Recently I plopped what I had so far for chapter 1's script into RenPy and played through it. It was about 16,000 words total, and it covered approximately 40% of the true route. I was able to clear it in 30 minutes, and my estimates showed others might complete it at an average of 46 minutes. At these rates, the true route would be around 75-115 minutes (1 hour 15 mins-1 hour 55 mins) to complete. The way I see it, the pacing is currently too damn fast.
Of course, I'll be revising as I go along, which includes expanding scenes with more dialogue and description, but so far I'm pretty disappointed with how much I'm underwriting. I imagine waiting ~6 years and getting a 2 hour demo (assuming the higher end of playtimes) that supposedly contains all of the first chapter isn't very promising either.
Some may argue that shorter, more concise games are better, but I feel I'd be really holding back players from "getting into" BFD (especially with its unusual worldbuilding) with a short playtime. Each chapter is meant to cover 25 days in-universe, so at the current pace you'd get a 2 hour true route with roughly 12.5 minute days. Again, considering the intended nature of the game, this seems too damn fast. Hence, I will spend extra time lengthening the script as I fluff it up.
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