J-L'S PROFILE

The article brings up some good points (tutorials not always being a good idea, grinding and backtracking being negative things...), but you truly brought my animosity upon yourself when you said that cutscenes should be skippable and introductions should be as short as humanly possible. In a friendly way, that is. Let me explain why.

I found myself skipping some cutscenes in a game I played some weeks ago. This is very unusual of me, but why did I do it? Because it was an arcade game and the sheer action of the gameplay and playing it as soon as possible were could conceivably be more important than learning about the game's very limited story and reading through cheesy dialogues. If the game hadn't allowed me to do so, I would have taken the hint that the dialogues had a major role and that I should know what's being said in them.

You do not seem to make any distinction for different genres, and this should be pointed out. I will have different expectancies and tolerances towards cutscene and introduction lenghts depending on the kind of game I am facing. I do agree that introductions should be as brief as possible. A horror game with a simple story should have a brief introduction (the opposite of what Kidnapped and Resident Evil: Remake Disc 1 did).

So is a short and preferably skippable intro always the best choice? No! Reincarnation -Dawn of War- had an exceptionally brief intro which could be skipped with no great consequences for the player's understanding of the story. I personally believe that this was one of the things that made the demos story not-so charming and one of the weaker aspects of an otherwise good game. A story can be told while the player progresses (see Portal), I'll give you that. But if both introductions and cutscenes are to be kept short and skippable, when does one learn about what's going on?

An intro that is skippable gives the message that its content is redundant. Same for cutscenes. Of course, there will be some players that will not like to sit through different scenes, but catering to everyone's needs has its drawbacks and inconveniences. What if Final Fantasy IV did have this option? There would inevitably be some players that would skip everything they could thinking that the story is mundane and they'd be clueless about what would have to be done next. Even if they made it to the end of the game, most of them would be like "Who the hell is this Zemus guy?". So what would be next? Add a quest system to make sure the player knows exactly what to do but has no idea why?

Scenes must never be longer than necessary and they must be well written and well planned. But the five-minute rule seems a little random to me. Take Vagrant Story, a game highly praised for its plot. The full and sometimes playable introduction is a nearly 30 minute long cinematic bliss.

Besides, would anyone in their right mind agree to let someone who could have easily skipped all the cutscenes review their game? What if a player who really is into the story skips a cutscene accidentally? Would you go through the trouble of making a theater mode to make all cutscenes re-watchable with the potential bugs and resources that might take just to make the few people who do not want to read a bit content?

A game offers entertainment and requires some interest and time in return. By all means and when possible, don't make things longer than they need to be and keep them interesting. Especially if the gameplay itself is the game's forte and the story is not so important.

However, I believe that if a person truly can't bear to watch a few cutscenes for every hour of gameplay then they should consider playing something that requires a shorter attention span.

Cheers! Glad you decided to try it. I hope it's useful or that at least you find it fun to play!

EDIT: Have you noticed that we have he same MakerScore? (1157 when this was posted) Whoa!