Please falsify or agree with following:

It's not about the length of the game that needs time. It's the complexity. In demo, you use the same system as in the full game with more stuff (art, models, levels).

So if you make a demo, you already create the full game's system for A.I. actions (since in full version there is just more with altered behaviour), inventory (you use the same inventory in full game, just with more items), items (you have the basis for item feats, just more in the full game).

The reason demo is normally taken as "easy step #1" is because the lack of content blinds the designer from seeing the fact you are making the full game. Just shorter and limited <something>

i agree but why do you ask it? it's quite obvious

I think a pro. demo (not a showcase/devdemo/preview) should be taken from the nearly finished game.

A demo is made to motivate the player buying the product.
Therefor a demo should show the main idea, the graphics, the control, the sound, ...

If a demo should show ALL features of the gameplay depends on the game and on you.
A game could be quick get boring if you have no new features after the player bought it as well as you have a different gameplay with the full version.

I don't know your game.
If "your" game has such features then "yes".

For other games/apps a demo could need a different orientation...
(e.g. a Sudoku, ...)

Quote:

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It's not about the length of the game that needs time. It's the complexity.

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It depends on you!
Make a difference between demo and prototype!
Your prototype has to show whether the core of your game's gameplay and characters works and is fun to play!
And that can still be much less than the whole feature list!
It should be much less, otherwise the prototyping is not enough of a timeserver!

And then, even if you already have the whole featurelist working, when you build your levels, you will still find a lot of issues that you didn't expect, because of the levelgeometry itself, collision detection related and related to fps.
But, this is hopefully a smaller problem, if you reduce the levelgeometry from the beginning, like restricting it to certain heights of borders and ceilings, reduce it to certain width of dungeons, certain measures of the level as a whole, certain angles of edges of the levelgeometry, certain view distances...

scenario scripting also adds heaps. and making decent cutscenes. realtime cutscenes generally require good programming, great animators, and a lot of time (among other things) and can add heaps to the development time of a project.

additionally, a good multiplayer mode usually (not always necessary though) has heaps of game modes which can require lots more programming, including the AI for those game modes (which can be much more than just an adaption depending on the game).

some games need very very level-specific code -- not just cutscenes and scenarios and whatnot, but actually have totally different gameplay for different levels.

and a game with heaps of different types of vehicles would only feature a couple in the demo, and those would tend to need individual programming, planning and design (such as hover-vehicles, flying, driving, balancing, whatever).

julz

I'm not sure if complexity is the right word. A better demo should provide a good sample of what the full game would have to offer.