How much to write for a CoG demo

General
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I’m working on my first game called Ten Million for CoG and It’s been proving to be much more difficult than I had previously expected it to be. One of these difficulties would be that I’m unsure how much I should put into the demo that I post onto the forum. I really need help with stuff such as grammar, which characters are likable, and whether an idea is dumb or not. The problem is that I don’t want to put my entire game on here, I want to give some reason for people on this website to buy it when I try to put it out onto the store.

I’m trying to only put the main story line, but part of me feels like it’s not enough. How much do you suggest I put into the demo? A quarter of the game? Half of it? The main storyline, but keep the side story for when I publish it? I’d appreciate your opinions. Thanks.

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In my experience:

As a general rule, most people start by putting 15,000 - 30,000 words for a demo. What happens after that is all over the map.

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You’re going to have to put the full game up, be it in a closed beta or an open one. Or you could pay someone to do the same work.

The work people do for free on this forum is invaluable. Whether or not people test the game on the forum usually has little to do with whether or not they buy it. Some people will buy a game they’ve already played simply to support the author. Especially if you’ve incorporated some of their feedback in the game.

These forums only have a tiny amount of the choice of games audience anyway.

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If I play a game on the forums and I enjoy it, I’ll definitely buy it later on. Not only to support the author but to see how it’s changed and experience it again. Sure, you might lose a few sales, but as @FairyGodfeather said, the advice you get is invaluable compared to it. It might even make me more likely to buy a game, I’m usually wary of buying HG without testing them due to the often questionable quality.

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And remember that there’s a difference between a playtest and a demo :slight_smile: Playtests can be things you update as you work, whereas a demo is usually something you are quite happy with and just need syntax/grammar/spelling errors pointed out. A lot of people post playtests, so they can get feedback every step of the way (like me because I am absolute trash for feedback :wink: )

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I think a playtest should be a WIP

Whereas a demo mostly equal a trial version

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