My experience of Prince Of Persia: Sands of Time (having played it through four times) is that they got it pretty close to right. At the end of my first time through (about 8 hours) I didn''t think "is that it? What happened to the rest of the game?" like I did with Soul Reaver, which doesn''t so much end as stop, nor did I think "what was the point of the last X hours (or the X hours just before the last bit)?" like I frequently do with Final Fantasy games (X-2 comes out on Friday over here), instead I thought "Well, they couldn''t really have made it any longer without making it worse". The second and third times through were to try and pick up the secrets I''d missed; the fourth was to pick up the last secret having consulted gamefaqs to see what I''d missed, and to check something I''d noticed about the combat system.

Anyway, some of the things I think they got right (in terms of game length related issues): the plot keeps progressing, without any real sense of repetition or filler, but doesn''t feel rushed or contrived - it''s been a while since I played a game where it was so easy to suspend my disbelief, though the Legacy of Kain, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear series do plots pretty well too (the gameplay mechanics let them down a little). The gameplay develops gradually throughout the game, with puzzles requiring new abilities being introduced as late into the game as 60-70% and new twists being added right the way through to the end (such as losing the dagger in the late game). There is a progress tracker built into the save system - every save point has an associated (not always unique) percentage, so you not only have a sense of progress, but also of how much further you have to go - though this would be harder to do for less linear games despite games like Pokemon and Metroid Prime having a clear target and progress type for "collector"-type players. The gameplay breaks down very clearly (and pretty naturally) into short episodes (pretty much rooms) although typically you have to complete several short chunks between saves, and there are relatively few dead-zones - places with neither a puzzle nor a combat longer than a few meters. The amount of forced replay per mistake is generally small - most of the time, a misjudged jump or a missed block in combat can simply be rewound, and even if you run out of sand (or can''t rewind far enough) the continue is usually at the start of the current puzzle so you rarely need to repeat solved puzzles or redo completed combats.

The one thing I can think of that I would definitely change in the game given the chance, would be the addition of a final completion screen that tells you how many sand clouds, magic fountains and other secrets you missed.

Games like the Final Fantasy series tend to have the problem of a slowing mechanic (combat to advance) conflicting with a hasting plot (save the world ASAP)

The more I think about it its not the length of the game. But the length of fun. How long is the game fun to play?

Pac-man length of game about 5 minutes, length of fun many hours.



-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

quote: Posted by TechnoGoth
The more I think about it its not the length of the game. But the length of fun. How long is the game fun to play?

Pac-man length of game about 5 minutes, length of fun many hours.

I second that!

Call of Duty was way to short, I wanted at least another 4 to 5 hours play.

These extra hours should have been further team based missions I hate war based FPSs that see you doing stealthy operations on your own, war is about co-operating as a team.

I''ve been playing NWN for awhile now, and aside from the multiplayer I think the long singleplayer campaign is a little boring, it just doesn''t progress fast enough.

Star Wars: KOTOR is one of my favourite ''long'' games, a wee bit slow on my naff GeForce FX 5200, but well worth the occasional graphical glitch.

I personally wouldn''t pay any money for really short games that offer a quick play and your finished, cause they really don''t offer that much replay value. (How many times have you watched the same 30 minute comedy until it got boring???) Games that are short are nearly always the same, long games MAY be able to let you try things in different ways when you play again, e.g. in SW:KOTOR you could try being a good jedi instead of a dark jedi etc.

As long as developers are willing to spend the extra time to create new levels with new content (not just ri-jigging already seen textures, objects etc.), I have no problem with playing games that last 30+ hours.

Aside from PlanetSide MMO Games need to be re-thought to keep play sessions unique and interesting, DAoC - theres only so many times I can type ''/say task'' before I get seriously bored. You may not think this is an issue of a games length but it is, cause MMO Games are the longest type of game there is and they can get seriously dull...It''s all about content, how much can the developer give the player that is actually fun, if they can''t provide a sensible amount of fun content then the game should''nt have a large playing time.

All in my opinion,
Adam

Mandatory playtime is part of what I think of as the "heaviness" of modern AAA games. They are all hefting the baggage of "x hours of cutscenes/recorded dialogue," and guess what, when you have all of that stuff, you have to have gameplay to go along with it. And so games institute some additional cruft that isn''t quite necessary for play, in order to maintain consistency with the cutscenes.

For example, you can probably name at least one game within, oh, the last 5 years, say, where instead of simply marching up to the door of your character''s HQ and getting the next story element, you have to enter the HQ, spend 15+ minutes wandering around, bumping into things, and generally being somewhat lost but pacified by the fun in exploring a new environment until you finally encounter the person or thing you needed. At the same time, of course, doing certain things at HQ will give you helpful bonus items or money or experience etc..

