Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 6.15
Intermission screen in
Wonder City
showing the player's choices so far.
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Difficulty is a traditional way of talking about a player's journey through a game: games
start off easy, players deepen their skill and understanding through playing, and then
they take on more difficult challenges. In a simplistic version of this journey, the most
difficult experiences are the pinnacle of what a game can offer. But this is just one way
of looking at the conversation of playing a game.
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When we talk about resistance, we mean the many ways that a player can push into a
game by using verbs and making choices, the ways that a game pushes back by pre-
senting challenges to overcome and consequences for actions, as well as the ways that
a game can pull a player with rewards or open up wider spaces for the player to push
into. Resistance shapes the conversation of a game via a system of rules that the player
can push against.
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Flow is another popular way of talking about the way players encounter resistance in
a game: an engaging experience that hovers between frustration from high levels of
resistance or difficulty on one side, and boredom from the repetition of already mas-
tered tasks on the other. Different games have very different kinds of flow. Some game
creators try to create perfect flow, never allowing frustration or boredom for long.
There are many ways to make interesting games without perfect flow, such as games
that challenge players from the beginning and ask them to overcome frustration.
