To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

I'm sure you're probably just giving that advice because you're afraid a person will wind up making a long game that consists of "fluff", but I want to say this anyway, and you never seem to specify why people should keep games short in the first place.

Slayers' Reign is estimated to be over 20 hours in length. Yes, this is an RPGM1 game I'm talking about. Is that too long for you? Too bad. I can't cut it shorter if I tried. Almost all of the plot I have planned is too important for the progression of the story or explanation of the world in some way. And if I'm wrong and those who play it when I finish it feel that something was needlessly thrown in, my apologies. I really do try not to avoid putting anything in the quest without some reason, though. I've cut out a lot of things that I couldn't quite get to fit in, including a few playable characters.

So anyway, here's my advice for aspiring developers. Don't worry about your story's length. If the story you have planned is a long one, you do not need to cut it shorter just because somebody told you not to make long games. Take out the fluff that isn't important to the main quest or important character development or world in some way (we especially don't need to be collecting mushrooms). But do not be afraid to tell the story you want to tell. The only thing you have to worry about is memory constraints, and there is a way to get around that.

[11Evil Chipmunk]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

If I ever have enough time to make a real game, it'll be at least 6-7 hours in length of playtime or longer.

[orius]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

Keeping a game short is good advice for new designers for a few reasons:

1: If you plan too much, you might get overwhelmed and then never finish the game at all. That's what took me so long to make Demonslayers, I crammed too much crap into it, and only finished it because I actually forced myself to finish it.

2: Make short games for your first few attempts because it's easier to learn how the system works, and it won't take as long to playtest it.

[Ryner]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

You keep your game short because it's hard to keep a person's attention for 20 hours, and most people using RPG Maker aren't good enough to do that.

Plus, the longer the game is the more work you have to put into it. The more work you have to put into it the greater the chances that you'll never complete it.

[thetruecoolness]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

You keep your game short because it's hard to keep a person's attention for 20 hours, and most people using RPG Maker aren't good enough to do that.

Plus, the longer the game is the more work you have to put into it. The more work you have to put into it the greater the chances that you'll never complete it.

Yes. Also remember that people have many other things to do, and no offense to anyone here but I would rather spend 20 hours on a commercially made game than most of the RPG Maker games. Some of that is because of the limitations of the system, some of that because I spent money on the other games and want to get my monies worth. This is why I encourage people to make their games somewhat short, or maybe have chapters to break up the story into chunks so people can complete some part, then are able to come back later and continue where they left off easily. So if you're not going to keep your game short I advise having a lot of save points, and breaking up the game into smaller parts.

Of course these are just suggestions to get more people to play your game, if you don't care how many play it make it as long as you want, but remember Ryner and orius point about if you make it too long you're less likely to complete it, because motivation typically is inversely proportional to the time a project lasts.

[Perversion]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

Too bad I didn't listen to this advice before Series 1 was made....I could have saved myself 200 hours of creation/playtest time, and not have had the satisfaction of seeing my game clock over 600 downloads in the community (mag and pav combined).


Yeah, you love it when I do this, don't you, Ryner?

[Rodak]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

Make your games for yourself!

Intercourse what anyone else thinks about it!!

You need to realize that we are not making Commercial Games here.

We're just having Fun.

So if you try to make a game for anyone other than yourself, and to anyone else's standards, You Lose!

I have always thought of this series as "Game Making Games" where you are not programming - so much as Playing!

The only way to Win this game is to make something YOU like!!

The more you like the finished product, the higher your score!

Other people's opinions don't matter. Not if YOU like Your Ideas!!

Read this to see my first game idea (about to be revived !) -

http://www.pavilionboards.com/forum/...ead.php?t=1785

That is No Short Story!

I needed to wait until my Creation Skills were up to this challenge.

The only question is whether to begin from scratch or try to repair all those mistakes in the existing file...

[thetruecoolness]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

Well if yours didn't seem to be the exception Perversion then we would recommend that approach more, but lots of people have these grand ideas as their first game idea, and then get frustrated that they can't live up to those original ideas, or it's taking too long. So we're just saying start small, then work up to the huge thing. But if you truly think you have the perseverance, sure make your game last 100 no 1000 hours, I'm sure maybe 1 person will complete it, it won't be me but someone will.