That''s a really BAD thing for replayability. Not only have you instituted some additional playtime that will become less and less meaningful with each new play, you''ve also given your players "free stuff," with the cost of getting it being a LOT of player time. Only someone who''s psychotically passionate about the game will remember those locations EVERY time he plays the game, and even if he does, you force on him the decision of whether to use time in the real world or be at a percieved disadvantage in the game world.

In effect, you''ve just made the player an unskilled laborer by introducing bonuses - unless the game is too easy in the first place, which reduces the point of getting the bonuses even further. This syndrome of introducing what is basically uninteresting cruft as though it were a useful feature has annoyed me to no end - you can see it in FPSes, RPGs, platform games....oftentimes it makes me want to give up on the game.

I suppose my main complaint, really, is that I''m playing with an eye towards replayability. I quickly become unhappy once I start sensing that there''s not going to be a long-term reward for any of the hoops I''m jumping through, either by being able to accomplish something especially cool as a result of my skill in the game, or as a way to assist me through the first time if my skill is inferior.

What the industry really needs are games that "do more with less" again. It''s all too easy to "do more with more," and the result is that you have to play like a brain-damaged zombie, or Pavlov''s dog, to finish one of these modern titles. That isn''t bad...for an "Easy" mode. But giving players the option, and the desire, to aim for higher targets is the way to get them fired up and totally addicted.

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth

Thats not really new. The quest for glory series had that, it was a series of 5 games where you could import your character from previous games into the current one. So you started off with an advantage an few bonus items. Altough it would have been nice if there where tiggers in previous games that activated things in later games. Although there where a lot of recuring character so all in all it was probably one of the best games series ever made.

also as far as length in rpgs I''d say FF8 and FF9 got it about right there was about 12 hours of gameplay per cd, including sidequests and mini games.

Ohh.. Quest for Glory.. Mmmm.. One of my favourite series ever (especially 1 (original, not vga remake) and 2) I''ve actually managed to get about 520 out of 500 points in QFG1...

Actually there were some kind of trigger I think.. something with the paladin.. Very simple stuff of course, but I think it was impossible to become paladin if you did something or another in one of the earlier games..

As for the No Encounters items in the FF games: sure you could get them, but not until very late in the games. I would like better to be able and see the enemies (no random encounters, but most enemies respawn). Then I could avoid those I didn''t want to fight (too hard or too easy) and fight those I wanted. Of course in some places there would be creatures guarding an area, and it would be impossible to enter the area without fighting them. If I''m not mistaken there was something like this in Chrono Trigger (or Cross.. Can''t remember.. the sequel anyway). On the world map there were random encounters, but in the main game areas you could see the enemies and try to evade them.

Many, many games have a lot of "busy work" in them. I blame random encounters in RPGs for much of this, since games have progressively made enemies weaker and more abundant. I''d rather have a couple of tough fights than four hundred little ones, with forty seconds of intro and outro animations for each one.

Dialogue and cut scenes add a lot of "void" time, as well. Imagine if you put a four or five-minute movie at the beginning and end of every level of Contra, and a brief animation every time a major door opened or a boss appeared. that could easily become a three or four hour game, instead of the twenty or thirty minutes that a skilled player can beat it in. Worse yet, put that stuff in Bionic Commando. That game would have been hell on a cracker if there had been long cutscenes in it.

It''s come to my attention that some people love that sort of thing, and so I guess it isn''t too bad, but I want a "shoot screen to skip intro" type of thing on every one of them.

I agree with some games being too short, too, but I would never suggest that shorter games cost less. Should a ticket to a shorter movie cost less than a ticket to a longer one? Hell no. Entertainment value can''t be measured in minutes or hours, and the implication that it can disturbs me.

I guess I have to disagree. I see games in much the same way as I see many other forms of entertainment; you get X minutes of enjoyment for Y amount of money. Of course the ratio varies from one to the next, but in general if I know I''m gonna get half the time I want to pay half the cost. Unless of course, I can be convinced that I''m gonna get double the quality.

[ MSVC Fixes | STL Docs | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost
Asking Questions | Organising code files | My stuff | Tiny XML | STLPort]

I doubt many people would pick a 10 hour game over a 30 hour game if both games were $50. People are going to think, "I can get 3 times as much game for the same price"

I don''t see how you''re reckoning game time. I''d probably take Goldeneye over Final Fantasy X, because I can play Goldeneye for months with my friends, and enjoy it more, but I think that the actual "game" takes far less time. I beat Goldeneye in a few hours. Likewise, Smash Brothers Melee has infinite replayability, but should it cost $5,000? I think that production values and development costs are and should be the deciding factor in the cost of a game. After all, if I want to jack the "value" of a game I''m making, I can just add thirty seconds of animation to each battle in the game. 30 seconds times about 1200 battles per play-through... that''s ten hours of gameplay! Add another zero to that price tag, my game is now officially epic!