Or more to the point how long should my Roguelike be?

Nethack is huge and has something like 50 levels. Castle of the Winds - which is one of the main inspirations for my Roguelike has 20 levels per title (parts one and two) and takes quite a while to get to the end. If I remember correctly, it takes me more than a day or two to finish?

But I’m seriously considering going with a much lesser number. I’m thinking 6 levels of depth.

Remember ‘Caverns’ is played in a browser and there is no easy way to save your game. (I have thought of one way but it would probably be a bit too much work to implement.) So I figure that - assuming the player doesn’t die, they should be able to complete the game in 2-3 hours, ie an evening’s worth of play.

Lets also assume that they die a few times before they figure the game out.

And given that the game is randomly generated and lets say they like the game, they play it twice.

So I figure - very roughly, that the average person will probably get about 8 hours of enjoyment out of the game.

I think 8 hours is a pretty good number for a good free game.