You’re also missing the point a bit. Readers have been conditioned to equate higher page counts with quality. It’s not only in CSGs although it is particularly pronounced here. Go onto amazon and you’ll see some authors market their page counts as a selling point because “more is more” except when it isn’t. Games should be as long as they need to be. I know there are CSGs which feel too short and rush to an ending which could have done with another chapter or epilogue, but on the other hand there are games I personally can’t get though because the pacing is often far too slow with a lot of stuff in there that personally I would have cut in an edit. Some books should be longer, just as others should be shorter and some are just right where they are. I would personally prefer to read a shorter well made game that has a complete arc without padding, than a huge but poorly edited one that meanders and has more mistakes because it hasn’t been edited as well but that’s just me. The pity of it is that shorter games that are worth looking at (like many on this list) will get ignored by their length alone and never even given a chance. They don’t have to necessarily be best sellers, but some are still worth my time at least.
And that’s before you count some of the games out there which have large word counts but terrible coding efficiency to the point it wouldn’t surprise me if you could actually knock a sizable chunk off the published word count if it was more efficient. The irony is that games that a game with poor coding efficiency may get picked up, when a game that is literally a similar length but has a listed lower word count due to better coding will get ignored as a “short bad game.”
Edit: Anyways, this is probably getting a little off topic for this thread perhaps? I’ll leave it to the mods if they feel it needs to be branched into a different thread if anyone else has something to add and wants to discuss it further.
Yeah, I’m 150% sure I enjoyed the short stories I read to illustrate them for our club’s magazine a whole lot more than plenty of novels I’ve read (even if got nightmares from one of them).
One thing I’ve noticed about the shorter HGs (in general, not in this poll), is that they are a lot more likely to not have had a public demo thread here on the forum. As in, when a new HG gets published where I don’t recall seeing the name before, they are usually much shorter than the ones where I recognise the title.
That could also have an impact on their sale, since they don’t already have readers, who are likely to buy them in the first few days and leave early positive reviews.
Yeah, I’ve been confused about that before.
The answer I’ve gotten is that it doesn’t have to be public public, despite the phrasing. It can be done privately instead. It’s actually pretty rare for authors to share the whole game publicly, most do at least some portion of it as a closed beta, if not the majority of the game. And some games never appear as a WIP thread.
Admittedly, I’m still confused how it all works.
For short games that do have demos, they are probably still less likely to be noticed, since they won’t be there for as long, or has as many updates, I suppose.
Aaaaand, the big thing is probably that they are less likely to have romance, since that tend to pad out the word count.
Who’s fighting? Are we not allowed to hold a discussion about anything that is not universally agreed with without it being classed as fighting? That’s not a good way to shut down a point that’s being made. Anyhoo, people can read what they wish.
Shorter games most definitely do often get betas either open or to anyone who requests a link. (There have been ones I haven’t recognised either but when I do a forum search the game’s thread has popped up.) They have to have a beta or they will not be accepted. They just frequently get overlooked and receive few testers. If people aren’t commenting on a game thread it sinks pretty fast to the bottom of the page. And yeah you’re right, not getting many downloads or reviews in the first week or two hurts those games a lot.
I didn’t tag you yet you took my post as addressing you and responded rather aggressively - some could consider that ‘looking to fight’ Now my only option is to diffuse the situation or not post at all.
I don’t think ‘short games are sometimes good and deserve a chance’ or ‘bigger games require editing’ is ‘not universally agreed on’ - nobody is shutting down what you are saying.
A more productive discussion would be: how to make it better? Maybe if popularity is the goal it stands to consider what the audience wants? Instead of focusing on a poster who had the courage to share what he thinks is the problem and what he personally likes to read.
Probably more people talking about the games under 200K words that they’ve enjoyed. (I would add that @Jacic positively promotes shorter games a lot, here and elsewhere)
I haven’t played many of the shorter HGs - the shortest ChoiceScript games I’ve played have either been CoGs, I think, or comp entries or Jacic’s short games that didn’t go through HG - but I agree that the very short HGs (by which I mean under 50K words) do not end up getting much traction on the forum. It would be fun to see more discussion about “short-story” type games as opposed to doorstoppers, and highlight that they can work very well.
Sure! I should be writing and not online, but folks should feel free to make one. There’s also this showcase happening at the moment which coincidentally is in its last day today.
For me, it’s all about Kepler Colony. I not only played it but also contributed to testing. It revolutionized management, making it more engaging and human-centric compared to the usual approach. It’s akin to being a meta human; while you oversee an organization and make decisions, you’re still a person dealing with interpersonal dynamics, not just numerical data. It resonates a lot with that game, actually.
Needs more publicity: Relics 2 (this one’s tricky, given what happened to the author), Donor (generally well-liked), Cinderella sequel (a fractured fairy tale? Relevant.), Mage’s Adventures, Paradox Factor (open world Choicescript? This is a good example), Miss Bennet (Pride and Prejudice adaptation? Even more relevant.), My Day off Work (slice -of-life, we probably need more of them.).
Another The Gray Painter fan here! I think those of you who like it might also wanna check out Don’t Wake Me Up that just came out. I don’t follow a lot of WIP, so I went into them both not knowing what to expect and was very pleasantly surprised by how they turned out!
Now my only option is to diffuse the situation or not post at all.