What do you think of the game's length?

[Licaon_Kter]

Long enough. But only considering the $20 price.
But, thinking about the MOD possibilities and given the Anonymous internet user creativity (seen in the past in so many moddable games) things might change in the future.

[imagsol]

i strongly recommend porting this game over to xbox live arcade and Playstation home. Even though i am an avid and hardcore pc gamer with a top notch rig to play games on, i know the big bucks are to be made on gaming consoles. Add to that if a nintendo wii version can be somehow managed aswell this would give u a huge market to sell your game to.

As of now this games market is only pcs, macs and linux systems.
I do not have the actual figures for the market share of pc games in comparison to the consoles but i can assume that by not making the game available on the consoles, frictional games is missing out on 50 percent (or more) of an audience.

Frictional games can still make the game for xbox360 or home if they figure out how to optimize the game for the ps3 in a short time, but if i was working for frictional games, i would have strongly recommended a delayed release date but a product ready for pcs,macs linux as well as the consoles because if the product is to be released on all platforms simultaneously, it would greatly reduce the marketing costs as you would have the same trailers, adds etc with a tagline "avilable on pc,mac,linux,xbox360 and ps3" .

A later release on xbox live arcade or home would mean the game has lost its surprise element, and now frictional games have to spend a lot of money on marketing by releasing console specific trailers, ads.

This could make a huge difference on finances of a company with limited resources.

I am planning on making a game in a few years time and i support Frictional games on making a great game worth its price.

Best of luck.

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and im sorry for posting this in the wrong thread which might make it seem irrelevant but from this thread i got the link to the blog where you asked for feedback on how could the game have done better sales wise...so just wrote my 2 cents.

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i select option 3 : Perfect length.

[Shinjou]

I couldnt care less about the length, as long as the game isnt completed the moment i start it im fine, i played this game for the intense atmosphere and mood, these guys nailed everything!

Tbh, when i played Amnesia i was scared out of my wits the entire time i played it, i was sweating brix and breaking windows just by screaming my lungs out!
I find it amazing that i managed to complete the game at all xD

[Crabski]

I agree with your point on the blog that games should be judged not by length but rather how complete they feel (Portal, for instance, was only 2-3 hours long but felt very complete and was worth $20 to me). Although I felt let down by the rather oblique ending (which felt out of place to me, especially considering the lack of notes later in the game), Amnesia felt like a good length overall. I was very satisfied after playing; in fact, I would have payed $30 for it.

As a side note pertaining to the blog post: There are thousands of short movies and short novels that are excellent... people don't complain about them. Short games should be no different.

[Deu sex]

For mee, 20 hours is great for a 50$ game, so, 10 hours (this is the time I have spend in amnesia to finish it ^^) for 20^$ is really great.

I can accept 25$ for 10 hours ^^

Especially when its a unforgettable experience ^^

I have voted for 3rd choice ^^

But personnaly, I think in some part of the game, you should have more randomized monsters apparitions, because its true than if we make the game a 2nd time... you will know every places to fear... or not.
A little bit of randomization in most scenes should have really incerase the replayability.

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"As a side note pertaining to the blog post: There are thousands of short movies and short novels that are excellent... people don't complain about them. Short games should be no different."

yea, and amnesia is not so short, every games now have a 6-8 hours solo experience (worse that amnesia about lenght ^^)
And its an indie company with 5 devellopers^^, big compaies with 120 devellopers and full of money doesnt make better solo experiences ! -_- Its ironic.
The difference is : they sell it (too) nicely. Beacause their (only) goal is : money.
Please FG, never become like this ^^

[postie]

I haven't finished the game yet, however I estimate I'm about halfway through.

I have a tendency to think that most games I play (aside from open world sandbox style games) are too short. This is mostly because I become so wrapped up in the story and engaged by the gameplay that time absolutely flies by. The small amount of disappointment I feel at the end is entirely because the experience was so enjoyable, and its human nature to not want good things to come to an end.

However, at no stage have I ever thought to myself a game should have been priced cheaper because it didn't live up to my expectations of how long it should be.

It comes down to a matter of pacing. If its appropriate for the type of game, putting in "filler" sections where not a lot happens might make sense. For good story tellers, this provides contrast to briefly relieve tension between the exciting bits. For bad story tellers, they pad out the story to make it look more impressive.

Personally I think the pacing so far in Amnesia is pretty good. You go into a new room, look around, maybe read a note, pick up an object, then hide in the corner like a baby when you hear something scratching at the door.

Quality over quantity, always. Keep up the awesome work, Frictional!

[FetusZero]

My favorite games ever take around 30-45 minutes to beat maximum.

I find that really long games (25 hours+) tend to get boring after a while and with an age where video games are everywhere, with so many new releases and so many choices, I don't feel like spending several months on a single game (that depends on how much you play in a day, but I can't afford nor do I have the time to play 10 hours a day). I'd much rather pick up and play through the average 10 hours length of a game and move on to another one.

Plus, if it lasts 10 hours, I'll be a lot more likely to pick it back up again than a game that took me 50 hours to complete. In other words, I find that the shorter the game is, the more replay value it holds since it's easier to pick back up and play again.

[Deu sex]

"i strongly recommend porting this game over to xbox live arcade"

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes !!!!!!!

A game like this, at 1800 Microsoft point, with the demo aviable, will be a huge succes thats sure, because people who play games on the xboxlive arcade are more open minded and researsh originality.

You dont need an extra marketing plan, just bring the demo on the xbla, with the full game, trailers you already done, and a "page" in the xbla home.
They are not so much good xbla games and yours can REALLY make a big difference...

I JUST WARN YOU WITH SOMETHING !!!!!

DONT LAUNCH ANY XBLA VERTION OF THE GAME JUST BEFORE/DURING/JUST AFTER A BIG TITLE, because it will be more or less invisible, choose the right moment, when people will not really know how to buy, you will make a huge success like this (for sure), and im sure they will not regret it ^^

because Amnesia on a big LCD screen with dolby digital 5.1... and friends... I think I dont need to speak a lot about this, I think you have understood ^^

The quality (of everything) of the game will kick the other xbla games out, thats absoluetly sure.

And the experience will be A REAL FIRST ONE on xbox 360, something never seen before, something, really scaring, a real new experience for xbox 360 gamers.

What do you think about this FG ?

[SHODANFreeman]

Game reviewers that still value games solely by how many hours their play-through took have no clue what games are. Period.

I think I love you.

[RyuRanX]

I finished the game in about 12 hours. Of course I wanted more, since Amnesia: The Dark Descent was an amazing experience, but I can't complain when most $60 games doesn't even have 10 hours of gameplay nowadays.