JIMBO'S PROFILE

I've gotten into a lot of the weirder game genres over the last several years. I'm a longtime rogueliker (including the mind-destroying Dwarf Fortress -- ask me about my Goblin Steamtorture Cavern!) and I've even given some attention to those "critique the mode" sorts of games like We The Giants and what we see from the Anna Anthropy crowd. My feeling is that certain types of games lend themselves better to certain lengths.

RPGs, it seems to me, have a greater length sort of hardwired into them. A great deal of the fun is in watching your characters change over the course of the adventure. This is generally done in two ways:

1) they undergo some sort of philosophical trial and come out different than when they went in
2) they accumulate power and loot from the many battles they've fought, generally paralleling #1

I don't generally see this happening over the course of shorter RPGs. So, for me, long.

Of course, that's a tricky thing, because long games need to be good in so many ways that short RPGs don't. You can't just skate by on half a cool concept, some custom sprites, and a lifted theme from Dragonforce. It's the difference between an excellent short story and an excellent novel.

Incidentally, if there's anyone here who'd have the time to answer a few personalized questions about game design, I'd appreciate the chance to pick a brain.