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Dealing with playtime when creating games

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Tue, 10/04/2016 - 16:43
Aelyanne
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Joined: 04/09/2016

Hello.

One of the problem i often face when creating a new game is play time management.

I created some time ago an auction game. I really liked the game (for a beginner designer game), but there was ONE thing that ruined the game : it lasted forever.

I wanted the game to last around 45 minutes. It lasted over 2 hours.
Tried to reduce the number of turns, tried to makes the flow faster... It got a bit better but there was not much to do without ruining the gameplay.

Now, i am working on another game (1 vs all boss fight on a boardgame). I wanted to do very short rounds(under 25 minutes), with high replayability.
But i just realised that the games are probably going to take forever, once more.

Do you have any hints to reduce the playtime of your games ?
Or to judge how many time your game will take without playtesting ?

I tried to streamline the flow of the game, reduce the number of turns and the complexity, but i think it won't be enough...

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Tue, 10/04/2016 - 16:54
#1
radioactivemouse
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Only you.

Aelyanne wrote:
Hello.

One of the problem i often face when creating a new game is play time management.

I created some time ago an auction game. I really liked the game (for a beginner designer game), but there was ONE thing that ruined the game : it lasted forever.

I wanted the game to last around 45 minutes. It lasted over 2 hours.
Tried to reduce the number of turns, tried to makes the flow faster... It got a bit better but there was not much to do without ruining the gameplay.

Now, i am working on another game (1 vs all boss fight on a boardgame). I wanted to do very short rounds(under 25 minutes), with high replayability.
But i just realised that the games are probably going to take forever, once more.

Do you have any hints to reduce the playtime of your games ?
Or to judge how many time your game will take without playtesting ?

I tried to streamline the flow of the game, reduce the number of turns and the complexity, but i think it won't be enough...

Only you know your game better than anyone.

What you're doing is exactly what you should be doing...finding out what specific elements extend your game, adjust numbers, then playtest again.

For me, I had 2 elements in my game that I found through play testing that really extended the time of my game. It was basically cards that redirected damage and an instant ability that nullified 1 attack; I had 2 of each card. While I was really adamant about not taking out the cards, I ended up taking out 1 card from the nullify card...it cut my game time in half (from 4+ hours to 2 hours). I then did the same to the card that redirected damage...it cut my game time in half again (from ~2 hours to ~1 hour).

I know it may not be as cut and dry as the example above, but I only figured this out through gameplay; there was no way I could have received that advice through a forum. Not to say we're useless, there are just some elements we as a forum cannot answer.

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Tue, 10/04/2016 - 17:56
#2
BoardGent
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Nature of games

Make a different game? A game's runtime is usually decided by its mechanics. Without really knowing how your game works, can't really say how to reduce the game time. General stuff like putting timers on, reducing the amount of decisions people have to make, lowering boss resources, etc could do the trick, but could make the game worse if added haphazardly.

Depends entirely on the game. A tcg, for instance, can take really long if stall strategies are good. Or it can take 5min if rush strategies are good.
A game like Monopoly is obviously going to take long because players lose resources in very small amounts and the large game board takes a few go-arounds to become a minefield.
You can make a rough estimate of how long a game will take by looking at starting resources, how quickly players gain/lose resources, win conditions and area players can explore.

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Tue, 10/04/2016 - 20:27
#3
Arcuate
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Joined: 02/05/2016
Decisions, Ecosystem or Maintenance?

I struggle with this too, and I am only a hobbyist designer, but it might be useful to consider these three aspects of the game: decisions, the game ecosystem, and maintenance. In addition to what has been said, it might be useful to play a game out and look at how much time is spent in each phase, and what that time is actually spent on.

Decision time is the time players spend looking at the game and no pieces or cards are moving. It can be reduced by pruning the number of options, and allowing some decisions to be made in parallel.

The ecosystem is related to the overall mobility of the game state. In the earlier example, upthread, it was noted that blocking or stalling actions can prolong the game. If actions make a relatively small change to the game state (low damage counts in battles, small transactions or costs in economic games), the game will be slow. Sometimes time can be carved off by starting the gamestate in a more advanced state, skipping the build-up (but then you risk losing the feeling of a full thematic story arc).

The maintenance aspects are the ones that would be automated in a digital version. They usually don't take up much time, but they feel slow because they involve no decisions. Indonesia, a game I really enjoy, has some fiddly sections that prevent it from being the ultimate game experience it nearly manages to be. It's nice if the logistics of moving the game along are quick and simple. Also nice if each player can manage their own logistics at the same time as every other player.

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Tue, 10/04/2016 - 22:24
#4
Rick L
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Going with the Monopoly

Going with the Monopoly example, start everyone off with an extra $500!

I have a game prototype that was running in the 3-4 hour range. It starts off with workers & resources but gets into other elements within a few rounds of turns. I didn't want to be drastic about it, but I did look at ways to start players with a little boost to get them going, then give them ways to upgrade & speed a few things up after 2 or 3 turns. I also made some things "cheaper" - less cost to build. After a little trial and error, I got a smooth system that feels like it has a balance of challenge with progress.

The game still takes 2 hours or more, but at least it doesn't feel like that long - it's enough fun that player's are engaged and forget about time. I wish it could be a 1 hour game, but at least everyone has a good time playing!

