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HOW MANY HOURS OR DAYS DOES IT TAKE YOU TO MAKE AN HOUR OF GAME?
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ShortStar
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author=ShortStar
I speed run the game over and over so there is 0 grinding, where I give myself the best gear in that area and instantly level up where I need to be in order to make testing efficient.
That's not a good way to playtest an RPG. Maybe if you want to test a specific puzzle or feature and get the grinding out of the way, that is fine, but you need to actually gauge how much time and effort it takes for the average player to get to certain levels within the game. If the battles feel too repetitive or the time you need to spend grinding feels overboard, then that should mean you have some tweaks or even reworks to the battle system you need to do. After all, if you aren't enjoying your game, how will anyone else?
On topic, it generally depends on what I am doing for that day of development. At times, because I am working on a feature that involves minimal playtesting, I hardly complete a second of gameplay if at all. Other times, it would take me a couple or so weeks.
I actually don't mind this, because the more time you spend polishing your game, the better the game will be. You just have to deal with it.
It changes and depends on the game, the mood, the mapping detail, the amount of battles/cutscenes and such.
I mean, I've made a full game (about an hour long) in a day*. I've also made the same in a weekend and another over the course of a week or more. There's really no true set time. It takes as long as it takes.
Also, what? An hour of gameplay every 30 steps? Did I read that correctly? Are you making a battle every other step or something because what the fuck? That's crazy. If I can't move 30 steps within an hour or if a battle takes me over 2 minutes to finish I begin to hate that project. I'm not in a game for battles - I'm in it for story and/or character progression. Unless it's something like Shadow of the Colossus, where every battle is an epic and fun boss, then... no, just ugh.
Oh, and Ratty is right - don't speed-run that shit unless you're 100% sure of the balancing. Your playtesting should focus on how the game feels when playing as a new player. Is it fun? Engaging? Easy to find what you need? Explained well? Has good progression and pace?
You'll know everything about your own project, you'll take much less time to get through it. Your players won't. They'll need time to get used to your pace, learn where to go and who to talk to, where to find items, how to kill monsters properly... etc. They're going to take a lot longer - for every 10 minutes of game you play through, for them it could take from 15-30, depending on a lot of different factors, the least being your ability to tell them how to progress in the game and the balance (money, items, healing, monsters, damage and levels).
A good way to do playtesting is to grab a pad of paper and just play normally. Write down anything you come across that needs changing. Make multiple saves so you can jump back to an area/time. If you've got to a part where everything so far has been great, use the first slot to save in. That will let you know where you are in the game that is polished up so far. It'll keep getting longer each time you play through.
Be critical, be thorough and try to interact with everything the player can. You never know when there's a bug lying around, hidden from your eyes because you know where to progress. Just take your time. Devote a whole day to it, if that's what is needed - there's nothing worse than enjoying a game only to have it crash on you for some reason and having to wait for it to get fixed. Better to not have that crash at all, thanks to careful testing, than to have to wait for a fix.
*Note that though the game was completed in a day, it still had bugs and has been weeks worth of polish put into it after its release.
I mean, I've made a full game (about an hour long) in a day*. I've also made the same in a weekend and another over the course of a week or more. There's really no true set time. It takes as long as it takes.
Also, what? An hour of gameplay every 30 steps? Did I read that correctly? Are you making a battle every other step or something because what the fuck? That's crazy. If I can't move 30 steps within an hour or if a battle takes me over 2 minutes to finish I begin to hate that project. I'm not in a game for battles - I'm in it for story and/or character progression. Unless it's something like Shadow of the Colossus, where every battle is an epic and fun boss, then... no, just ugh.
Oh, and Ratty is right - don't speed-run that shit unless you're 100% sure of the balancing. Your playtesting should focus on how the game feels when playing as a new player. Is it fun? Engaging? Easy to find what you need? Explained well? Has good progression and pace?
You'll know everything about your own project, you'll take much less time to get through it. Your players won't. They'll need time to get used to your pace, learn where to go and who to talk to, where to find items, how to kill monsters properly... etc. They're going to take a lot longer - for every 10 minutes of game you play through, for them it could take from 15-30, depending on a lot of different factors, the least being your ability to tell them how to progress in the game and the balance (money, items, healing, monsters, damage and levels).
A good way to do playtesting is to grab a pad of paper and just play normally. Write down anything you come across that needs changing. Make multiple saves so you can jump back to an area/time. If you've got to a part where everything so far has been great, use the first slot to save in. That will let you know where you are in the game that is polished up so far. It'll keep getting longer each time you play through.
