After almost finishing the alpha version of my game (Goose Chase (http://www.gilzu.com/)) I decided to take some time and play test it myself and with some small alpha testers (a.k.a. programmer/gamer colleagues). It was really fun and I must admit i didnt expect it to be so good.

Thing is, that I checked to see how much time it took for our alpha-testing team to finish the game, and the average was two hours. This sounded a bit peculiar and stressed me alot at that time, but after I did some checking with other similiar games, I was even more puzzeled.

now dont get me wrong, I wasnt getting tierd from playing my game, I enjoyed every minute of it even more than playing the above mentioned games. I even thought "wow, what an experience" and then looked at my watch and thought: "what, it took only 2 hours?".

What i did is either playing a copy of the game and measuring time till I finished the whole game, or just enterd the site looking for "best times" and doubling it. The average of similiar games to my game's genere (i'm tested games like Crash Bandicoot, Sonic, Mario Bros.) for level play time was 2.5 hours...

these results might sound bogus to you as it sounded to me, but when you think of it, these results arent that far from reality.

each of these games had about 30 levels, each had an average completion of 5mins -> 30*5=2.5hours. and even if its 6 or even 7 mins for level, the playtime never passes the 5 hour limit.

now all of these games had tremendous success with gameplay, but they took less than 5 hours to complete :confused:, and I played while timing most of them, not like i did a mistake measuring...

on the other hand, I think of the replayability value of my game and similiar game genere: I can play it over and over again without any dull moment. and even more, each time I play it, the game generate an entire random level.

i'm still puzzeled by this, does anyone have thoughts on this subject?

-Gil

Super Mario Bros. 3 for NES takes more than 16 hours to complete and there is no way to save.

Therefore they introduced warp zones wich allow you to complete the game within a more usual timespan. The different routes, you can take, added alot replay value (by using the warpzones you skip most of the levels, thus you only see a fraction of the whole game).

Are you worried that people might feel they've been ripped off some what?

I don't think length of time is that important as to whether or not the player feels satisfied.

Did the people playing know all the levels and all the tricks? Did they finish the level the first go?

I also don't think a person will play a game all the way through in one go would they?

There's usually another major factor when dealing with platformers which I'm not sure is being taken into consideration here. Usually there is a certain amount of time dedicated to replaying levels in the event of failing to pass the level on the first couple tries.

I haven't played many modern platformers the likes of Crash Bandicoot so I don't know if those have become 'soft' like the rest of the games out there. But traditionally the charm in a platformer was learning the levels and getting good at knowing where enemies were and what you had to do in order to beat or avoid them efficiently. This could usually take several runs through a level to achieve.

Top-down shooters fall in the same category. I recall a game by the name of Star Monkey from a few years ago which only had three levels that took maybe 30-40 minutes to beat from start to finish... but I played the game for hours before even making it to the third stage successfully.

It's all about replayability. Ikaruga (the best topdown spaceship shooter ever, no comparison) is about 25 minutes from start to finish, but the challenge is so immense and so deep (managing to get as many chains as possible to get a high score, etc) that it's possible to put in 200 hours and still have tons of room for improvement.. finding new strategies, improving speed to get extra enemies to be able to score more chains, etc...

Ikaruga is FAR from a casual game though, it's as hardcore as it gets :)

I suggest you take a look at Ratchet and Clank (i played ps2 version, don't know if its on different platforms).

It took me rougly 12 hours to complete, and the game itself was amazing and deep (lots of level, lots of weapons, lots of mini games).

For me, its the reference for platformers.

Smurftra

(it probably does take 5 hours to finish if you know it by heart and don't have to try a level several times, this should apply to the games you mentionned as well)

Originally posted by Batley
Are you worried that people might feel they've been ripped off some what?

I don't think length of time is that important as to whether or not the player feels satisfied.


It was this mixture of emotions: My play-test team and I felt after finishing it that we really had a great time and that the game is even more than we expected in every single parameter. only when we looked how much time has passed, we didnt knew how you feel that amount of satisfaction in this amount of time.

Originally posted by Batley
Did the people playing know all the levels and all the tricks? Did they finish the level the first go?

I also don't think a person will play a game all the way through in one go would they?

Maybe it was the fact that they previously playtested it, and after knowing all the tricks and traps they were more skilled and were able to finish it faster.

Originally posted by Jake Stine
There's usually another major factor when dealing with platformers which I'm not sure is being taken into consideration here. Usually there is a certain amount of time dedicated to replaying levels in the event of failing to pass the level on the first couple tries.

Then maybe my problem is not having more levels, but making harder levels to pass. I remember Commander Keen 5 which i still spend hours over hours playing it, and if youll look closly, it only has 12 levels (!). Also, It taking me much less time to finish the game since I first played it so maybe that all adds to that.

Originally posted by Jake Stine
I haven't played many modern platformers the likes of Crash Bandicoot so I don't know if those have become 'soft' like the rest of the games out there. But traditionally the charm in a platformer was learning the levels and getting good at knowing where enemies were and what you had to do in order to beat or avoid them efficiently. This could usually take several runs through a level to achieve.

Which means that its a combination of familiarity of the game, and how hard it is. Maybe I should add more frustration to the game...

Originally posted by gilzu
Maybe it was the fact that they previously playtested it.

Well there's your problem. You need new playtesters. It sounds to me like you don't understand the difference between QA testing and playtesting. QA (quality assurance) is about having people familiar with the game and/or game development stress test your game in order to find bugs. Playtesting is about having fresh eyes play the game so that you can identify things which need to be changed, stuff like difficulty and interface.

I know that now.

This time i took people who werent familiar to the game at all.
levels that the old team completed in 5 mins, it took the new team 20mins.

eventually, the game took 5.5 hours to complete, but it does need some more balancing.

Looking at the screenshots, it also needs a few new grass textures.. you really shouldn't use the same grass texture in the dark forest as in the rest of the game :)

Not to be mean or anything, but the screenshots do look a little dull and similar. Just trying to help.

With a lot of games, the actual play time is skewed because of a save/load feature. Because few people have the time to play a game through. 5 hours stretched out over two weeks or so seems much longer than 5 hours.

Here's some things we added to "MicroMan's Crazy Computers" to help with replayability:

+ Added a collection item across all levels (in our case, silver discs). You can earn a powerup bonus before the boss battles if you get enough discs. The end-of-level Stats screen will tell you how many total discs were in the level (and how many you got).

+ Added internet high scores (in-game and on the web) to give players incentive to go back and try to improve their scores.

+ Added secret areas. The end-of-level Stats screen will tell you how many total secret areas were in the level (and how many you found).

+ Made the last 2 levels (of the 4) pretty darn hard...but added an "easy mode" to the game that makes those harder areas a bit easier.

+ We only allow saving at specific "Save Points" in the levels (usually after a boss battle or other difficult section has been completed).

Mistakes we made included making certain areas make you walk "the long way"...mainly just to suck up gameplay time (originally, we were concerned that the game would be too short but we ended up adding more levels than we originally planned).

Good luck with the game.
-Scorpio