| Submitted by , posted on 07 October 2002 |

Image Description, by BlueSky is a hacking simulator with a very strong story behind it. If you ever wanted to prove your skills as a hacker, from the safety of your home, now you got your chance. This is my first commercial game project as a game developer.
Download a test version from www.TerminalZero.com/bluesky and give it a spin.
Although it is not a graphicly impressive game, the hardest thing involved in creating this game was to offer great gameplay at an easy difficulty. It is very easy for a player to lose track in the game. Even with an included tutorial, we got feedback from beta testers that finished the test level in 9 minutes, some that did it in more than 30, or some that didn`t understand what all this was about.
This raises an interesting question in game development: gameplay duration. As a developer I can finish the game in no time, as I know everything about it. But how long does it take for an average player to finish one level? You can't make a level take too long, as the player will become bored, but also you can`t keep it too short. One feature I recomend to you when releasing a demo: Track the time needed for a player to finish the game. It can make a huge difference in your game.

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