SHORT GAMES, YAY OR NAY?

author=Bandito
As long as it has an end, or better yet if the game is complete I would play it.

You played Fire Woman, didn't you.

A game can be short and still feel epic, so for me the amount of time it takes to complete an RPG doesn't matter. The chances I play a game are the same for short and long RPGs, but I am a lot more likely to finish your game if it is short.

The problem with making a long RPG is exactly that; less people will actually complete it. Unless you're a famous developer, you'll have to really grab on to the player to make him or her stick with your game for hours on. The player might play through the first few hours of the game, but if the story and/or game play isn't really getting their attention, then the player will most likely not finish your game and move on to another. Then all of the hard work you put on the other many hours of your game will remain mostly unseen.

Now if you're working instead on a smaller RPG. Say something between 3 and 5 hours. Then you're less likely to encounter this scenario. And you can focus on refining less environments and events which can make the overall quality of your game feel better.

In fact, if you did have an idea for a really long and epic story, then you could also split it into chapters. Focusing on only one chapter at a time and releasing each chapter as small RPGs. With all of the chapters together combining to create a really long and epic story.

author=Despain
Conciseness and brevity are vital in writing—and they're vital in game design too. short games are usually more enjoyable because most of the time long games don't need to be as long as they are. Take a short game and pad it with 40 extra hours of mazes and backtracking and grinding; that's not a good thing.

A good game is as long as it needs to be and not any longer than that.

Still, it has to be as long as it needs to be.

I mean, sure, most RPGs tend to be on the "too long" side, but the genre is better suited to longer plots (I think RPGs are better compared to TV series than movies). If instead of padding the main plot with mazes, backtracking and grinding you padded it with subplots or fights that are actually interesting, I think you'd end up with a better product than if you didn't pad it at all. (I assumed you were talking about RPGs and not games in general, since you referenced grinding)

Still, with enough changes to the basic RPG's gameplay conventions, you can make some really good short games.

author=Darken

but the genre is better suited to longer plots

The only reason why most RPGs are long is because the RPG market wanted it that way. All you really need to do is keep the numbers small and have a reasonable level cap like level 30 aka SMRPG.

Sometimes it's not just the length of the game that can be a problem, but the SCOPE of the game. FF7 (imo warning) would have been better if it situated mainly in Midgar and occasionally in the outskirts. Story wise it seemed like there were excuses for FF7 to be yet another world traveling RPG even though most of the plot could have easily fit in Midgar. I have played few RM games where the scope is minimized (surprise! few rm games are completed). It is SO EASY for a game to be different from the norm with this in mind, and much easier to make.

This on several fronts, especially the FF7 point. I was so disappointed when I found out that most of the game was outside of Midgar, haha.

wrong thread.

author=Cozzer
But at that point, is it good for the game to be a RPG at all? Wouldn't it be more fun as an adventure game, or an action game?
I'm not saying this is an absolute rule, but almost every time I tried a "short" RPG (even those I greatly enjoyed) I was thinking it would have been much better if the same story/setting/gimmick/whatever had been implemented in another kind of game.

I really don't see how your reasoning applies to a game's length vs the genre. In the end it's really about execution and how things are made originally. A game like Half Minute Hero works really well because it spawned from a simple idea based around RPG mechanics.

I think it's actually the opposite: RPGs basic conventions have been created and developed over time to support long stories.

Because the market wanted it that way, I'm sure there's a select group of japanese otakus who would boycott a game if they found out the next persona game didn't have 100+ hours in the main story. Awhile back RPGs were short and it was simply a matter of people wanting more monsters, more dungeons, more shit to do. RPG fans' expectations carved the standard which is why you see a lot of teenage boy swordsman protagonists, people want this. But with RPG Maker, you're not really tied to money or any of that stuff. Point is: I feel more people should not be afraid to experiment with the genre, or even twist it til it's no longer tied to one. It's how Dragon Quest got its start in the first place.

@Darken: maybe we're saying the same thing, just giving more weight to different parts of it.

When you say more people should experiment with the genre (at least in the RPGMaker community), I completely agree. I'm just saying that if you change a basic part of the genre, in this case the length, you'll have to change a lot of other parts that use the length as an assumption.

Which, I repeat, is a good thing: what I wanted to say is that I don't think you can just make a short story, take a basic jRPG structure, cut off level advancement and 20 and call it a day. Not if you want to create the best possible game for your story.

EDIT: Ugh, double post. Can somebody delete this?

I have an unhealthy habit of making my games long, it just happens. XD Usually they alternate between 15-20 hours long of playing.

author=alterego
I'd definitively play it. I believe the story is the most important factor of an rpg, so as long as you can get into the characters and feel accomplished about helping them reach their goals, then the length it's not an issue.

I agree with Alterego the story is what I'd like to see conveyed, feature increase the game time but if you can complete the story in a four hour game then by all means do it.

In my opinion, it depends on how the game is made.

A game could be 5 minutes long yet still be good, like Clock of Atonement.
OR
A game can be excrutiatingly long, but be horrid all the way through. (Not sure which game falls into that here.)

If you intend to make a game lovely, it doesn't matter if it is short OR long, as long as it is enjoyable.