Well I certainly agree that the amount of rooms shouldn't matter, as long as the game stays enjoyable then it's ok.

I agree that the time should be based on how long it takes the player to finish the game at first. This will obviously vary from person to person as certain players will solve puzzles faster than others etc.

The question initially popped into my head when I was playing Safe Cracker it comes in a nice little tin box and claims to be the ultimate puzzle adventure or something stupid like that. I finished that in a little over two hours. money well spent anyway Apprentice 2 took me longer to complete than this ultimate puzzle adventure

[Oddysseus]

Interesting topic.  I think length is subjective, based on the player's expectations.  If a game ends unexpectedly, it's short.  If it tells a complete, engrossing story or otherwise reminds the player of a professional game, it's full length.  Anything else falls somewhere in the middle.

What I want to know is: what about sandbox games?  Say you have an adventure game with only two or three necessary (but difficult) puzzles.  However, the designer has gone out of his way to include optional actions, animations, and writing to flesh out the gameworld - things like swimming in the pool, prank calling people on the phone, killing characters for no reason, etc.  Things that have no impact on story or points, but just exist to keep the player entertained.

A "hardcore" player would ignore all these possibilities and focus on finishing the game with 100%.  He would probably consider the game short.
A more casual player might while away the hours just trying random inventory items on objects in the game.  Based on all the interactions that further immerse him in the gameworld (and all the extra time he spent doing the interactions) he might consider the game medium length.

Like I said, it's subjective.  I just wonder if game reviewers would bother trying out random inventory items in a game.

[Stupot]

I think it's rude not to try as many different random things as you have enough time for if the author has gone out of his or her way to include such possibilities.

I don't think categorizing the games by length is all that important.  It's just a nice way of splitting them to make browsing less of a chore.  When it comes to AGS games I only really play new ones that interest me or old ones that people talk about which I haven't played yet.

[Jhumjhum]

I would certainly call a game full-length if it has lots of interesting locations, variety of characters and loads of puzzles spun around them. A complete 'world' inside the game. It should take around a week or so to complete the game (without getting hopelessly stuck).

For eg: A game like Pleurghburg or Monkey Island series or King's quest is a true- full length game.

I recently loved playing 'A Tale of 2 kingdoms' but I'd say it is a medium-length game if compared with 'King's Quest 2 VGA' and I wished it was longer.