I was just curious how much long should a standard indie game should be? 5 hours? 20 hours??
Actually I want to develop a 3d Action adventure game, and am short of story.
It depends on what kinda game you plan to make. If it’s your first, try something small.
Yes, its my first game. So I think, I would go with a 4-5 hour gameplay. Thanks for the reply
I do think you are thinking the wrong way.
You need to have a good story first.
If your story is short and you just make the game longer then the story is, then you need to make repeated stuff and that makes the game bad.
So make a good story then the length of the game will come by itself.
So the quality is more important.
If you make a game that has 20 hours of gameplay, but the story is bad. Then the user will not play it to the end or you will get bad reviews for it. That means your game will be dead and all your time and money you put in the game is gone.
So the bottom line is to make a quality game and work with the game until you feel it is. Do not release it before you feel it is and other person has tested it and they play it a lot.
I did one game that I still think its funny, but I did change the how it looks and stuff in it, just for I did want my girlfriend to start doing things.
So she did had one idea that she used in the whole game.
Well the game is good, but some people do not like what is in the game.
So I did get some bad reviews and now its very hard to sell the game.
So I had to release it for free.
But I did learn from it and the other games I have done I did think a lot of those things and they are a lot better.
Imho it all depends on the game mechanics too, not only on story. If a game has a good game mechanic, you can play it for a long time even without much story. Just look at Angry Birds, it has no story at all and offers several hours of play.
However, as Indie you shouldn’t aim for a lengthly game by content, i.e. making enough content that people can play through 5-10 hours, because content creation takes very long and hence will cost really much (in time and money). If you really want to fill 5 hours with content that that may take a real big chunk of your time. Most of todays game have 10-20 hours of gameplay (which is far to less imho) and you will rarely find any games which are longer than that (i.e. Skyrim, which can be played 200+ hours) but content creation is really a big issue for an developer.
You should actually aim for 2-3 hours of content-driven gameplay and a price of 1-2$ as the first game. Unless you have a system were content doesn’t matter (i.e have good mechanics). For example Tetris, you can play tetris for hours, but it has no content and every play is different.
You’re thinking about it the wrong way too Damian!
While having an exciting story is nice, it’s all about creating an experience for the user The story is there to support that goal of creating an exciting experience. Therefore it only really needs to be long enough to fulfill that goal!
For a mobile game, you don’t need too much game play hours. Really 2-3 hours should be enough, but it depends on the type of game you’re trying to make! For a 3D Action Adventure game you probably want to stay on the low end side due to the amount of assets required to produce such a game for an Indie. For a Puzzle game you can lean towards the high end, pushing 10 hours of gameplay or so.
He did ask about an 3d Action adventure game, so I do not think about it in the wrong way. You can not compare it with a puzzle game, like Angry bird etc.
If the story is short and bad, the game will suffer also.
Even if you have good content the game will get boring fast.
A good story can make a game with bad content good to.
But if you have a good story and make good content you will end up with a good game.
Also I do not agree with you that a mobile game should be short.
There is zero reason for it and if the game is good then why not make the game play long?
Most problem with games today is that the game play is to short.
If you find a good game its over to fast and you get a feeling to wasted the time and start searching for e new game.
So the bottom line is that a good story and content is important to this kind of game and there is zero reason to make it worse, just for you are new or indie developer. Better make one game good then make more bad. Also that will give yo better reviews and that also means more money for you and you can then start making games for real…
I didn’t. I mentioned Angry birds as a point of reference for a game type where you can easily create a long amount of game-play with little content.
Only to a point, a story can not carry a bad game, the game has to have exciting mechanics and content. The story should be engaging to a user and should pull them into whatever type of experience you are trying to create with your game. But it doesn’t have to be long and it shouldn’t be the sole focus of the game.
There is a very good reason for it, it costs a lot of time and money to make a long game that requires a large amount of content. You should strive to make high quality content, not a high quantity of junk. Too short is ok, for a $0.99 or $1.99 game, 2-3 hours of entertainment is a bargain. As an indie you should be looking to set up revenue streams for the future, if you make a 2-3 hour 3D action adventure game and it is well received, you can spend some more time to develop another episode for it with further content. You should use the profit from the first game to fund content generation for the next one, or to help secure VC funding
@Damian:
But you also missed the main point, that it’s his first game and he has no experience.
If he attempts to make a content-driven game with 5+ hour playtime, he will ultimately fail, unless he has enough people (5-10) who do just content generation. For a first game, you have to aim for something that’s doable and generate some revenue. There is no point in making a story for a game, which requires 20 hours of play time to be told, if you don’t have the resources to generate 20 hours worth of content.
Take Demolition Inc as an example
it has little to no story, but quite interesting and fun game mechanics. And we all know, a majority of mobile games users are casuals, who play the games when they are bored on the bus/train station and want to kill some time before their bus/train arrives and that’s why most of the games are quite either quite short (if content driven) or purely based on game mechanics to be fun with little to no story.
Also, if you have a game content-driven game with 20 hours worth of content, you can’t make it available for free or for $2, you’ll have to charge $4-8 it, which makes it harder to sell too (means: less sales, less revenue, less profit). And for a 20 hours content-driven game, you can’t use “your sparetime”, you will have to spend a big junk of time fulltime on it and if you do so, it must pay back (get in the time spent on making it + some small or bigger profit).
It’s all but easy and you usually start with a small game, with 2-3 hours of game play to build up revenue/branding/user base then once you have an income and can afford the resources for content, you make more content rich games
Sure but that was not what he did ask.
