Escalating the story to quickly and/or to slowly?

[lilyrose]

Well I've been working on a game for a while and when I first started planning it was supposed to be a short sweet game of some sort but as I started working on it the story grew and got more complex ^.^'. But I keep running into the same problem. It seemed like the whole beginning part of my story was rushed. The intro to the characters and the story plot escalated too quickly. So I tried to slow it down and split it up in different sections.

Example: instead of when meeting a character and having them tell you who they are and what they're about breaking it down and start learning more about that as the game progresses.

Now I'm starting to wonder if I slowed it down to much?? So generally my question is how do you know if you're moving your game along to fast or too slow?

[fleet]

". . . how do you know if you're moving your game along to fast or too slow?"

Have a couple of friends look at it, and get their opinions.

[ketskari]

Read it out loud. This can be helpful for spotting problems with the pacing.

[OokamiKasumi]

Have a couple of friends look at it, and get their opinions.

Fleet is absolutely right. The only way to tell for sure if your pacing is too fast or slow is by using test-players. I bribe threaten strong arm have several friends play my games. Because they are Not gamers, their attention spans are considerably shorter and they are far less forgiving if something annoys them.

[Mad Harlequin]

I bribe threaten strong arm have several friends play my games.

You're so funny!

But I must add a word of caution to the advice you're getting, lilyrose:

No matter who it is that sees your work, be sure it's somebody you can trust to be honest, even if that means you may receive less-than-flattering feedback. I know some people will say that friends are always going to be honest, but that isn't the case.

[lilyrose]

I bribe threaten strong arm have several friends play my games.

Hahaha! Getting my friends to read my work may take similar means of bribery threats persuasion.

Mad Harlequin: Thank you and sadly it's very true. I'll pick who I ask wisely.

[SundownKid]

Make an outline... its super important. If you don't have an outline then go back and make one and adjust the story to match the outline. Otherwise your pacing will be all off. It's like building a skyscraper without a foundation first.