The Art of Difficulty

Disclaimer:

Most of the projects that I will be doing are for a game that I am developing on my own code named Project Ninjio. In short, the game is a story action driven role playing game (common referred to as an action RPG). It features 2 uniquely styled areas, one in which the cities are built to flow along with nature, and the other where the cites are hyper futuristic. The game is set in a futuristic China, where after a large war, the country is split into the two settings described above. The game is built in the Unity 3D game engine.

The Art of Difficulty

Introduction

As I move to finish up both Project Ninjio and Void to the phase where I would be able to demo them at District Arts Festival, I have carefully been paying attention to the difficulty that each game presents on a per-level basis. This is all in an effort to make both games as playable and enjoyable as possible for the demos, because I believe that no one would like be stuck on level one of Void while to rest of the levels that follow it are much easier in nature. What I have been doing, in essence, is balancing the difficulty curves for the game to be both enjoyable and challenging.

A difficulty curve graph

What Is A Difficulty Curve?

A difficulty curve is simply a graph which plots the player's skill level and challenge level on two axises. Ideally the player should be kept in between the two curves to maintain both interest and to challenge players.

One way that I have been working on balancing this curve in Void is asking myself what levels are giving my playtesters the most issues when playing through them. I then have been ranking those levels and have been changing the order of the levels to suit those rankings.

This week's work log:

Monday April 16th: Finished up looking at classmate’s End of Marking period blog posts.

Tuesday April 17th: Started work on the Game Learn Work Area.

Wednesday April 18th: Did some UI work for the Game Learn Area.

Thursday April 19th: Absent from class but did do some light work for the Game Learn Area.

Friday April 20th: Did some more work on the Game Learn Area.