How long do you make your mini-games?

would you rather play a mini-game or a full game?

I myself would rather play a mini-game, they aren't that long, and usually it gives you enough time to get used to the characters, story and the world and then its done. You still have time to do other things...

with this being said how long would you say a mini game is? I think that a mini-game would run 20 minutes to an hour or less.

Well, I'm not sure what you mean by mini-game. Normally, it would mean a little side-game which departs from the main game's mechanics within a larger game (like Poker in the Tales series, Blitzball in FF10, etc.), but it sounds like you are just using it to mean a short game.

If you did mean the former, then I think it can be anywhere up to ten minutes. If you meant the latter, then I think games in general should only be as long as they need to be. There are plenty of games which could appropriately be less than 20 minutes.

I think RPGs should probably be longer in general, though, since I like them primarily for story and character development, and it would be hard to do that in a short timeframe.

In any event, I tend to like longer games more than short ones.

I was thinking, maybe make many mini-games about one basic land like the forgotten realms books.

I was thinking, maybe make many mini-games about one basic land like the forgotten realms books.

Please use the term "Short games" if you are talking about separate games and the term "mini-games" for a game inside a game (like Modern said: Blitzball in FFX, Caravan in Fallout: New Vegas, ...)

It really confuses me, and probably other people too.

If you say short games should last at max an hour, well then, I don't think so. I know an RPG that lasts, for most people, about 12 hours to complete all main story quests and they think it's a very short game. Other people tend to do all side-quests as well and they go up to 15-20 hours?
RPG's can easily last for lets say 150 hours and still be good full games.
Short RPG's are less then lets say 15 hours... However, I'm currently working on a Time-based Mystery Horror RPG and my deadline is October 31st. My goal of game-time is about 1 hour at most, but I change this quite a lot as I'm already at 5 minutes in the first map if you know where everything is and what the NPC's say...

Also, if you'd like to create some short Fantasy RPG's on the same world, I'd tell you to read three trilogies by Licia Troisi. They are all about the same world, first one is now, second one is 50 years after 1 and the third is again 50 years later or something?

For it to be a short game, It should follow the proper story line (conflict conflict resouloution etc)  and it should do that in a timely manner, for example, if a game takes 2-3 hours to finish but its characters are in depth and entertaining (or the game is fun to play) then Its a good short game. But if you have a 1 hour game with crappy character development and the like, chances are it will be boring. . . I've rambled
TLDR Quality not Quantity, if a game has good stuff, the length is for the most part, irrelevant

but for short games I'd ditch the  indepth story premises and maybe go for a simple story that teaches something or gives a message, if short films can leave someone something to take away, so can short games right?