Yeah, Trial of the demon Hunter is 85k and it got torn apart for being too short, which I actually agree with now. I tried to learn from my mistakes and made Captive of Fortune 140k but got just as many complaints about the length, haha. It seems that the length generally needs to be somewhere around 200k+ to not get at least some bad reviews for the shortness.
My third HG, Foundation of Nightmares, is 100k but actually has longer playthroughs than either TotDH or CoF. But from now on I plan on making all my stories massive. The HG I’m working on right now, The Magician’s Task, will hopefully be 500k.
Long story short, longer stories almost always perform better on the markets. Shorter ones are fine, too, and can do well, but I just thought you should be aware.
Yeah, mine was 120,000 but because it branched a lot, it got heaps of too short complaints. (word count ranged from about 9000-24000 words from memory). That’s where some of the problem comes from like in this story. A 40,000 LINEAR story would still get complaints but you might get away with it to a degree. Only having a few mins per play through because there’s 25 choices or less, it will get a lot of complaints. Sorry but that’s what will almost certainly happen judging from previous releases.
In saying that, it’s your story and depends on why you want to publish it. If you don’t mind the critisism (which can get pretty blunt on the stores) and that it may not sell well due to too short complaints, then that’s one thing. Otherwise you’re probably looking at having to lengthen it out. It also depends on whether this will be a paid app or not. If it’s a freebee, you’ll still get complaints but you’ll get away with more review wise than if people have bought it.
The other thing I’d definitely put in the description is “There are no romantic options.” Just trust me on this.
I’d suggest having a look through the forum on some discussions about length, branching and total play through word counts on the forum if you decide to write something else in the future. We’ve come to a few conclusions on it that can help. Anyway as Samuel says, there’s nothing wrong with shorter stories, just go into it with your eyes open.
Actually just re-read this. My advice is don’t add more paths. Definitely not, that won’t help. If you’re going to add more, add to the existing ones. For example after the show it ends. You could easily write more happening after it. You even implied from memory that there was going to be more invitations to visit. Instead of insta-deaths, you could have escapes, crawling through airducts and seeing what’s going on. Again with the ceremony, it just ends. You could write about what comes next. Anyway, that’s if you’re adding to it. But definitely don’t write it again from the start with more choices. The “play through” length is far more important than the total length. You can get the playthrough length using the tester included in the files you downloaded from the main site. Just watch it though, as you have loop backs which could make the total word count seem far higher than it is (as you’re going over the same scenes which people will skip over the second time.)
Interesting discussion! I agree with pretty much everything @Jacic has said here, too. Otherwise, happy to add my two cents, for what it’s worth.
This is all true. However, we have been on the receiving end of the “too short” complaints for SYP. Granted, we also made it clear (or so we thought, in the PR copy, on our fan pages, and the purchase page of the game itself) that this was always meant to be part of a series, yet people still complain that they were never told about that, either. I guess you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him read the sign.
Fingers crossed that having a longer sequel will help, but I suspect that may not always be the case because…
Agreed. From what I have seen, there is no magic number that will please everyone. And there is also the question of quality over quantity. I think if a story is padded out with filler fluff or not enough choices, that will incur bad reviews just as much as shortness, in my experience. Always a delicate and constant balancing act when it comes to IF.
This is the bit that might trip you up. Word count is one thing, but considering how much of that content a person is going to encounter in a single playthrough is extremely important. You must consider that some people will only play once (as odd as that may sound), while others will try to unlock every possible path. Meaning, if they just happen to get the shortest possible path the first time, that’s their only impression of your work and all they base their review on. Trying to make each branching option relatively equal in length or meatiness is the true trick. If there is a way to add more content to the shorter paths, that might bring your overall word count up and avoid some people feeling cheated.
At the end of the day, the best advice I can give is to use the guidelines, yes, but also make sure it feels complete to you, as the author. If you know in your heart of hearts that you could probably give the audience a little more, please try it. If you really believe you have added everything you can and have edited and polished it to the best of your ability, then the truest test after that is the feedback you get. Not adding more or doing a rewrite because it is too much work or something is a disservice to all the hard work you have done. You don’t need to scrap it, but sometimes stepping back, brainstorming, and letting the ideas marinate for a bit before you come back to a project really helps. Good luck!
Edit to add: Sorry, I realize this was accidentally posted as a direct reply to @Samuel_H_Young, when it should be to OP, lol. Please ignore my silly early morning post mistakes.
