Skill - Designing Games - page 67

We can graph out skill ranges like this:
Tic-tac-toe is playable even for small children, but it becomes boring
as soon as you learn the one good strategy. So its skill range is narrow, and
wholly contained on the left side of the graph.
StarCraft II is single-player mode is accessible by anyone who has
played video games because it starts with a gentle tutorial and ramps up
slowly. Its skill range is quite wide, but it is not limitlessly deep—scripted
missions mean that the game can be mastered by dedicated players, after
which it stops offering new challenges.
StarCraft II is multiplayer mode, on the other hand, is limitlessly deep.
No matter how much you practice, there is always more to learn. But it
is also less accessible than single-player mode because lessons aren't ar-
ranged in a gentle skill ramp, and online opponents mercilessly exploit
every mistake.
Sometimes games' skill ranges change with their player base. For
example, I was a beast at Counter-Strike when I first played back in 2000.
Today, I struggle just to avoid embarrassing myself. The game is essen-
tially the same, but its player base isn't. Back in 2000, most people online