How many levels should be in a game?

beefy_clyro

Yellow. If each level roughly equates to about a minute and a halfs playing time, how many levels would you expect in a game?

scitunes

depends how hard it is to beat each level. You could also have fewer levels if you have extra challenges. Look at stunt squirrels to see what I mean. You have to get your squirrel to the goal, but then you also have golden acorns to find and hoops to go through to get to the bonus level. This means 30 levels can actually give the player up to 90 different challenges.

Hunnenkoenig

It also depends, what kind of game you make. If replayability is high, you don't need many levels, I think.

I am making a Wallbreaker game right now with 5 stages and 3 levels each stage. That is 15 levels.

I also make 2 different kind of gameplay and 3 others are planned if the game is selling good.

(You always have to keep things for updates to be always visible on appstore :-P)

debugdesign

It also depends on the file size, if you keep it under 10mb you have more chance of it being downloaded by the 'on the move' market. Over that and they need to wait for wi-fi zone.

beefy_clyro

yeh true, i've only got about 6 levels at the mo and its reaached 8mb! I need to build more in but really wanted to keep it under 10mb, i just cant see it happening!

Hunnenkoenig

Under 10 MB you can build only crap :-P

My game music is bigger than 10 MB...

Apple made a stupid decision again. They could just have put a message on:

"This app is bigger than 10 MB. You probably need to pay for your data stream for your Provider. Do you really want to download?

YES NO"

I hate this parenting attitude in america (and shortly in the whole world) and these "oh I rather don't allow anything, because stupid people will sue me" rules.

tekkendp

I decided not to worry about the 10Mb figure. It's more about how the game feels and plays. Don't limit yourself. But at the same time - optimise. Instead of full soundtracks, use loops. etc......

Eastbound

I think the 10 mb thing is a smart decision. Without it, you will have people complaining that downloads are slow when they try downloading 700 mbs over an edge network, plus it would cost AT&T more; so might have some influence too.

JCFord

Also remember that your game size shown in GS should compress once going onto the iPhone, so test, test and test again!

My GS game as showing at 8MB but went down to 2.3Mb when turned into an App for the iPhone.

Hunnenkoenig

LOL tshirtbooth

No, I have more soundtracks and many sounds, which add up to over 10 MB.

I optimised them and a music which was over 6 MB in aiff, takes about 600kb now.

I play different tracks on every stage of the game, so it doesn't get repetitive (GS doesn't allow adding features for listening own music afaik) and many actors use sounds by different actions.

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@Eastbound: exactly that is the problem. People would complain, because they are stupid :-)
And they are stupid, because parenting companies like apple make them stupid.

If they could think, then they would look at OS compatibility too, but there are many 1 star reviews on the appstore telling "it doesn't work". Yes my friend. If you would have read the OS compatibility remark on iTunes, you would have seen that the app doesn't work on your phone.

So people always will have something to complain about. And they won't learn, because Apple and other companies don't let them learn.

We had a case in my country a few days ago, where a guy turned his car in a one way tunnel, because his GPS told him "turn back".

Now, if we were in america, they would bring a big sign onto the entrance of the tunnel telling "If your GPS tells you to turn back, please don't" or the GPS company would have to change the text into "If you are not in a tunnel, turn back"

quantumsheep

Even optimised, my top down shooter's music takes up a LOT of MB - and I feel the music is intrinsic to the game - the gameplay *should* flow off it (in my case).

As to how many levels - well, I may have to limit it to 8 - but it has (I hope) plenty of replay value too, so those eight levels should be plenty.

I'm very mindful of trying not to bore the player, or make them feel like they'll never see the end of the game. I think there's value in *Not* having 100s of levels. But then, I'm making the kind of games *I* want to play, and I'd never get near to playing 100 levels of a game!

One interesting development is the in-app payments. If GS included this, you could include your base amount of levels, then charge for more. Some games are already doing this.

As for me and my lovely top down shooter, it looks like 8 levels. Then when I think enough people have it, I'll update with extra levels that will take it over the 10MB limit.

That's *if* I can get it working again