SLASH'S PROFILE

It depends on the game and genre. Action games are shorter and sweeter because the focus is typically on gameplay and less on plot and story development.

RPGs have the ability to span into epics the length of novels or longer, but can also read like a short story. They're not common, but my favorite kind of video game is 40+ hour RPG that manages to get its hooks in me with great characters. I can't put it away, just like I can't put away a brand new book.

Realistically, however, 2.5 hours is fine for a solo-produced RPG, knowing that your story is going to be limited by that constraint. A 2.5 hour story can still be suprisingly addicting, and if you have the gameplay to match, your audience will eat it up, and you'll probably get the most downloads. For a solo game-maker, I couldn't expect many people to go beyond 5 hours without giving up or getting bored. That being said, the game I'm currently making has a story that could reach at least 10 hours without adding any filler... I think I'm setting myself up for quite a bit of work :P

Oh, and Wilfred the Hero is an amazing game that you can beat in probably 2-4 hours. It has a great atmosphere and fun as hell battle system, even if the intro is *almost* unbearably tedious. But that's also a good example of a game that was supposed to be multiple chapters and ended up dying after the first.

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Well, that makes sense for something like Trauma Center, I suppose. But Trauma Center is full of new and intuitive gameplay. My or any RM game can have as many custom battle systems as it likes, but the gameplay is typically standard fare. I've done my best to spice it up and keep it lively, interesting and challenging, so that people who really enjoy RPG gameplay would have fun and get into the battles.

You wouldn't really need the horrible story (if it was horrible anyway) to enjoy/excel the ideal gameplay that you mentioned.

I'm willing to admit I want people to listen to and like my story. I suppose adding skippable cutscenes would make more people play it and that people who want to watch cutscenes will still watch anyway. But breaking up the game into pieces of "Do you want to watch this cutscene? You don't have to. It's okay." breaks the fourth wall horrendously. It also means double-coding to make sure that stuff that happens during the cutscene is still done even if you don't watch it (ex. a window breaking).

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http://rpgmaker.net/articles/2/This will likely interest you.

That was definitely a great article. Taking a look at some Final Fantasies:

FF6 actually turned out to be amazing, even with 13 characters, and each had some good backstory and contribution to battle. It kind of suffered because it didn't have a strong central character, though, and I wish it did.
FF7 did pretty well with 8 (9?) characters, and their individual backstories and contribution to the plot are very well-designed... but gameplay-wise, they were too similar. They shared everything but weapons and Limit Breaks.
FF10 expanded on FF7 by including around the same amount of characters with great stories, but also gave gameplay value by seperating them by individual characteristics. Some monsters required certain characters to defeat, and with the ability to swap characters on-the-fly, this made for a great, quick-paced battle system, and no characters got too much love... except Tidus.


So there's a need for balance. If your RPG requires tactical gameplay, you might need to add more characters to in order to add more skills/mechanics. But, if your story is too shallow, adding more characters will only detract from the plot, and people will be left wondering, "Why is this guy with me again?"

This is an amazing-looking junkyard. Where did you get that chipset?

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You should never need to die purposely on a boss battle.

My bosses would be intrinsic to the story, so if you follow the story you'll automatically get hints as you progress. If you slop through all of the dialogue you'll end up missing important information.

This is a good point. It would be dumb as hell to force people to fight each boss at least twice. But the hint wasn't going to be the only source of information. A lot of it would be gleaned from previous monsters (with similar strats), hints in the dungeon (notes, warnings, secrets, or talkative NPCs), and clever intuition on the player's part.

There's also a character with a "scan" ability that gives hints as well. The only problem with this is that it might be too... necessary. If someone has an ability that reveals a big clue to defeating the boss, other available characters would have to be damn good to make up for not having that ability.
Maybe I should have a semi-rare consumable that does the same..?