Lemma Soft Forums

mrsulu wrote:VNs seem to be counted either in length-to-ending or length-to-seeing-all-endings (or at least I'm-done). I'd imagine "lines" being a pretty straightforward calculation---10-15 seconds per line. Then you find your longest path, add some rule of thumb (say, 25-50% of that per major branch in your story) and you've got some idea of length.

I actually timed myself and found that one line of dialogue (i.e. the equivalent of each text-box click) is on average 16.5 words, and it takes around 2.5 seconds to read through. If it is voiced, then it can take up to 5 seconds.

Designing for the speed reader in mind helped me to make sure that there is enough content. Adding more choices than there are actual story paths helps to add reading time while making the filler text less obvious...instead, it flushes out the experience more.

Voiced vs. not-voiced is huge. It's the difference between a radio drama and a book.

Most voice message systems allow you to speed up playback because, without social cues (reading facial expressions, body language, hand gestures), there's too little information in just the sound of someone talking to justify focusing all your attention on it. Radio shows go very, very fast as compared to how people actually speak (and when you contrast it to talk radio that's pretty off the cuff, they have 6 people in the studio to do drop-in commentary so there's enough talking going on all the time). See also: Do you ever do something else while you're talking on the phone to someone? Yeah, I thought you did.

I always get anxious when I'm sitting in front of my computer and not typing or mousing or clicking or something, so fully-voiced games either have to be really well-editied or really spectacular voicework to keep me occupied.

I think this is one of the reasons why VNs work---you have just a little text and then you click, giving the primate behind the keyboard something to do while you're reading.