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How to make a game longer without boring the pants off everyone

Replaying all the bosses again in order is NOT a good solution. These are...

Words: on January 4, 2011
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45 comments

  • V13Dragongal - January 5, 2011 4:33 a.m.

    Great list. Love the PvZ reference xD

  • FauxFurry - January 5, 2011 6:33 a.m.

    You didn't include one of the most critical tricks of the trade used in recent(enough) days to extend a game's run time, not least of all by Bethesda Softworks: Let somebody else do it for you by way of mod tools. Maybe that oft-repeated phrase about 10,000 monkeys at 10,000 type writers (over 10,000 years or so) being able to produce the complete works of Shakespeare might actually have some merit after all,though the bright fellows in Bethesda's fan community needed far fewer keyboards and quite a bit less time to outshine the efforts put into what is contained in the retail package. Hundreds of talented tinkerers who may or may not have worked at a single PC or multiple PCs in tandem(each of which has the Elder Scrolls Construction Set installed)spending over 10,000 hours of unpaid labor on producing mod content turned humble Morrowind into one of the deepest,most vibrant game worlds ever developed and it only cost Bethesda a freebie software disc. Compared to that,challenges that yeild unlockable costumes and extra characters seems like a comparatively paltry means of prolonging a game experience. One obvious no-no left off of the list is pure,unadulterated, mind-numbing, finger-straining,life draining Level Grinding, Square-Enix's favorite vice/over-used crutch which leaves many of their games nearly completely lame. How about trimming a cinematic cutscene or 20 and reducing the graphical complexity a shade then putting in a few extra in-game missions and activities here and there,instead?

  • philipshaw - January 5, 2011 12:52 p.m.

    Great article and some great examples used here, at least AC has got better with their side missions

  • NightCrawler_358 - January 5, 2011 9:22 p.m.

    I definitely agree with skyline19, zombies are an easy addition that can add hours of gameplay. Even though i don't really care too much about them, achievments and trophies are fun to collect.

  • RicePuddingUK - January 6, 2011 3:51 p.m.

    Point Lookout for Fallout 3 was excellent, I spent a whole evening on that DLC and was immersed, I loved the quest involving the Chinese Agent

Showing 41-45 of 45 comments

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