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Making the Case For Short Games
Gamasutra has a feature up entitled Making a Case for Short Games, in which the author argues that a good short game is far and away preferable to attempt than an epicly long game. From the article: "Which would you rather play, a computer game that takes forty hours to complete or one that lasts just a few minutes? Don't be too quick to answer. The former asks for a serious time commitment. The latter says come and go as you please. One is a ball and chain. The other is a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card. Well, it's not exactly that bad but considering all of the things you have to do today, which type of game do you really have time for? Also, isn't it peculiar that when you complete a complex or lengthy game you rarely want to replay it, yet short games are often endlessly replayable? "
The brilliance of CS is the combo of only having 1 life, and really quick games.
If poeple are rushing (like they should) the game is won or lost in about 1 minute, over in no more than 2. Worst case it lasts 5.
Just enough sitting out to make dying painful, but quick enough turnaround that you don't want to leave.
It works way better than "die all you want" games like Unreal and Quake.
Exactly.
Would the SNES game "Zelda, Link to the past" be as good if the game ended after you saved Zelda from the dungeon?
At the same time however tetris would have been pointless if each block took 3-4 hours to fall. (Complete with FFX-like three minute cutscene as the block locked in place.)
It is all about balance.
...(talking mainly about FPSs) there's no continuing GAMEPLAY innovation.
in comparison, I playing Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube. I'm 20 hours in and have seen more varied gameplay styles and cool things than all the FPSs I've ever played put together.
it's probably one of the best games ever. I think it might have a little do do with the fact that you sell a console game once. with PC games there's a lot more effort getting it out of the door due to different systems, and you know you can just release an add-on pack 6 months down the line so creating great gameplay first time round isn't so important if you know you can lure people back with your engine eye-candy anyway (Doom 3, I'm looking at you.)
No, but then as a programmer I don't need you to pay $50 to make money on my version of MineSweeper. It is a small game that I can write in a week or less. (Assuming I already knew the APIs, I don't normally work with GUIs so it would take me a little longer) I can sell it for $5, which people are more likely to pay. Or I can sell it with a bunch of other games of similar length for $40.
Note that I'm using MineSweeper as a generic. There is too much competition, in the MineSweeper world. (Most free and high quality) However there are other games of that type that I can write. Ideally I'd be creative enough to make something original.
I have played Morrowind, and all the GTA games, two or three times each. Like a favorite movie, even though I know what's going to happen I *love* the experience. Besides, each of those games is different every time I play.
Sure I don't play them as often as I would play a short game, but I still enjoy them immensely.
I'd say 10-20 hours. That's long enough to have a good story and a certain amount of complexity, but it's also short enough that you can replay it several times without spending a year on it.
I know that when I play RPGs, I sometimes feel like I'm missing out. I spend 80 hours playing a warrior, which means that I'm missing out on playing a rogue, a priest, or a mage. I don't really want to spend 320 hours playing the same RPG, so I get to play every class. If the game is only 10-20 hours long, then I can spend about 60 hours and I'll get to experience the game from several different perspectives.
Plus, most really long games get repetitive after a while. Once you get about 15 hours into a game, you've discovered 95% of the game mechanics, so you're just going to repeat the same things for another several dozen hours.
I often don't like small games because they have no depth. If you take some of the Popcap games, like Bejeweled, you'll see that there isn't much complexity or strategy to them. Those types of games get very repetitive; your 50th hour will have the same gameplay as your 1st hour.
Once you get into competitive multiplayer games, however, things start to shift. 2-5 minute games can be fun, because you can play so many games in a row that you can try dozens of different strategies and situations. If you're losing, then the game will be over quickly, so you can start afresh. On the other hand, hour long games can be fun, because you can spend large amounts of time plotting methodically against your opponent, only for a game to come down to one huge climactic battle.
I can't remember who it was, probably the boss of Team Ninja or some other Japanese game developer that had an article in Edge a few years ago where he said that if he had the option of making all his games really intense and heart-pounding one-two hour experiences, he'd do so.
Unfortunately, the publisher and, well, the market doesn't really allow him to do so.
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More happened in HL2 in 13 hours than happened in doom 3 in 20 hours.
Interestingly, it seems that a fair amount of content was cut from HL2, and then what remained polished up for release. Very little from the E3 2003 stuff got into the game intact, for instance.
A game I played recently that was in dire need of some editing-down was Far Cry - there was one point where I thought I'd almost finished the game (rescuing what's-her-name from a war-torn bunker) but it turned out I was only about half-way through, and I almost ended up playing as quickly as I could just to finish the damn thing. I'd probably have appreciated it a bit more if I'd known roughly how much game was left...
Half-Life 2, despite its faults, had an 'ending' you could see from almost the very beginning of the game, that being the Combine Citadel. As you approached it, you knew just how much story (and therefore game) there was left - there was a definite sense of 'direction' to the player's actions which is frequently missing from FPS games.
One thing I'm building at the moment is a single-map HL2 mini-episode set on an island, in a similar vein to my HL map Someplace Else. I rather like building these single-map adventures - the plot and gameplay has to be boiled down into half an hour or so of action, and there's absolutely no excuse for 'filler' or arbitrary corridor-crawling. (Before anyone asks when Phosphenes will be done, the answer's of course 'soon'...)
I'd much rather have half an hour of 'great game' than several hours of boredom...
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Nethack takes a very long time to complete, but you can save the game at any time, and has enough replayability that I'm still playing it nearly two decades after I first found it. And I know I'm not alone!
:)
It may be somewhat the exception to the rule, though.
Overall, I think they have a moderately valid point, but I think it's more of a guideline than a rule, and probably varies somewhat from person to person. I find a fair amount of replayability in Civ-style games and TBSers (at least the ones that don't have a completely lame AI).
I also have to say that while I have played a fair amount of solitaire and tetris over the years, I really don't enjoy 'em quite as much as a good TBS. They're more something to do when I'm tired and distracted and don't want to have to think much. The same reason I sometimes find myself watching cartoons.