Game Length input

So I bring yet another question/debate to everyone :) This time Im wondering what everyone prefers, I have permission from an author to create a game and use his work and change it as I see fit, I have full rights for commission too. However this certain book Im making this game on is extremely long, and we know a book is mainly dialogue so clearly I will have to edit a lot out and skip a few chapters etc. However would you guys feel that making a  single huge long single game is better then different "chapter" games like a Trilogy etc. or the other way around?

Personally, I prefer one big game over a trilogy. Mainly because I don't have to wait between the releases and I'm sure that I can see the end of the story (dead projects after a few episodes are legion).

Any adaptation from a book, whether it becomes a movie or a game, needs cuts/rewriting. How much you need it depends on what you're trying to do.

What kind of game you'll be doing with this story?

A RPG? An adventure game? A visual novel?

Game length is not expected to be the same depending on the genre.

I don't know of a 30+ hours adventure game, for example. But that's (a little) more common in RPGs.

I like long games, but they are typically harder to make. That said, a trilogy with imported savefiles is also a pain to manage. It's really up to you. For me the most enjoyable RP games clock at 40h or more.

As one famous screenwriter once said (I think it was Syd Field), to change one medium to another, your first medium is simply a starting point. To best fit the new medium (in this case, a RPG), you can rework the whole thing if you need to. A good example is how in LOTR 2 the movie, the Battle of Helms Deep was moved to the end for better dramatic effect, although this differs from the book order.

So whether you make it a trilogy really depends on what kind of story you want to tell, and how much of it you want to tell.

Remember if you make it a "Trilogy" I don't think you can move the save files over (can you? at least not easily I am guessing) to the next game, so prepare to have no stats carry over in the new chapter.

I like long games. As long as there is good content in the game I can play it forever. Sometimes the complaint I have about is a game is MOAR. I want more! Sometimes I get legitimately upset when I realize I'll never get to know more about the characters and the world because it's over.

You can carry over, but as Indinera said, it is a colossal pain, and very easy to mess up.

My personal preference would be to have one large game, for the sorts of reasons that have been mentioned above, but also because of story integrity.  In addition, if you make it as a trilogy, you would have to allow for people who have not played the earlier game(s) and it is not easy to bring them up to date without either overwhelming them with the story so far, or leaving them with the merest outline.

It's deffo possible (I made a trilogy AND a pentalogy (?)) but it's a lot of extra-work: checking everything, and carefully planning out what to export and what not to.

It can also ruin the gameplay of subsequent games easily, for instance if fans of the original games have levelled up their characters too much, the following game will be ridiculously easy.

Well, given that you're making a game from it you're already going to be able to cut out most of the descriptions from the book.   That will usually decrease the size from one to the other quite a bit.   Since your descriptions will be visual rather than text.   As for the dialogue if you're planning on cutting it, you want to be really careful.   Try a few different ways and see how it still makes the most sense, but don't forget that there might be some small things that were in the text that do not make sense then, but might make sense much later.

One thing you could do, if you're overly worried about length is find a way to make some of the parts of the story into optional side-quests.    Though personally, I don't care how long a game as long as it's done well.   If a story can really grip me, I'll keep playing it, that's the real challenge though.   Keeping it interesting and fun the entire time.  I would definitely stick with one game if you can though, even if it will take longer to make.

In general, if a game is fun to play, the length is not that big a deal. I've played some really fun games that I beat in 4 - 8 hours, and I've played some stinkers that drug on for what feels like forever. So its not all about the length, but if you can make a fun game in the end.

I prefer playing a long game rather than shorter chapter games, mainly because I don't like to have to wait in between chapters. Preserving continuity among the chapters would also be difficult, though that really depends on the story and gameplay involved. I think a long game will also be a much more satisfactory as a full, finished product, so I would say it would be worth the extra time and effort to put a game out there.

I always order a whole pizza, even though I only eat a few slices in one sitting!