Discussion Minimun Content for a Trial Game

[StarWolff]

releasing previews of games is a great way to have the public involved and discover bugs/flaws. so considering a normal Pkm game (8 gyms and elite four) what it's the minimal content the first trial/preview should have? how far can you get into the game?

 

[StarWolff]

I think at least 3 cities and 2 gyms is enough to get where the game is going
but as a trial, the game doesn't need to start from the beginning, maybe there's a cool part in the middle that the creator wants to show
so at least 20-30 min of gamplay in my opinion

 

[Aki]

As a dev I wanna argue that most people will know by gym 1 if they're enjoying the game's design or not, and especially if you're got an early hook like brand new fakemon or a cool narrative you should be able to show that off with just a tiny slice of the game...buuut realistically more players wanna invest their time into a game that more complete. 2-3 gyms is probably a good goal to set for a minimum viable product that'll attract people to try it out.

 

[King_Waluigi]

I agree with this. My first pokemon-gym game had the first three gyms at the demo, which works pretty well imo

 

[Astralneko]

If I remember correctly official demos of some of the Pokémon games have been released, with the player typically playing up to the point where they'd next challenge the first Gym. However, that's for a project that might already have some of the later content already in the game, just blocked off, and that will likely be out by year's end, which may not be true of a fangame project. I'd say that it's a good first demo if you can get to the second or third badge, depending on how spaced out each badge is. Basically, at least a quarter of the game's main story, whatever that ends up being for badge count.