i dont like short games at all. The shortest games i played in memory were Hard Reset and Singularity, they were both ok and fun while they lasted. I didn't have to learn anything to play.
See, this to me is a very, very important factor. Let me explain, least you think i'm a big dumbass.
If your stupid game has a weird set of controls but is immediately recognizable as another game with decent controls, i will not play your game, e.g having hug cover on (F), or interact on (Z). I have hours and hours of FPS games, THOUSANDS of hours in my bones and there is no way i am going to try to re-educate myself that now crouch is (C) instead of (Ctrl) like god intended.
I downloaded Deus Ex Human Revolution and the instant that i found there is no option to set ADS to Hold, i uninstalled it.
If your game has a nicely decorated UI where the most important information is not the biggest, most prominently displayed one, i will not play your game. I would love to play some Hearts Of Iron or Europa Universalis but the fact that you have decided to hide the information under not-immediately-obvious tiny symbols, all scattered throughout the UI and in some cases even in closed screens, means i need to spend far more time googling "how do i unload units from boat HOI peacetime" than actually playing the game, before i can decide if i even like the game.
I tried Wasteland 3 and (fortunately dodged that bullet) got my entire party wiped on the first encounter because i could not figure out how to handle basic, tutorial combat.
See, one of the games i had the most fun playing, FTL, you can totally learn in one minute; spacebar to pause, here's how you fire, there is how power works. Off you go.
You can play and have fun, you will lose, but you can play. You can board if you want to board, you can put out fires but maybe you will asphixiate, and so on. Learning more makes you better, but you CAN play without knowing a whoooole bunch of stuff.
Two other games that just never could persuade me to learn as much as was needed to play were Witcher 3 and Dishonored. DIshonored is structured to be played with a controller and it sucks having to use the keyboard, and Witcher 3 just has sooooo much completely new mechanics for what is essentially a hack n slash, grind-based RPG that i could not be bothered.
It's not about being hard, it's about being unjustifiably hard. I played something called IndustrialCraft, which is a mod of Minecraft where you build nuclear reactors who can - and will - expload in yo face, on hardcore mode, and boy, you ain't going nowhere without the wiki open while playing.
Civilization 4 is a ridiculously complicated game where a lot of stuff happens hiddend from sight, which you gotta know unless you plan to only play Warlord difficulty.
I gotta tell you, even Doom annoyed me, due to the weird weapon keybinds, and though i beat the game, i didn't play nearly as well as i wanted to.
anyway, i got slightly off track.
I'm not prepared to learn - often *figure out* - a whole bunch of game mechanics for your 2 1/2 hour "game experience". Like, Superhot. The moment i started getting into the grove of Superhot, the game's over. (i got more bad things to say about that game)
Also, what games exactly last two hours? Walking simulators? Puzzle games? Those "i am one coder in a bedroom and i made ART" games.
There was just recently a story about .. here:
https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-new...ev-to-leave-the-industry-indefinitely-3031247
So this guy makes a game. A "game". And a lot of people buy it but almost everyone refunds it.
Turns out that Steam has a no-questions-asked refund policy if your game purchase is under two hours prior, and the game, to finish for someone who just downloaded it and has never tried it before, takes 90 minutes.
Seriously you made a game that takes someone who's never seen it - mind you, not a speedrunner, but like, EVERYONE - a grand total of one and a half hours to finish, and you expect that to be a complete product? For gamers??
You made a film bro. you didn't make a game. And you decided that yes, you were gonna sell your 90min game on a platform that will refund all games before 120 minutes from purchase.