Be critical, be thorough and try to interact with everything the player can. You never know when there's a bug lying around, hidden from your eyes because you know where to progress. Just take your time. Devote a whole day to it, if that's what is needed - there's nothing worse than enjoying a game only to have it crash on you for some reason and having to wait for it to get fixed. Better to not have that crash at all, thanks to careful testing, than to have to wait for a fix.
*Note that though the game was completed in a day, it still had bugs and has been weeks worth of polish put into it after its release.
SnowOwl
5188
I don't make RPGs so I don't have all the "extra" time that those battles give, so usually to make about an hour of gameplay I have to spend something like a month.
So that would be around 60-80 hours of gammak to make 1 hour of gamplay.
Now that I think of it that's pretty ridicilous.
So that would be around 60-80 hours of gammak to make 1 hour of gamplay.
Now that I think of it that's pretty ridicilous.
On my current game, I've got about 3 hours of gameplay. I've been working on the game for five months, so one hour of gameplay took about 1.6 months. Also keep in mind that I'm drawing all the tilesets, monsters, and facesets from scratch. And that a lot of that time was spend re-polishing content that was already there after I got feedback about what needed to be improved.
Factors on the exact amount of what I can do in a day, of course, vary wildly. It's all about how much free time I have and how much motivation I have, so no two days are ever really going to be equal when it comes to Gam Mak output.
Ultimately, I don't find the question compelling. I could make a game five to ten times faster than I do, but it would be a crappy game. Some people take ten plus years to make their game, and some can churn out a game in a month. Both have the potential to be fantastic.
This. Very much this. So much time goes into making a set of dialog, a battle, a single moment, just right. Hours are spent making a few seconds shine. And while I can't be too much of a perfectionist or I'll never finish a project, it's polishing the game that really makes it stellar.
Factors on the exact amount of what I can do in a day, of course, vary wildly. It's all about how much free time I have and how much motivation I have, so no two days are ever really going to be equal when it comes to Gam Mak output.
Ultimately, I don't find the question compelling. I could make a game five to ten times faster than I do, but it would be a crappy game. Some people take ten plus years to make their game, and some can churn out a game in a month. Both have the potential to be fantastic.
author=Ratty524
On topic, it generally depends on what I am doing for that day of development. At times, because I am working on a feature that involves minimal playtesting, I hardly complete a second of gameplay if at all. Other times, it would take me a couple or so weeks.
I actually don't mind this, because the more time you spend polishing your game, the better the game will be. You just have to deal with it.
This. Very much this. So much time goes into making a set of dialog, a battle, a single moment, just right. Hours are spent making a few seconds shine. And while I can't be too much of a perfectionist or I'll never finish a project, it's polishing the game that really makes it stellar.
I spent over a month, maybe two on project with a total gameplay of less than 30 minutes. Though the game has no battles, just story so far.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
It depends what you mean by "an hour of game".
Once all the framework is done, it often takes me less time to make, say, a mission, than it takes for a player to complete it. I just have to create three or four cut scenes to happen during it, and then set the objective to kill 120 enemies in a specific area. This creates about an hour of gameplay and takes me less than thirty minutes to make!
But that's because my partners and I already spent a few hundred hours creating the mission system, and a hundred hours or so creating the enemies and area that this particular mission takes place in, and tens of thousands of hours creating the combat system and job system and abilities and equipment and interface and account system and controls and etc. and etc....
Once you start creating content for your game, i.e. specific dungeons, enemies, quests, and other such specific short-term goals for the player, you are probably 95% of the way done with the game already. So it's extremely time-efficient to make the game a lot longer via more content. It probably only takes about 10% longer to make a 50 hour long game than to make a 10 hour long game.
Once all the framework is done, it often takes me less time to make, say, a mission, than it takes for a player to complete it. I just have to create three or four cut scenes to happen during it, and then set the objective to kill 120 enemies in a specific area. This creates about an hour of gameplay and takes me less than thirty minutes to make!
But that's because my partners and I already spent a few hundred hours creating the mission system, and a hundred hours or so creating the enemies and area that this particular mission takes place in, and tens of thousands of hours creating the combat system and job system and abilities and equipment and interface and account system and controls and etc. and etc....
Once you start creating content for your game, i.e. specific dungeons, enemies, quests, and other such specific short-term goals for the player, you are probably 95% of the way done with the game already. So it's extremely time-efficient to make the game a lot longer via more content. It probably only takes about 10% longer to make a 50 hour long game than to make a 10 hour long game.
SnowOwl
5188
author=LockeZ
It probably only takes about 10% longer to make a 50 hour long game than to make a 10 hour long game.
