Have you ever wondered what Matt and other respected indie developers would chat about around a virtual water cooler? Now you can find out here!

When purchasing a DVD,  do you choose one based on length? How about books? If length is a factor in choosing DVDs or books, you probably choose the shorter. I’ve never heard of anyone decide against seeing a movie or reading a book because it’s too short, but plenty of people pass on movies and books because they are too long.

However, it seems like the opposite holds true in games. A lot of reviewers mention that a game is “short” in their reviews as a negative thing. I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. Similar to movies and books, long games often have a lot of “filler” content that isn’t as good as the rest of the game,  and they are unable to keep the excitement throughout.

Here’s an example. Lost Odyssey was the last long game I played. It took me over 40 hours, which is about standard for a JRPG. There are some amazing things about Lost Odyssey. Lost Odyssey is the most emotionally  engaging game I’ve ever played. The story took a common video game contrivance – the player never dies, and transformed it into a touching story about the fragility of human life and the pain of loss. The plot was a bit slow to pick up, but about 10 hours in, I was completely hooked.

So it sounds like Lost Odyssey was great, right? Well, not exactly… Towards the end, game ended up dragging on and on and on. Nothing in that last 3/4ths of the game came close to being as compelling as the beginning. It seemed like they said all they had to say storywise well before the end, and the end was filled with grinding against the same enemies, which wasn’t much fun. Although I was super enthusiastic about Lost Odyssey at the beginning, it transformed into something I just wanted to get over with.

Lost Odyssey would have been one of my favorite games  had they trimmed it down and kept the good stuff and removed a lot of a filler. One might argue that JRPGs are supposed to be long, but my favorite JRPG  (and favorite game ever actually) Panzer Dragoon Saga. You can beat the game in a bit more than 10 hours and do all the sidequests in more like 15 or 20 hours. Every second of that game is totally awesome though, so I’d rather play through it 2 or 3 times than a 40 hour RPG with a lot of filler.

Similar to a good book or movie, games can be replayed. Every time you watch a movie, it’s the same. With a games, you can take a different path or try something new like a higher difficulty. You can do speed runs,  compete for a high score, or collect all the achievements. If a game is great, you’ll want to play again. If it’s too long, then you will really only want the experience of playing through it once.

The one negative thing people have to say about the recently released Limbo is that it’s too short. The developers admitted they threw away about 70% of what they created because it didn’t fit in with their vision. Would Limbo have been a better game if it were over 3 times as long? I say no. Limbo as a game has a very strong artistic vision, and to add content that isn’t as good as the rest of the game just to pad the game length would be doing the game a disservice.

It is the job of the editor in both literature and film to chop out the dull stuff to ensure tension is maintained throughout. Why don’t we trust game developers with the same responsibility?

-Matt

PS. Many other game developers feel this way, and we decided to all blog on the subject at the same time. If you are interested in reading how more developers feel about this, check out all the links:

• Jonathan Blow of Number None
• Ron Carmel of 2DBoy
• Chris DeLeon
• Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games
• Eitan Glinert of Fire Hose Games
• Cliff Harris of Positech Games
• Chris Hecker of Spy Party
• Scott Macmillan of Macguffin Games
• Noel Llopis
• Peter Jones of Retro Affect
• Lau Korsgaard (Not safe for work! You have been warned!)
• Martin Pichlmair of Broken Rules
• Greg Wohlwend of Intution Games
• Jeffrey Rosen of Wolfire
• Michael Todd
• Alex Amsel of Tuna
• Steve Swink from Enemy Airship

We have been really busy working on Retro/Grade, so I haven’t had much time to update the blog or the Retro/Grade website. We’ve redone pretty much every asset since our last batch of screenshots and videos, so the game is looking really sharp. We are working on putting together cool new stuff for our websites, so stay tuned.

Additionally, in our ongoing effort to be “hip” and “with it” we have created a company twitter: http://twitter.com/24CaretGames
I will try really hard to update it more frequently than I do the blog.

The awesome dudes next to us at the IGF, Hemisphere Games, have released their heavily nominated (and Direct2Drive award winning) indie game Osmos to much critical acclaim. They even said it was a better Katamari on the “Listen Up” podcast, and you can’t get much of a better recommendation than that as far as I’m concerned. Check it out! It’ll make the wait for Retro/Grade seem shorter! (Retro/Grade will be worth the wait. I promise!)

We finally got around to setting our page up as a nice blog. All the important content has been moved over. The blog is still a bit under construction, but we figured we’d roll it out anyway, so you can get all the latest 24 Caret content delivered to you via RSS or whatever your preference is before we get it looking perfect. So, enjoy! Also, bonus picture:

Matt with Verne Troyer, the world's most famous little person!

I went to E3 to check out what everyone else was doing, and 24 Caret made some new friends!

Ken Kutaragi, the father of the Playstation, graciously wore the Official 24 Caret miner's hat.

Game industry legend Tim Schafer was more than happy to don the 24 Caret Cap.

Bonus points if you can figure out which guy is Jon Heder of Napoleon Dynamite fame and which is his twin brother. (Hint: I'm in the middle)

Basketball legend Big Shot Rob Horry politely refused to wear the helmet, but it's probably just as well because it would have made me look even shorter!

If you see someone wearing the 24 Caret Cap at a game event, don’t be afraid to come up and say hello! -Matt

Our paper work has gone through, and we are officially an LLC as recognized by the state of California. All three of us have said our goodbyes to our extremely talented ex-coworkers at High Impact Games, so we are all set to create great games at 24 Caret Games. -Matt