Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
and sometimes
Very Hard
. Another solution is known as
adaptive difficulty
. This
is when a game looks at how well the player is doing, and adjusts the difficulty as
needed. If the player is doing really well, it will increase the difficulty a bit, and if the
player is having trouble, it would decrease it to some extent.
Another aspect of difficulty is known as game
progression
. Progression refers to
how the difficulty increases as you progress through the game. It should start out
increasing slowly and then the rate of increase goes up faster as you move further
and further into the game. So obviously, the difficulty should not suddenly shoot up
by 100 percent from one level to the next as that will cause frustration in the players.
This brings us to the idea of challenges. Some games provide challenge levels for
the hardcore players to enjoy. This is a good idea, but they shouldn't be so ridicu-
lously hard that it takes forever to beat them. This is just my opinion, but a well-de-
signed challenge should be one where the players can see themselves getting bet-
ter as they keep making more attempts at it. If it's one of those levels where you
just try 15 million times until you finally pull it off, sure it's hard, but its not a well-de-
signed challenge because most players will probably give up long before they suc-
ceed. Why? It's because they will likely see it as a waste of time.
So what if you make a cool reward for beating it? Well, some players will try hard to
get it then, but on the other hand, some players might not be able to get it even after
countless tries, and they will be irritated that they can't get the unlockables. So, a
challenge should be hard but reasonable. And as I said, the players should see their
performance improving as they keep making more attempts. Seeing that improve-
ment in their performance gives the players a sense of hope. As they do better and
better with each attempt, they feel like their goal is getting ever closer. The players
feel like they can do it if they just keep trying a little more. On the other hand, a level
where you just have to retry 15 million times until you get lucky and pull it off has
the opposite effect. If the players does not see any noticeable improvement in their
attempts at the level, they will feel that they are not getting any better, and therefore,
it is a waste of time to keep trying. The players will lose hope. It is OK to have some
really tough challenges, but they should be optional and generally should not have
unlockables for beating them. Again, this is just my opinion.
