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CUT SCENES: HOW LONG IS TOO LONG?
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ubermax
0
ubermax
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CloseI'm at a point in my game where I'm scripting a cut scene event intended to give the player much needed information as well as progress the story with important exposition. The problem is it's getting longer and longer, and I'm starting to wonder how long is too long. I don't want to send the player off on their quest without knowing things they need to know, but I also don't want them tapping their foot, wondering when they'll get back to actually playing the thing.
This is information that can't come at a later time, nor is it something that can come in smaller doses without creating odd gaps in the story. This scene does come after the first dungeon/boss, and after the opening credits, so there's that at least.
Thoughts? Opinions?
This is information that can't come at a later time, nor is it something that can come in smaller doses without creating odd gaps in the story. This scene does come after the first dungeon/boss, and after the opening credits, so there's that at least.
Thoughts? Opinions?
Mary 4D
583
Not a big fan of twenty-minutes cutscenes. If it's only people talking and explaining things it shouldn't exceed five minutes, really.
Moved to Game Theory
And remember "Brevity is the soul of wit" and "people play games to play games". Plot helps but getting the player engaged in the game should come first.
And remember "Brevity is the soul of wit" and "people play games to play games". Plot helps but getting the player engaged in the game should come first.
A good rule of thumb is to never front-load your lengthy cutscenes. Players probably don't want to boot up your game for the first time and watch twenty minutes of stuff they have no context to understand happen in a way they have no influence over. Your earliest cutscenes should be brief and to the point. Tell the player only exactly what they need to know, and then step back and get out of their way. Let them explore the world at their own pace. Whether they want to talk to the townspeople, buy equipment or just head out to start adventuring, they'll interact with the world in the way they want to, and eventually pick up on all those things you wanted them to know on their own, provided you leave them clues. RPGs are a marathon, not a sprint. They don't need to know the whole backstory of the world and the heroes who killed the bad guy fifty years ago before the hero leaves the first town. That stuff will come in time. Right now they probably only need to know that their little sister is lost in the woods and rumors say there's a werewolf out there.
Later in the game, once the player has had their chance to explore, kill things, and sate their curiosity, you can start getting more elaborate with your cutscenes, because if you've done your job, the player is now interested in seeing how the story unfolds. Showing restraint is never a bad idea though. A Ten minute cutscene is long, twenty minutes is abusing your player's attention.
Later in the game, once the player has had their chance to explore, kill things, and sate their curiosity, you can start getting more elaborate with your cutscenes, because if you've done your job, the player is now interested in seeing how the story unfolds. Showing restraint is never a bad idea though. A Ten minute cutscene is long, twenty minutes is abusing your player's attention.
ubermax
0
@Mary4D: If I had to guess, I'd say it's a ten minute cut scene all told, with a break where you can explore where you are, followed by another cut scene, length currently unknown.
@Solitayre: I'm trying to be as brief as possible, and in fact I've cut the dialogue down a lot. These are important scenes, filled with vital information and exposition. If I cut it down any further, you'd end up with very little information, and things would happen later that wouldn't make sense. And I did say, this comes after the first dungeon, boss and opening credits. If you want a comparison, think of how FFVII starts, and how there's a cut scene in Tifa's bar afterwards that lasts a good long while.
Perhaps it's a flaw in my storytelling, but I'm not really sure what to do about it.
@Solitayre: I'm trying to be as brief as possible, and in fact I've cut the dialogue down a lot. These are important scenes, filled with vital information and exposition. If I cut it down any further, you'd end up with very little information, and things would happen later that wouldn't make sense. And I did say, this comes after the first dungeon, boss and opening credits. If you want a comparison, think of how FFVII starts, and how there's a cut scene in Tifa's bar afterwards that lasts a good long while.
Perhaps it's a flaw in my storytelling, but I'm not really sure what to do about it.
Well I'm not sure at what point in the game this cutscene is taking place, but this article may be of help.
ubermax
0
Hmmm...Right now I'm trying to think of any possible way I could present the same information to the player in smaller chunks, or save a lot of it for later. The problem is one of timing: if A is going to happen without blind-siding the player, they're going to need to know B, and B can't come later because by then it'd be too late.
Crystalgate
694
How long a cutscene can be depends on how much interest you already managed to gather from the player and how tolerant towards long cutscenes that player is. It's impossible to know that, so an estimation will have to do. Still, ask yourself this, is the game taking a lot of time explaining something the player most likely hasn't gotten interested in yet? For example, you shouldn't tell the backstory of a character the player doesn't care about.
ubermax
0
Most of the information is on the current state of the world and why the player is embarking on the quest they've been chosen for. I don't know if it helps, but the cut scene is dialogue between characters, not just a wall of text over a black background.
the longer a cut scene is, the more elaborate and entertaining it has to be to keep them interested.
It's not really so much about length, its girth that drives 'em wild. The same is true for cutscenes.
Saya
30
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
I had a dungeon that was going to end in a very lengthy cut scene. I needed a solution, but I also wanted to tell a certain character's life story before showing an important event. So what I did was I split it up into multiple cut scenes.