But yes make games for yourself, just don't be surprised if only a select few play it because no one else gets it. So I guess it all depends on your goal, if you want a lot of people to play it, safe bet is to make it somewhat short and engaging the whole time, and a little more approachable to a large group of people, if you don't care about all that and just want to make a game then by all means do whatever you want (there's always the possibility you'll get lucky like perversion ).

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

in the end the game has to be enjoyed by you, this means the creating of the game must be fun, the feeling of completion must be satisfaction, the playing through it should be how you wished it to be. if it becomes work then you will quickly find something else to do insted of finishing your project.

starter games, as suggested, should be short since your not likely to complete them. many games that new developers have start out crapy, and by the end of the game they show how far they have improved. its best to toy around with an idea and make a fun throw together game to hone your skills. once you feel your ready to move forward with a more complicated game then go for it, but take breaks if your imagination gets bored else the quality of the game dives.

also try to avoid anything that is needless or boring for an rpg maker game. even if your game is long some people will play it if they are having fun, but if its just fetch quests and battles the amount of patience they will have with it will be greatly diminished.

in the end its your game so make it however you want!

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

I will admit I hadn't thought about people not being ready to attempt longer games. Very true, even in my case. I did have the patience to make my game (or else I wouldn't still be saying that I'll release it six years later ), but the first attempt was very crappy.

Indeed, I am making my game primarily for myself. But part of it is also because I hope it gets a lot of praise for being long while staying interesting. A professional-quality game on an RPG Maker. (Pfft, I wish.) It does very much worry me that few people will wind up playing it. Especially since so few people even are able to play RPGM1 games. And I just know that those who do play it will wind up not saying anything, thus resulting in no word spreading that my game is an impressive game that must be seen to believed. *cough* But at the same time, it means nobody's really telling me if anything needs improving or giving me suggestions to improve something, which means that the potential could easily be wasted.

But I digress. It's what I want to make, and it's what I'm going to make. And everybody else should go with the same mentality. After considering whether or not they're really ready for creating the game they want, at least.

(PS: Thank you orius for bumping this topic. Here I thought yet another attempt of mine at creating a topic for important discussion had failed. Rep for you. )

[ReverendWolf]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

But I digress. It's what I want to make, and it's what I'm going to make. And everybody else should go with the same mentality. After considering whether or not they're really ready for creating the game they want, at least.

i'm inclined to agree. since this is a tool to convey our imagination, ourselves as creators should be more interested in doing that, rather than allowing others to drive our creations from the back seat.

there's a fine line, it seems, between creating what we want and what others will play. if you're most interested in exposure, that's a tough balancing act sometimes.

[tjoris9]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

I generally advise against trying to make a game a specific length. If you thought your game would be 20 hours and it turns out you only have about 6-7 hours of gameplay, leave it alone. If you thought you were making a 2-5 hour game and wound up with about 20+ hours, odds are good there's too much level grinding.

The attention span of an average RPGM game player is also much shorter than that of a commercial game player, hence why your games should be fairly short (Probably no more than 5-10 hours at most). If you can get us to play a 20+ hour game and like it, though, then more power to you.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

Oh, of course. There's absolutely no reason to add any useless fluff.

[Rodak]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

I generally advise against trying to make a game a specific length.

And I like to say that none of my games will be finished until ALL Available memory has been used! Regardless of gameplay length.

...

Oh, of course. There's absolutely no reason to add any useless fluff.

HOORAY FOR USELESS FLUFF!!

[orius]

Re: To everyone who keeps giving advice "keep your game short"...

but lots of people have these grand ideas as their first game idea, and then get frustrated that they can't live up to those original ideas, or it's taking too long. So we're just saying start small, then work up to the huge thing.

Yeah. Really, making a few short simple games will give a new user practice with using the game. I've only used RPGM 1, but probably this is advice that can apply to every game in the series.

You don't just need vision, you need to know how to bring that vision to life...or at least a reasonable facsimile of it.