I have seen many game that the content is less good, but has a good story and they sell a lot.
In the same time I have seen games with good content, but bad story sell less and often will end up as free.
The focus should be to make the game as good as you can.
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Sure it take longer time, but I think you are very wrong what you say.
If you make a good game you will sell more and get better review. You can then use this on your next game.
But if you fail and make a game that 100k other people make you will not sell much and that will hurt you in the long run.
So even if you do more “episode” of the game its doom to fail, just for you did make the first game worse than it needed to.
So my best advice is to spend time on the story and make sure it interesting and make the content to match it. If you can make the game long and still make it interesting all the time you should do it.
If I play a game and its good then I do want it to last long.
You can easy get this on a PC, but on a phone it is harder, just for some developer thinks like you that game play time do not need to be long on a mobile phone…
As first game i would not even recommend to an action adventure game. The game you show it is not that in the first place.
Also I do NOT agree with you that the game need to cost $4+.
If you sell it for $1 then more will buy it. That means you will earn more money in the end.
Some game are free, but they earn millions of dollars from them.
Why?
Well they are good.
As a developer you need to set a goal.
If you set it low like you say then you will fail to make top game.
He is new to this, but that do not means he need to make bad stuff.
Its better he take time and do it right from the start.
But I would recommend to make a simple game first, that do not need much of story, like Angry bird. lol
You, what you say is just plain wrong. If you don’t have someone (be it your previous games, a publisher or an business angel) who funds the development (and mainly the content generation) of your game, you will have more than a hard time + high risk in developing it.
Making such a games usually means, quit your daily job, invest 6-12 months into developing the game and hope it was worth it. If it fails, you wasted 1 year worth of work (and no income), maybe even got depts in that time and then the game doesn’t sell as expected.
Stuff like this happens all the time. There are also a bunch of good games, who just didn’t sell well for some reason or another (i.e. Mirrors Edge, was quite innovative and actually fun in my opionion. I liked it, but the game itself was a flop).
And I didn’t said the above is an action adventure, but it’s a game which is fun and has no real story elements at all, which just shows that story isn’t that important.
And well, take a look at the Prince of Persia series. They barely have any story at all, other than a very weak “frame” to justify the game itself (go there, save x, etc.). What makes out the series is the mechanics and the puzzles you solve. Same for Mirrors Edge. The story in this games is secondary, mostly not important at all.
No what I say is right.
Lets face it. Most developer do stuff on there free time.
To make a game will take 6+ month and if you learning it can take longer, even with a very small game.
Also if you make an adventure game( like the question was about) you need a good story.
I have seen so many games that is good looking and the game play is good, but the story sucks.
It will end the same all the time. it will fail.
If you make this kind of game you need to have a good story, That is the main part of the game.
Games like you talk about do not need much of story, just for they are different games.
If you do a puzzle game, then the puzzle it self is what is important, not the story behind it.
A good story will lift a adventure game a lot, but in the same time a bad/short story can sink a game very fast, even how good the other things is.
Also you should think about the phone will be bigger and more powerful all the time.
So when you developing a game you should look at the high end phone and look how people do use them.
I can tell you people is using them more and more, instead of there computers to play on.
So in a year or so when the game is finished those high end phone will be middle quality phones.
You also forget the skill of the developer and things that can happen under one year. maybe he is a great developer that learn fast, then its stupid not to do it the right way from the start. Also it can be something to show to others and that can make more people join him.
Good work do always pay off in the end, so do it right from the start.
You’re aware that an Action Adventure has as much in common with an (classical) “Adventure” game as 1st Person Shooter with an RPG?
An action adventure is games like Resident Evil, Prince of Persia or Lara Croft. None of them have a very strong story and in fact the story is quite weak. It’s actually more of mix of Jump n Run, Puzzle and some Action, i.e. in order to advance you have to do certain jump run stuff to reach a certain platform to advance, solve certain puzzles to open a door or kill some enemies on the way.
I just start to think, that you have no idea what an action adventure actually is
And for a first game you always take something easier, to get learn used with the engine, it’s limitations or how to optimize. If you set your goals to high, the chance to reach it gets significantly lower, as without experience you can’t estimate the time or effort required to do it the way you want. Aiming for a big project (content and tech-wise) without any experience at all, is like a commercial suicide, at least in the nowadays game industry.
Since he didn’t mentioned any team size, experiences etc, it’s to assume that he’s pretty beginner with max 2 others, so content generation will definitely be a problem for them, unless they are game industry experts who worked for years there and make a indie game in their free time. But if they would be, they wouldn’t have to ask such a question, as they’d knew it already
I do not agree at all with you and sure I do know what it is.
The game you talk about is has very very poor story and only sell do the name of them.
Also I think you are very very wrong about how people do work.
Maybe it how you work and how you feel about it.
But I see it a lot different.
I believe and know you can make a good game yourself and if you have 1+ people with you that can help out in the area you are weak, it is very possibly to make a good game.
You talk about people that do it for a living and as you say your self you have no clue about this person is.
Why why do you think he will quit his job and only do only this?
I do not like you are written down people that ask stuff.
So back to the question instead, if you remember what it was.
I still think a good story is very important and it will make the game better.
This is very important if you make your first game.
It is better to think bigger and do what you can.
If you also have a good story to tell, the game will be more easy to do for you know what it is all about and you can make all part of it better.
I do not see why you think that is a problem.
I prefer quality and there is so many junk game out already, that follow what you say, so why not have a goal to make them better?