Flytrap writes: "It took Square Enix over five years to create Final Fantasy XIII, and Blizzard's been hard at work on Diablo 3 for almost a decade. By contrast, Andre Spierings has managed to push out his isometric click-fest Tiny RPG in just two weeks.
Obviously there's something of a production values gulf between the former two and the latter, but certain questions are nonetheless begged. How long ought it realistically take to produce a game of this sort?"
It takes a long time to create a world that you can explore, and the more work you do, the better the detail.
Of course if you spend too long, either the tech become out of date and you start going back wards or you loss sight of the story and the game does not flow as well as it should.
Its a slippery slop to climb and the longer you take there worse it gets.
But if you hold it all together, you can create a real work of art.