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How Long Should Scrap Brain Be?

  • Sam
  • 07/17/2011 04:20 PM
  • 1187 views
I've been sitting here, happily adding to the game's first area and first dungeon, Scrap Brain Zone, including Sonic 1 monitors in the place of chests, those little nodes that send out electricity and naturally, new areas, when I realised I might wind up putting in too much of the Scrap Brain Zone!

How long, roughly, do you feel Scrap Brain should be, considering it's the first area of the game? You can answer with "x amount of Maps", "x hours/ minutes of gameplay", whichever format you feel most comfortable with.

Posts

Pages: 1
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
07/17/2011 05:49 PM
If there's introductory tutorials that make up a good sum of world 1-1, I'd say shortly after the player has a good feel for how the game works. If it's just a "point A to point B with a small storyline scene between levels" area, then I'd say no longer than 7-10 minutes if the level has some puzzle elements to it.

Then again, it's hard to say considering we have little to go off of when it comes to what makes up Scrap Brain, making any shot-in-the-dark estimate rather null seeing as how a level is really only too long when it loses its player's interest. You may want to give a little detail into how you have planned or implemented the flow of the level (including important enemy encounters and obstacles) up to this point.
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
07/17/2011 11:17 PM
No one can tell you how long an area should be. There are an infinite number of variables that could influence that.

Going off of what Corfaisus said though, is this an introductory area? In that case, how long does it need to be to introduce all the mechanics you need to introduce? It should probably be long enough to do that and no longer.
Sam
2200
07/18/2011 10:43 AM
It is the introductory area, it introduces the player to the traps and hazards on the map and a couple of other mechanics, I was thinking, maybe three maps and then a boss.
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