Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Boss Fight
FRUSTRATION
Boss Fight
Boss Fight
BOREDOM
Mastery of Skills and Understanding
Figure 6.6
A zigzag flow diagram with boss fights dipping into the frustration zone.
Adjusting Difficulty
Games like
Super Hexagon
require the player to deal with frustration and failure and commit
the time to overcome hard challenges. Competitive multiplayer games have a long legacy of
putting this responsibility in the hands of players—in these games, not just a single player
but a pair of competitors, or even a group or community of players who play together. Play-
ers who enjoy sport-like digital games such as
Hokra
(2012) have to teach
newcomers how to master the challenges of the game, growing a community of players so
they have more opponents to face. The difficulty in these games comes
(2011) or
BaraBariBall
largely from how good
your opponent is. Players can take it easy on beginners or play with deliberate limitations (or
handicaps) to help them learn.
Single-player games face a different kind of problem because the player is alone in conver-
sation with a system that can only say as much as its designer has allowed it to. Even so, it's
possible for the creators of a game to reveal some of what's going on in the system and give
players control over whether it offers more risk of frustration or boredom.
