🚀 go-pugleaf

This was an impulse buy for me.  The two things that drew me to it:

1.  It was by Funcom and based on The Secret World... if you've ever
played their games you know they are very good at creating the world
the game is based in.  I wanted to see a first-person attempt.
2.  The setting (creepy amusement park) reminded me of an old Dean
Koontz novel I read back in the 80's.  Or American Horror Story Season
IV...  Creepy amusement parks can be a lot of fun.

I knew it was only 1.5 to 2 hours of gameplay going in, thus the
"release day' price of ten bucks.  I figured for a first-person
"story" game with no action (an interactive movie), the running length
of a movie was probably about as long as it would hold my interest.

The visuals really are nice, at least on the Ultra setting, they pull
you in right away.  It's far from an open-world, but the setting of
the game (a theme park) is true to a real life theme park, where the
entire area is architected to prevent you from walking where you
shouldn't, so you don't feel too restrained by the fact you can't
"climb those rocks over there" or whatever.  After all, in this game
you are some chick who is looking for her lost kid.  

Is it worth 10 bucks?  Sort of.  If you're the story-oriented type
[looks at Spalls and points finger], that's what this game is all
about.  No combat, no stealth, no action.  The protagonist can sprint,
walk, look around and yell out for the kid to reveal himself.  It
wasn't far into the game I was looking for a "beat kids ass with a
belt" key, but the controls just aren't that elaborate.

The real reason I wanted to write about the game though is that I
think there may be an emerging market for these small, 1-2 hour
mini-games.  The problem with a 12-15 hour game is that if the player
does not warm up to the story or the setting, they are going to lament
the game and give it bad reviews, because they just paid $40-60 or
whatever if they bought at release time.... or maybe they picked it up
on sale..... but do they still want to spend 15 hours of their life on
a game that is only OK in their mind, and maybe impresses them in some
ways, but doesn't blow them away with it's addictiveness?

In other words I think a lot of players might appreciate a 1-2 hour
game that shows us the best the developer can show us, removes the
"grind", etc.   It lowers development cost because the overall game
world and assets are smaller, testing and debugging is lessened so
production costs are lowered, and if done properly the game can be at
least as memorable as typical movie.  

I'm not talking about these "episode" game series like The Walking
Dead.  No offense to those who like that sort of thing, but to me
taking a long story and breaking it up into smaller episodes and
charging less for each episode is essentially the same as a long
story...  It's not the same as taking the best you've got, packing it
into 1-2 hours and calling it a wrap -- a complete self contained
story, where there is no tie or relation to any previous or future
games.

To illustrate the difference -- in The Park, the player really needs
to pick up paper notes / books etc. along the way and read them to get
the most out of it.  Reading notes in a game that's designed to
provide 10-20, or more hours of gameplay can feel like a chore to some
who would rather be playing the game than following a story.  However,
in a mini-game like this, the player is aware there is a relatively
small amount to be read (and given the brevity of the tale, each one
must be important), so it removes that pain from the gameplay.

It's not that this particular game is the bees knees.  And to be
honest I would have rather paid $5 for it.  But I wouldn't mind at all
to see it start a trend of self-contained mini games with immersive
worlds and short story lines.  

Less risk for the developer, and the player doesn't have to decide
whether they want to commit to putting in the equivalent of a
part-time work week to complete it.