Game length too long / too short

[Hedge1970]

I've a plan to write an adventure / survival game (not text based but like Zelda). I don't have huge amounts of game time, I've played a few, some speccy, some console and some PC but I am not what I would call/class as a dedicated gamer. Just to wrap context I've hit Elite at Speccy Elite and I've completed roughly five or six PS games and played around 100 titles in my 50 odd years of life. I always find around an hours gameplay to be satisfying, I do play more and less but my most common time slot for gaming is around 60-90 mins

The question to those more dedicated and causal alike is what length of time would you play for?? I ask because I plan on setting a time limit of 60mins to my game. The thinking is anyone can succeed to get to the end. There will be an option to continue but .... well still working on that one. So in your opinion is an hour of game play too much, not enough or just about right?

PS: Dont care if its a one shot game or something people will want to return too. There is the option if your skilled enough to finish quicker but regardless it will always end after an hour.

[WhatHoSnorkers]

Intriguing. So no matter what, after 60 minutes it is game over? Do you get like a percentage or a score at the end? Can you "die", or do you just lose time (like being tied up in a prison for 5 minutes)?

But an hour sounds fun, especially if it's "do everything you can" in an hour.

I played some browser game where you had 24 in-game hours to do something. All about finding the most efficient ways of doing the things, and the ending depending on how fast you were!

[R-Tape]

An hour is a nice ideal, but I think if you can grab a reasonable number of people for half an hour these days you've done well. That said, I'd be interested to see how this 1 hour limit regardless works out.

For me, trying to work out the right balance of 'sugar rush' vs substance is part of the fun.

[Hedge1970]

Thanks for the replies, the game is still on the drawing board - notepad. It’s nothing to get too excited by, it will be 100% written in Basic. If you decide ti draw a map it is designed to fit roughly on a single page of A4. The top level aim of the game is to have fun, be completed and be interesting. So to answer a few questions, yes you can (and most probably will) die. However you will regenerate less a couple of bits. After an hour no matter what you did in game, even if you do nothing, you will be rescued. You’ll get a %success and offered the opportunity to continue.

[sn3j]

What about an option to save the game and leave the decision to the player.
Like
9900 SAVE name$ LINE 9901: PRINT "bye": STOP
9901 PRINT "welcome back": PAUSE 0: GO TO mainloop

[Sol_HSA]

See also:
- A short hike (PC)
- Minit (PC)
- Damn, I was thinking of one cool japanese freeware game with a N minute time limit but can't remember what it was called.

[Hedge1970]

What about an option to save the game and leave the decision to the player.
Like
9900 SAVE name$ LINE 9901: PRINT "bye": STOP
9901 PRINT "welcome back": PAUSE 0: GO TO mainloop

The idea is to give players the knowledge - up front - that they will finish the game. Provide success with known quantity - in this case time. Getting better is the only variable, either try and get a better %success (survivability) or indeed finish (get rescued) within the hour.... and then do it even quicker next time.

[blucey]

It's very much different for different people. My wife loves being in on one game for like 80+ hours. For me, I don't think any game needs to be more than four hours long. That's because most games just take a couple of ideas and drag them out. If a game was 20 hours long but full of unique gameplay and set pieces then I'd be fine but usually most games today that are long involve running around big open areas doing the same busywork for ages.

Go short. An hour is fine.

[Nitrowing]

I usually enjoy games with 100+ hours (FallOut series, Cyberpunk 2077 types) but am also a Fortnite veteran, where a match lasts 20 minutes.
A game with a maximum time limit is an hour with a possibility of doing a 'speed run' in 20 minutes would work in my view.

[Joefish]

There's something to be said for Zelda games in that with dungeons either open or not, and resetting when you exit them (if not completed), and fast-travel waypoints you activate on arrival, there is very little data to actually save; much can be done with a simple passcode. One that encodes a series of status flags, a few state variable values, maybe a money-in-hand value, and a validation checksum.

Combine this with a survive/explore mechanic of something like Subnautica, where you uncover the plot as you expand your field of exploration rather than be told a linear story, and again you've got a game that can take time to play, but needs minimal data to save. (Though clearly without the more permanent material/crafting/base-building elements of that game, though that could possibly be linearised so it just becomes a status number).

[Hedge1970]

Combine this with a survive/explore mechanic of something like Subnautica

I’ve certainly gained inspiration from Subnautica but more from the crafting side as opposed to the game storyline mechanic.

For now the design will be still to finish the game in an hour or less. I will think about the save game idea but for me during my time as a kid I don’t remember save as an option in the games I played - Jet Pack and Manic Miner are to two that spring to mind.

[Morkin]

I still play quite a few modern and old console/PC games - the only ones I avoid are the ones that never end (e.g. Football Manager <insert year here>)

Am currently playing Nioh 2 (up to almost 100 hours) but also play short games, like point & click adventures that sometimes only last a couple of hours.

I prefer it when today's Speccy developers design their games for the player to complete them - that's what most modern developers will do. I tend to finish quite a high proportion of the ones I try.

If I've played a game for perhaps 30 mins plus and get a 'game over' screen that requires me to start afresh, I'll often not bother nowadays (though I would've done in the 80s!). However, if a game takes 4-5 hours to finish, lets me continue from where I left off, and I'm enjoying playing it, I'll usually carry on.

If there are a lot of locations, I think a lot of players like it if you can include an in-game map to refer to (rather than have to manually map it on paper). For example Ranarama (just because I've just posted it in 'Guess the Screen'!) has a map that gradually fills in as you explore.

[Hedge1970]

....If there are a lot of locations, I think a lot of players like it if you can include an in-game map to refer to (rather than have to manually map it on paper). For example Ranarama (just because I've just posted it in 'Guess the Screen'!) has a map that gradually fills in as you explore.

Still thinking on this one. My initial thought was to ensure that any map that a user had to create would fit on an A4 sheet of paper. I find it really annoying when I start drawing a map from the centre of an A4 sheet only to find the game takes me East East East East East.. and before I know it I have to restart the map argghhh....

If I go the self draw method, I will make it clear at the start via instructions that the user should draw a map and a rough scale so that it fits nicely on an A4 sheet.

That said the map that self builds is also a nice idea, although the 48k is quickly filling up

[Morkin]

I find it really annoying when I start drawing a map from the centre of an A4 sheet only to find the game takes me East East East East East.. and before I know it I have to restart the map argghhh....

Haha yep, and you end up with only the bottom right quarter of the page with any writing on it..

...That's a nice idea if adventure games had told you which bit of the paper to start on...! Though I've often found some of the directions slightly illogical, and trying to incorporate down/up as well can be tricky - exhibit A: