Has anyone studied the size of scrolling NES games? It seems like they vary quite broadly in overall "screen real estate" (how many TV's could be lined up side by side to display the entire game in a bitmap). From a quick look at SMB1, it seems that each level is about 16 screens wide, and the game is about 32 of these levels, so it is about 512 screens total in size. I've heard Battle Kid is over 500 rooms (screens). However, Battle Kid may be perceived as a longer game due to the challenge of finding things within it, and also the challenge of doing battle without getting hit. But in terms of total screen real estate it is "on par" with SMB1.
From the perspective of Homebrew Complexity, pure "screen real estate" may be an important topic to consider if you're making a scrolling game (or multi screen game as in Battle Kid), but one can increase the perceived length of a game by tweaking its challenge, I think.
From the perspective of Homebrew Complexity, pure "screen real estate" may be an important topic to consider if you're making a scrolling game (or multi screen game as in Battle Kid), but one can increase the perceived length of a game by tweaking its challenge, I think.