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Tue, 10/04/2016 - 23:12
#5
questccg
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Gotta be FUN and immersive

Mokheshur wrote:
...at least it doesn't feel like that long - it's enough fun that player's are engaged and forget about time.

I think that's the key. When you play a game, if you are immersed in the game itself, that's a testament on how good the game is. And it's probably a combination of things that work in tandem.

In my game "Tradewars - Homeworld", playing a two (2) player duel using the "Tradewars" scenario can take upwards of 1:30. But if you understand that you can WIN the game by TRADING, the game length gets reduced to UNDER 60 minutes.

So if players stall the game - it could take longer to win. But if you focus on the scenario's win condition, the game will more than likely end before the players knew it would.

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Wed, 10/05/2016 - 05:49
#6
ElKobold
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Here are some things I use

It's hard to say something specific without seeing the actual game, but here are some "general" approaches that I use.
Perhaps they'll work for you as well.

1. Simultaneous action selection.
It doesn't just let you save some playing time, it also reduces downtime.
Not every game can support this though.

2. Complexity
Make sure that complexity of your game fits your target audience.
And that the complexity level is not overwhelming to cause analysis paralysis.

3. Limit player choices.
Speaking of analysis paralysis.
I try to design games in a way that regardless of how big the variety of choices is, players only have a limited subset of them available at every decision point.

That can be achieved by splitting complex decision points into smaller segments.

For example, if you have multi use cards in your game (let's say 3 possible actions per card) and player has 5 of those cards to choose from, that player is potentially facing roughly 15 possible choices. That might be too much for a single decision point.

However, let's say that you split the playing of the card and choosing an action. First everyone picks a card to play. The choices are made apparent. Then everyone picks an action from the card they've picked.

Now you have two decision points - one has 5 options, and the other has 3.

Of course, you still have to consider all the possible actions when picking a card, but the choice feels less critical, and easier (and quicker) to make.

4. Get rid of anything which is not needed.
Try to strip down your game to its core. Start cutting out mechanics and see if you can live without some of them. If you've removed something and the game is still fun, then you didn't need it in the first place - get rid of it.

5. Gather statistical data on how long a single turn lasts.
That will give you an idea for how many turns you want your game to last. Then use any fitting mechanism to make sure that your game doesn't last much longer than desired number of turns.

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Wed, 10/05/2016 - 16:56
#7
-Eberhardt-
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Aelyanne wrote:... One of the

Aelyanne wrote:
...
One of the problem i often face when creating a new game is play time management.
...
Do you have any hints to reduce the playtime of your games ?
Or to judge how many time your game will take without playtesting ?...

@Aelyanne:

Good evening, I have had a similar dilemma with the game I am working on. The answer came from play-testing.

A play tester pointed out that the timing element I put into the game was too random. It could occur on the first round or the last round of the game. To address this issue I moved the timing element to the middle half of the game and was able to achieve the specific results I was looking for 30-60 minutes, before that it could range from 10 minutes to 3 hours for a game.

Play testing also helped me refine the amount of time the game took; however as I modify elements the length changes slightly.

I hope this helps even though it utilized play testing and not figuring time out w/o it.

Cheers
Jon

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Wed, 10/05/2016 - 16:58
#8
-Eberhardt-
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ElKobold wrote: 3. Limit

ElKobold wrote:

3. Limit player choices.

Don't limit my choices bro... 50 Attacker Dice for the win!!!! LOL :P Good luck at Essen.

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Wed, 10/05/2016 - 17:18
#9
ElKobold
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-Eberhardt- wrote: Don't

-Eberhardt- wrote:

Don't limit my choices bro... 50 Attacker Dice for the win!!!! LOL :P Good luck at Essen.

Hehehe :) Thanks!

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Tue, 10/11/2016 - 04:02
#10
Aelyanne
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Joined: 04/09/2016
Hello back there ! Thank you

Hello back there !
Thank you for all your answers and ideas.
I searched for more ideas, and found some that could help me.

I found these two articles that may help people that have the same problem as me (do we have the right to post links ? If not i will remove it)
http://www.leagueofgamemakers.com/designing-games-to-prevent-analysis-pa...

http://makethemplay.com/index.php/2016/07/07/14-ways-of-reducing-analysi...

About my games, i finally found 3 things:
-Overcomplicated decisions. I tried to design games where the decisions were meaningful. They ended up being overwhelming (rules are simple, but the number of combinations of different choices are too much)
-Too much turns. I guess you dont need to take 15 turns to have a fun game. Some fillers have few turns.
-Add a timer. Its not so hard to take a good decision in my game ; its hard to take the "perfect/optimized" decision. Adding a timer prevent analysis paralysis without affecting people enjoyment too much

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Mon, 01/30/2017 - 20:42
#11
Aspirinsmurf
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Joined: 07/06/2013
Anecdote time! Back in

Anecdote time! Back in medieval times, chess queens could only move one square in any direction, and pawns could not move two squares on their first move. Both changes were made to improve game speed. The modern version of chess was actually called Crazy Queens for quite some part of the 16th century.

Also: the forward pass, a significant feature of modern American football, was invented for similar reasons. Sometimes, the best way to get the pace of a game up is to open it up for more radical and risky maneuvers, not just trying to cut the game time down by providing a more developed starting position, like starting with more pieces on the board or money or whatever (though you should definitely consider doing that as well).

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