UNITY'S PROFILE

author=LockeZ
LockeZ overanalyzes the pacing of Chrono Trigger's gameplay with such a ridiculous amount of detail that he has to use a hide tag:

Whoa. That was incredible. That analysis explained a lot of my feelings on the game that I felt only on a gut level rather than a mental one (For example, why Magus's Castle is more interesting and less tedious than Tyrano Fort, which just goes on forever). Thanks a lot for that!

Also, it puts me in mind of two things: 1) My enemies need more tricks to keep surprising the players, especially around mid-game. I may need to look into some new scripts to allow them to do more interesting things.

2) My game's very linear until the biggest dungeon, after which it opens up a little more for exploration. The example of CT's megadungeons leading to the Epoch makes me feel better about that.

author=pianotm
If you've got a long game. Even the most innocuous problem can stick out like a sore thumb and put a player off the game. It's easy to write to much. It's hard to make sure everything in a giant manuscript flows smoothly.

So, I don't think it's possible to make a game too long. I DO think it's possible to make a game too unmanageable.

Makes me wish I'd gone with a shorter game this time, as I still have a lot to learn about making the experience smooth and problem-free. I've put years into this game and polished it a lot, though, so I'd like to see it through even though I've learned a lot about what to do and what not to do through it.

For the record, it's not my first game or anything, I've done two quite lengthy RPG 2000 games that shall never see the light of day because I don't think they're good enough. But it has taught me a lot about how I could make a better RPG. ...I wonder if every RPG I make will do that...

author=yuna21
Most people who boast about having 30-40 hours of gameplay normally equals 25% Story and 75% filler for the most part. :\ For me, at least. 20 hours is more or less manageable, depending on the kind of game you're going for. But even that is hard to achieve. I suppose if you were to divide your game up into 20 one hour long 'chapters' ( like I'm doing for Lady of the Lion ), it becomes a lot more doable.

I'm trying to get a good balance between Story and Non-Story as well (though from what I've played of Lady of the Lion, I think you've got me beat on the story to non-story ratio ^_^ ). My story is very character-driven, and part of the reason for its length is to really feel like the characters get to know each other.

author=RyaReisender
The thread title implies that game length is usually a good thing, but I would disagree. The shorter and simpler the game, the better it can get.

I used to feel like an RPG needed at least some length to be good, but that's before I started getting in to some of the games on this site, which quickly taught me that you can have a fine RPG that's relatively very short. That doesn't mean I don't also crave a meaty multi-hour RPG every once and a while (I played DQ3 recently just because of such a craving).

I think the idea of a game with choices in the early game that would drastically change the rest of the game (including different dungeons, events, characters unique to that branch, etc) would be really cool. It'd take a long time, but if each branch-off wasn't incredibly long maybe it'd be feasible.

Though, at that point, would it just be better to make three different games than say, one game that has three choices that completely change everything? Or would the illusion of choice and the way it changes the entire plot be worth it?

Then there's games like say, SaGa Frontier. Putting aside the fact that SaGa Frontier is pretty much a complete mess of a game, there are a bunch of characters to choose from at the start, and each one has (I assume) their own ending, even though a lot of dungeons and content are shared. Then again, after getting the ending for one character, I wasn't willing to go through the game again, so maybe that's not such a positive thing.

Whoa, awesome sites, Yuna and LockeZ! Thanks :D

I was thinking of the possibility of using the soundtrack of the old NES Silver Surfer game for a project. Most people agree that the game itself is pretty terrible, so I'm not sure how recognizable the soundtrack is. But the soundtrack itself, to me at least, sounds amazing. Though it might be too fast-paced for a normal RPG...

Ah, sorry. It's for a nightmare, so I meant it to be indistinct as to suggest anything could be hiding in the darkness. Probably wasn't a good map to share, in hindsight.