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How long should an RPG be?

A topic by Dreemore created Sep 25, 2021 Views: 545 Replies: 8
Viewing posts 1 to 7

I'm making an RPG game called Nodes, and I was just wondering how long is an RPG usually, or how long should one be? I think 40+ hours of content is too long, but 1 hour is too short. It really boils down to what kind of player you are and what kind of games you like. What do you think?

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oh okay, thanks

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This depends on one hand on the story you want to tell, and on the other hand on your ability to provide enough content and variety to keep the game from becoming tedious.  I've played 30 minute rpgs that felt too long and I've played 80 hour rpgs that left me wanting more.

For free games, short and sweet beats long and drawn-out anytime.  If it's your first rpg, 1 hour is more than enough, although you should of course feel free to make it longer if you can't fit all of your (good) ideas into 1 hour.

For paid games, I expect the length of the game to be in proportion to what I paid for it, so a full-price game should have a full-price length and a shorter game should be cheaper.  A full-price indie game usually costs in the $10-$20 range and a full-length rpg usually has 20-40 hours of gameplay so aim for at least 2 hours of gameplay per dollar of price.

thanks a million, ill try to give my game 3 hours of content :)

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It should be long enough to tell your story. I enjoyed Skyborn but hated the area in the game. Seems like a cheap way to pad out the gameplay.

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I think much of the complains people often have with long games are about the grind. Without the meaningless repetition elements and if new things keep showing up then I think 40 hours is a good amount of gameplay for the genre.

I watched ManlyBadassHero and he covers horror games. A lot of said horror games are using RPGMaker. And a lot of those said horror games (RPGMaker or not) are less than 30 minutes long. So I'd shoot for that much gameplay.


See link: https://www.youtube.com/c/ManlyBadassHero/videos

What if the game in question is my first rpg game and im making it without any help?