Length doesn’t matter; it’s what you do with it that counts!
June 7th, 2007I have had it up to here with people who measure a game’s quality by the number of hours spent on it, and how the industry, as a result, prices games in these terms. It is for this reason that when you ask adventure game developers if they would please stop inserting unfair and nonsensical puzzles into their games, they respond with a whiny “but if the puzzles were too easy, then the player would finish the game too quickly!”
Now, I understand the importance of pacing in storytelling. Television and movies, a fixed-length affair, go through great pains to get this to work properly. Still, what about the oft-forgotten practice of reading a novel? The way I measure a novel’s worth to me personally is how quickly I find myself reading it; if it takes me too long to get through a book, it usually means that it isn’t very interesting, and that I’m probably never going to finish it. When it comes to adventure games — which, I argue, have more similarity to books than visual media in that the player controls the pace at which the story progresses — the same applies: the games I consider to be the best are the ones I speed through quickly, even if I need a walkthrough to do so. And they are the ones I’ll play again and again to see what I missed the first time around, just like I do for stories I love in other media. And it’s usually these subsequent playthroughs I end up enjoying the most, because now that I know all the solutions to the puzzles, I can better concentrate on exploring the story instead.
Does anyone else in the universe feel the same way about this? Anyone?
June 7th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
I think the whole ‘they’ll finish it too quickly’ thing comes with balancing the amount of time put in by the developer, with how long it takes the reader to finish it. Particularly when you’re charging for it. It’s harder to charge $50 for something that is over in a few minutes. You can lengthen the experience with little cost by making the puzzles harder. And people often go to adventure games for the challenge…if they don’t percieve the puzzles as challenging, then they didn’t get what they want. But I think you’re right that games are moving more towards whether they are entertaining, rather than challenging. Games like Katamari Damacy aren’t so much about challenge as just having fun. I think there is room for that ESPECIALLY in adventure games. After all, they’re called adventure (and not puzzle) games for a reason.
Also, all artists, I think, are disappointed when something that took them a year+ to make is devoured in half a day, or a couple of hours. I think there tends to be a reaction by the users too, when they’ve shelled out $50 for something that it should last more than an hour. But yeah, I think it largely comes down to process and economics, rather than entertainment.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
I think anyone that appreciates a good story first, regardless of genre, should much prefer depth of the story and quality of the telling to time from one end to the other. It’s just a shame that story-less games lately tend to dictate the vernacular of the average game reviewer and that in turn has an unfortunate consequence on the average gamer that only reads the major websites or worse…
I for one don’t care about how long a game is or how “easy” the gameplay is as long as it has a good story. Toughness, difficulty, length in some cases even get in my way when I want to just follow the story… My biggest anger at Beyond Good & Evail and even Psychonauts, actually, because I took them 85-90% of the way through and yet am kept from finding out how they actually “end” because of last stages/end bosses. (Personally, I love having a choice in the matter. Maybe the first time I do just want to take the easy paths, and then maybe the next time I play I’ll try the tougher path and go for the challenge. That’s one of the reasons I loved Curse of Monkey Island was having that choice… I beat it several times over just to see all of the puzzles, and because I loved the story…)
Hopefully more developers will realize that they can’t please every critic and they can’t please the people that whine in forums because they are 1337 players that don’t have any trouble beating the game on the hardest difficulty setting in record times. All players are not equal and not everybody wants the same things from the games they play.
June 9th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Definitely agree. I’m fond of games that take as long as they take to tell whatever story they do, but they don’t need to be long to do that,a nd the game certianly doesn’t need to be dragged out to make me feel like I got my money’s worth. I think folks are afraid they’re being ripped off if the game isn’t from the same mold as the hoary old classics.
As a storyteller, I know that I prefer having a large canvas to work with (as you well know), but I have no issues with games being broken into chapters or even series being episodic in nature. Seems to me that it saves us from having to indulge game devs who have fallen into the trap of thinking that the point of the game is to obsess over some grotty little puzzle or other. The mental challenge of propelling the story isn’t seen as being important enough. It’s a shame really, because the story is what holds it all together, and what makes the whole enterprise more interesting for those who aren’t seasoned gamers.
