Game Length

[Gwydden]

Out of curiosity, any estimate of how long a thorough playthrough of the game would take? I recall an article mentioned something to the effect of 15-20 hours, which sounds alright if a tad short.

[1C_Dan]

Hi, first playthrough should be around 12-15 hours. With that said we put heavy emphasis on re-playability as you can approach "quests" and problems in multiple ways + they are choices with long-lasting consequences so all and all we encourage people to re-play the game so you can multiple these 12-15 hours :)

[Gwydden]

Sounds good. Thanks for answering!

[Amberes]

Only 12 to 15 hours? That's very disappointing...

[Case Gibson]

Originally posted by Amberes:

Only 12 to 15 hours? That's very disappointing...

You should read the entire answer before telling this kind of thing.

[Amberes]

All decent rpg's these days have replayability and multiple endings. This doesnt justify a 12h-full run, fanboy.

[Case Gibson]

Originally posted by Amberes:

All decent rpg's these days have replayability and multiple endings. This doesnt justify a 12h-full run, fanboy.

Fanboy ? look at my profil .. i have launch this game at least 5 mins ... (because it's in english) , so ... try another arg silly boy :D.

[Slayer]

When ever i read that a game is under 20 hours, I appreciate it these days.

I don't have nearly as much time to finish games, so those hours really stretch for me. I don't care how short it is, as long as those few hours are filled with quality. And like the Dev said, you come back and play again for different options. Re-playability makes up for "short" run time for me.

[?????]

Nice apologist thread

[Paxultek]

I'm willing to suspect that if the game does well, additional content wouldn't be a stretch. That's good enough for me.

[AZORRR 😈]

i think thats fine length time!

[DelightfullyMAD]

Well it also depends on whether or not 10-15 hours is the length of the whole game, or just the main story. How many side quests and other things to do are there in the game, and are those being included in the play time? While I'm not expecting there to be loads and loads of side quests and other things to do, I would suspect there are at least a few diversions in the game for players rather than forcing us through the main story and nothing else.

Then, of course, there is the possibility of additional content in the future, either in patches or DLC. Both the town of Dunwich and the Dreamlands have been stated as being possibilities, and the Kickstarter is only a few thousand away from hitting the Dunwich stretch goal (not sure if the Kickstarter is still going or not), so there is very likely more content to come if the game does well.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by 1C_Dan:

Hi, first playthrough should be around 12-15 hours. With that said we put heavy emphasis on re-playability as you can approach "quests" and problems in multiple ways + they are choices with long-lasting consequences so all and all we encourage people to re-play the game so you can multiple these 12-15 hours :)

Could you possibly elaborate on this? I'm very interested in what I've seen so far, but 15 hours really does seem a bit short. I'm not normally interested in replaying the same game again even with different classes/characters etc, unless it would fundamentally change the gameplay. But if a playthrough unlocks different elements for future runs, that could be interesting. (in the way that some roguelikes or survival games do.)

[The Mogician]

I think 12-15 hours is good (PoE1 gave me 25 on the first playthough but then again Pillars is more expensive), especially if it has multiple endings that are meaningful (instead of good/bad ending). Besides, there are different characters you can play out and may have an altogether different experience.

[DelightfullyMAD]

Originally posted by The Mogician:

I think 12-15 hours is good (PoE1 gave me 25 on the first playthough but then again Pillars is more expensive), especially if it has multiple endings that are meaningful (instead of good/bad ending). Besides, there are different characters you can play out and may have an altogether different experience.

To be fair, if they make this Lovecraft game correctly, there will be no Good/Bad ending options. There will be Bad Ending A (You're completely screwed/dead), Bad Ending B (You manage to earn humanity a brief stay of execution and go insane/die in the process), and then there's Bad Ending C (Something something, another version of you're dead/screwed/insane).

Kidding aside though, I do hope that there is legitimate reason to replay the game. Being able to approach problems from different angles is nice... but it still feels like you're playing through the same story, just using a wrench the second time instead of a hammer to pound in the nails. Yeah, you're using two different tools... but to do the same task... and one tool is much less appropriate to the task.

Instead, I would like to see almost completely different paths that can be taken depending on the tools at your disposal, rather than using different tools in the same ways. Instead of always having Path A, where you either uncover a clue through Investigation, Science skill, or Speechcraft, instead have Path A only available to Investigation focused characters, and instead have a Path B that instead can only really be accessed by characters with a heavy focus on Speechcraft. If you don't have Speechcraft, there are whole paths (not necessarily long, but substantive enough) barred to your character, and thus things in the game your Speech-focused character will never see/miss entirely. Similar to an Investigation-focused character.

That all being said... that might be a bit beyond the realistic scope of this game. This game is made by a very small and untested Indie developer. And while what I've played and seen shows a great deal of promise, there are still going to be limits to just how much they can do and how much they can add. Fingers crossed, and I am definitely looking forward to this game, but I don't want to drive my expectations up too high either.

[Retro]

12-15 to hardcore player is like 10 hours (Streamers)
to a more casual player that probably translate to 50-60 hours (because you know life and work)

good thing is for you guys who want to double that there is tons of games coming out the exact same day or on the 26th you can just get ENCASED another rpg although its in early access looks super solid.