Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 11.4
If relative difficulty
is flat, perceived
difficulty goes down
as the player gains
experience.
Absolute
Difficulty
Power
Provided to
Meet
Challenges
Relative
Difficulty
In-Game
Experience
the Player
Has Had
Perceived
Difficulty
Time
Even if the perceived difficulty of a game rises only slowly, you do want the player
to feel he attains bigger and bigger accomplishments as he goes. To achieve this,
you must take into account all the factors pertaining to difficulty already discussed.
Use the following guidelines:
■
Increase the absolute difficulty of challenges over time.
■
Increase the power available to the player to meet those challenges at a some-
what lower rate. (See the later section “Understanding Positive Feedback.”)
■
Be sure the player doesn't gain experience so fast that challenges start to feel as
if they're getting easier rather than harder. Space challenges so that their relative
difficulty increases slightly faster than the in-game experience increases.
NOTE
In a game
with more than five
levels, the rate of
difficulty should not
increase as steeply as
that shown in Figure
11.5. Also note that the
figure doesn't illustrat-
ing the pacing within
a level, only the
general progress of
the whole game.
■
Play-test your game to look for any dramatic spikes or dips in the perceived diffi-
culty of its challenges so you can iron them out. A sharp, unanticipated rise in the
game's difficulty will discourage many players and may prevent them from finish-
ing the game even if the difficulty quickly falls again.
■
Start each game level at a perceived difficulty somewhat lower than that at
which the preceding level ended, and increase the difficulty during the course of
each level as well. Each game level should also take a little longer to play through
and have a slightly steeper rate of difficulty growth than the one before. A graph
explains this process best;
Figure 11.5
illustrates a game with only five levels. This