Maybe if you plan on those 40 extra hours being all fetch quests and nothing of substance. I agree that various systems and stuff takes a big chunk of the time, but I wouldn't play a game with 40 extra hours that is just... nothing. Surely you'll make new graphics, a couple of mini-games, story, or add something else than just more of the same in those extra hours.
RyaReisender
200
Drawing a single 20x20 pixel maptile takes me 1 hour if I want to make it look good.
The length of the game is impossible to be related to the game's length. Because creating the core before even having a single hour of gameplay there already can take a year or longer. But once your engine and the requires resources have been creating or purchased, it goes much faster.
If you wanted to you could created hundreds of gameplay hours in a single hour.
For example the RPG-makerish RPG demo I once created, doing all graphics myself, took me around 3 months total and it's 5 hours long.
On the other hand I've created two unique roguelikes, I myself have already put hundreds of hours into playing them, despite only having needed 1-2 weeks to actually create them.
The text based RPG I've basically worked on for 8 years now - I can't even compare, because this game must be really long now but since it has no timer or anything I can't even tell if it's 20 or 500 hours long by now. I just kept continue working on it and then playtesting the new part, so I really have no clue on its total length if played from start.
The length of the game is impossible to be related to the game's length. Because creating the core before even having a single hour of gameplay there already can take a year or longer. But once your engine and the requires resources have been creating or purchased, it goes much faster.
If you wanted to you could created hundreds of gameplay hours in a single hour.
For example the RPG-makerish RPG demo I once created, doing all graphics myself, took me around 3 months total and it's 5 hours long.
On the other hand I've created two unique roguelikes, I myself have already put hundreds of hours into playing them, despite only having needed 1-2 weeks to actually create them.
The text based RPG I've basically worked on for 8 years now - I can't even compare, because this game must be really long now but since it has no timer or anything I can't even tell if it's 20 or 500 hours long by now. I just kept continue working on it and then playtesting the new part, so I really have no clue on its total length if played from start.
mightydarkchocolate
1683
Let's say, if I used back the sources available from previous games like tilesets, audio, etc for new game development that is 1 hour game play, it will took only 1 month with 4-5 hours per day of consistent working, including several complete run test to finish it.
My first project (1 hour gameplay) before took 6 months to complete since I started with zero sources & need to spend lots of time gathering the sources first before I even able to open the game maker program to start the works.
My first project (1 hour gameplay) before took 6 months to complete since I started with zero sources & need to spend lots of time gathering the sources first before I even able to open the game maker program to start the works.
All depends on the type of game you're making. If there's a lot of things like battles and stuff which clog up gameplay time, then it makes it easier to create hours of gameplay. However if it's just an exploration game, then you have to map so many maps to make up hours of gameplay.
gerkrt
488
Interesting but you didnt say how many you work in your game, i work a lot, sometimes like 40h a week, and i never end nothing.
Note that exist two moments in game development that are the more hard and time consuming, start and end. Start because you have to set the inital idea, maybe predesing it, and test and prototype it. Later a lot of this works is already done. Then comes the end, with final polishments, bugs, and publication, it take a lot more.
I have never do nothing more that the first step, and a lot of times, nothing to present at all. I think is the more interesting and motivational time, more refreshing.
I have worked months and year to make The last night first prototype, 40m.
Now i will release shiprewreckers of the dreams first prototype, my more complex project, it taked me years to make it, and it will take like 30m.
Note that exist two moments in game development that are the more hard and time consuming, start and end. Start because you have to set the inital idea, maybe predesing it, and test and prototype it. Later a lot of this works is already done. Then comes the end, with final polishments, bugs, and publication, it take a lot more.
I have never do nothing more that the first step, and a lot of times, nothing to present at all. I think is the more interesting and motivational time, more refreshing.
I have worked months and year to make The last night first prototype, 40m.
Now i will release shiprewreckers of the dreams first prototype, my more complex project, it taked me years to make it, and it will take like 30m.
Aegix_Drakan
6037
it can vary wildly.
On my first game, it was about 2 days per one hour of gameplay, not counting polishing.
On my current one? Jeez...
Been a month. I have 20 minutes of gameplay tops. Then again, that month has been devoted almost 100% to just making the battle engine work. I now have all the skills, mods, and other battle stuff done. Now I have to actually do some mapping and stuff. :P that's the part I enjoy least.
On my first game, it was about 2 days per one hour of gameplay, not counting polishing.
On my current one? Jeez...
Been a month. I have 20 minutes of gameplay tops. Then again, that month has been devoted almost 100% to just making the battle engine work. I now have all the skills, mods, and other battle stuff done. Now I have to actually do some mapping and stuff. :P that's the part I enjoy least.
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