How I did it was to make the ghost of the character appear before you at specific places in the dungeon, recite a few lines of his life story, and then disappear. When you got to the next place, he'd tell you what happened next. This put battles and gameplay in the scene, breaking the wall of text up extremely nicely. It also broke up the wall of random battles extremely nicely, I might add. At the very end of the dungeon, he tells you how he died, you fight a boss, and then the important event occurs.
How I did it was to make the ghost of the character appear before you at specific places in the dungeon, recite a few lines of his life story, and then disappear. When you got to the next place, he'd tell you what happened next. This put battles and gameplay in the scene, breaking the wall of text up extremely nicely. It also broke up the wall of random battles extremely nicely, I might add. At the very end of the dungeon, he tells you how he died, you fight a boss, and then the important event occurs.
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
I admit I do love the ability to skip cut scenes. Most modern games have this feature, it's great when you reload a save after dying. RM doesn't have a simple method of doing so, unfortunately; I think you'd have to rig each cut scene individually, or create some kind of script and then do extra work to design all your game's cut scenes to work with that script. It's probably simpler just to make sure you don't put a five minute plus cut scene between a save point and a boss.
cho
0
author=ubermaxdoes your character have reason to not know the state of the world? because if they should logically already know this stuff, it kills suspension of disbelief pretty fast
Most of the information is on the current state of the world
happens a lot in JRPGs too:
"hey the world is overrun by demons"
"when did that happen???"
"like before you were even born"
"oh. shit"
edit:
oh right, length, that's a thing
i don't think there's necessarily a limit so long as the material is engaging. the caveat with that is that no one will care enough to get engaged if they can't play their videogame so you should keep the exposition nestled between bouts of "game play" meaty enough to sate the player
ps craze shut up you like xenosaga 3, that game is literally half its normal length if you skip all the cutscenes (i also like xenosaga 3)
when i replayed it i skipped every cutscene and would literally have to press the skip cutscene button 6 times in a row on average
Liking something and thinking that it's quality are two different things. For example, you might like your girlfriend?
I have nothing against long cut-scenes, specially if they're well done. But I do encourage short cut-scenes, both because I think it's good a practice storytelling-wise, and in order to cater to the the "less patient" kind of players.
Though, I'll never understand why some people are so eager to "play" or to "be in control" because unless gameplay is really outstanding it's not going to feel much different from watching a cut-scene. The way I see it, playing rpgs means enjoying it all, the watching, the reading, etc. not just the fights or whatever. If those people need that badly to keep their hands busy there is always modern FPSs. ;)
Though, I'll never understand why some people are so eager to "play" or to "be in control" because unless gameplay is really outstanding it's not going to feel much different from watching a cut-scene. The way I see it, playing rpgs means enjoying it all, the watching, the reading, etc. not just the fights or whatever. If those people need that badly to keep their hands busy there is always modern FPSs. ;)
Zephyr
1241
If you cannot help but make the cut scenes long, try to implement some player interactions in between.
I think that's a reason flashbacks are playable sometimes.
But if it's just mostly a text dump, maybe give the player a chance to take a pause or something.
I think that's a reason flashbacks are playable sometimes.
But if it's just mostly a text dump, maybe give the player a chance to take a pause or something.
Shinan
4314
Cutscenes can be as long as they want as long as they follow these two very simple rules:
1) Be really fucking awesome. Explosions of some kind are a must (or something being destroyed at the very least). Good editing also works. Basically make it good enough that I'd watch it outside of the game.
2) Be skippable.
The second one is more important than the first one.
But yeah it's like almost everyone in the topic has said. It depends a lot of what happens. I have a version of the three-tile rule called the five-textbox rule. If you have a dialogue or cutscene with five textboses in a row you've probably lost the audience. In a dialogue-choice game it's fairly easy to stop this. Just give the player a dialogue choice every five or so exchanges. You can also delay the boredom by having awesome stuff happen (see 1)) but if the player has no input they'll eventually zone out.
And when i say "they" and "the player" I obviously mean me.
So yeah. Like LockeZ you can probably also split up the exposition and put it all over the place rather than dump a tome at the player every now and again.
And obviously you can probably cut a lot of useless stuff. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to write completely redundant dialogue.
1) Be really fucking awesome. Explosions of some kind are a must (or something being destroyed at the very least). Good editing also works. Basically make it good enough that I'd watch it outside of the game.
2) Be skippable.
The second one is more important than the first one.
But yeah it's like almost everyone in the topic has said. It depends a lot of what happens. I have a version of the three-tile rule called the five-textbox rule. If you have a dialogue or cutscene with five textboses in a row you've probably lost the audience. In a dialogue-choice game it's fairly easy to stop this. Just give the player a dialogue choice every five or so exchanges. You can also delay the boredom by having awesome stuff happen (see 1)) but if the player has no input they'll eventually zone out.
And when i say "they" and "the player" I obviously mean me.
So yeah. Like LockeZ you can probably also split up the exposition and put it all over the place rather than dump a tome at the player every now and again.
And obviously you can probably cut a lot of useless stuff. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to write completely redundant dialogue.
