How long does it take you to make a game?

[GeneSu730]

I am making my own Super Mario game. How long does it take you to make a single Mario stage? For me, the size of my stages is similar to Super Mario World. It takes me a week to a month to make a single stage. It usually take me a month if I have to do some coding (like making a new enemy or creating Hammer Mario or Penguin Mario). Am I going too slow? I wanted to make 80 stages by the end of 2022 but I don't think that will happen.

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[VinnyVideo]

It depends on the length and complexity of a stage. It's going to take a bunch of hours to make a typical level, so depending on how much time you have to work, expect each level to take multiple days.

That's one reason why I'd caution against planning an 80-level game. That's a very long and ambitious project for one person to tackle - few fangames have ever reached that length. Even professionally-made games are usually quite a bit shorter than that.

I'd suggest planning a much smaller number of levels - maybe something like 20. If you remain motivated to keep working on the game, you can always add more levels later on.

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[Roo]

Another thing I would add about the number of stages is that there are very few people out there who would actually play the entirety of an 80-stage fangame, so one could argue that making that many would basically just be a waste of time.

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[GeneSu730]

It depends on the length and complexity of a stage. It's going to take a bunch of hours to make a typical level, so depending on how much time you have to work, expect each level to take multiple days.

That's one reason why I'd caution against planning an 80-level game. That's a very long and ambitious project for one person to tackle - few fangames have ever reached that length. Even professionally-made games are usually quite a bit shorter than that.

I'd suggest planning a much smaller number of levels - maybe something like 20. If you remain motivated to keep working on the game, you can always add more levels later on.

VinnyVideo and Roo, Thank you for your advice. I actually have 18 levels completed already. The 19th level is taking a little more time because it involved the coding of Penguin Mario.

Now come to think of it, it usually takes me 6 to 8 hours to make a typical stage.

Maybe I will make 40 stages first spanning the first 5 worlds and then make the overworld map that Mario can use to go from stage to stage. After that, I can upload videos. Maybe I will only end up making 72 stages (the number in Super Mario World) or even 64 (the number in Yoshi's Island).

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