June 18th, 2007 at 2:28 am
I’ll take the other side, unless of course, there’s no money involved. Adventure games really aren’t re-playable as far as I’m concerned, so I feel very cheated if a game that cost 40 dollars takes me 2 hours to play. Maybe someone has enough money to walk away from a 2 hour game that they payed 50 dollars for with a smile on their face, but it sure isn’t me. I think adventure games mostly priced themselves out of the market by being too expensive for the time involved playing them and the cost. A lot of people play role playing games for months or even sometimes close to a year for the same amount that adventure games that last a few weeks at best. Adventure games don’t have to do that in my book, but they are obligated to give a decent amount of content if they expect that amount of money.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
I disagree. While the “short but sweet” concept may hold true in some cases, I think that shortness is a detractor. As a mere player and not a developer, it’s hardly fair for me to say, although my opinion as a player (if it represents a common feeling) may be just as valuable. Popular games like Gears of War, Condemned, etc. etc. were fairly short, and it was held against them. Still, both of those games had cutting-edge graphics, which may have affected the length. As far as adventure games, the best ones, like Monkey Island 1-4, were of a fair length, and it suited them. On the other hand, I felt that a game like Reactor 09 was too short, and it could have been a lot better with more length. I realized that for an undergound developer, it was a major effort, but still.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Interesting to hear the dissenting voices on this topic. I, personally, think that more of the concern about game length has to do with lack of content rather than lack of time spent on said content. What if a game contained a story of the same length as that of one of the Monkey Island games, but contained puzzles of a less challenging nature, therefore shortening the general length that the player could potentially take to finish the story? In this sense, instead of being forced to play at a certain pace due to getting stuck on the puzzles, there would be more of an element of choice in how long wanted to take to finish: either by trying to reach the ending as soon as possible or taking time to explore all the extra bits of interaction.
June 26th, 2007 at 1:55 am
I am now playing through Psychonauts, and there’s one thing, I think, that really gives away that it was done by adveture game developers: it’s quite difficult. Just when you think you’ve made it, the tables turn completely and suddenly everything gets more difficult. Let’s just say that playing Psychonauts I feel occasionally as frustrated as I do when playing an adventure game for the first time.
Otherwise P-nauts is pretty good, though. I just don’t understand the extra difficulty at some points in the game, it just makes you a little bit irritated…
June 26th, 2007 at 10:06 am
I definitely know what you mean. I still haven’t finished Psychonauts yet, myself.
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:57 pm
I find that with adventures, there is positive correlation between games that are better and games that are longer, but not because the quality of a game is dependant on it’s length.
If a game is really good, I naturally want to spend more time with it. I find myself absorbed by the story, the characters, and the environment, and I want to talk to everyone and interact with everything. When I reach a puzzle that stumps me, I’m quite happy to run around within the game world, until I eventually come to a solution. Even though I feel the strong draw to progress further along the storyline, a good game will have captivated me enough that I don’t mind delaying that for a little while. I also feel that the game somehow deserves that I solve the puzzle, it is worthy of my time, and I want the satisfaction of solving it.
With a bad game, if I’m not interested by the characters, I will want to speak to them as little as possible, and if I don’t care for the environments, I won’t want to spend much time in them either. My goal becomes finishing the game, just so I can see it end. When I get stuck on a puzzle I have no patience for it, I just want to move on with the story, thus I’ll consult a walkthrough almost immediately. I often assume the puzzle must be foolish and thus a waste for me to invest any time trying to solve it.
Clearly, my perspective is based on my actual playing time, not the average playing time cited on the back of a game’s box, and that’s because of the two, that’s the only time I feel holds any real value to me.
I don’t think that after completing a game, players judge how much they enjoyed it based on it’s length. Length is more a consequential thing, and it means different things to different people. Squinky likes to play quickly through her favourite games, whilst I do the converse.
It’s a shame that developers focus so much on length, and try to manipulate it with ludicrous puzzles, because it’s such an artificial way of dealing with things, that can bear no real fruit. Focus needs to be placed on making a good quality, rich, balanced game that naturally forms its own length, instead of trying to reach some target average playing time. A time which is probably based on the findings of a small group of testers, playing through the game in the way which they have been instructed, not in any of the widely differing ways that actual consumers play.
As for Psychonauts, I loved the game, but I haven’t completed it either. Meat Circus was just so evil, I had to quit, something which is rare for me when so near the ending.