44
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As a solo developer, how best to avoid underestimating the difficulty of my game due to knowledge/experience of it?
We can attack this from a couple of different angles:
Design Theory
A tool I like to use with my students is a Skill Atoms diagram, as introduced in Daniel Cook's article "The Chemistry of Game ...
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43
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Avoid player getting stuck with underpowered character
I think you should embrace the choice to deliberately underpower themselves as another expression of player autonomy. This is a play pattern you'll often see in speedrunning communities, or players ...
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41
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What is the design rationale behind hard content that's limited to only a couple attempts per week?
In addition to the excellent existing answers, there are a couple of other ways this type mechanic can boost retention.
One is by helping to keep a cohort of players on par with one another.
When ...
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38
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How to make a 'One Hit and Dead' platformer feel fair
That's the trade-off to this kind of game play design, the player is expected to die many times to learn mechanics and Boss abilities. To make those deaths palatable to the player I have a few ideas:
...
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23
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How to make a 'One Hit and Dead' platformer feel fair
In addition to Patrick's answer:
Time it takes to retry needs to be short, borderline instantaneous. Take Super Meat Boy as an example. Compare with Teslagrad's 4 second death animation.
Time it ...
18
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What is the design rationale behind hard content that's limited to only a couple attempts per week?
It improves player retention.
When you expect the player to take a lot of attempts to overcome a challenge, and you only give them a limited number of attempts per real-world timespan, then players ...
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17
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Avoid player getting stuck with underpowered character
One of my favourite games from childhood, Zeliard, solved this particularly well I think. The player could always go back to previous worlds, re-visit old shops, look for missed treasure, etc. The ...
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17
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How to solve the “stuck on a level, the next level is locked” problem
One very common mechanism is getting stars or medals for level completion - 3 stars or gold medal for the best solution (or time below X etc), 2 with a worse one and 1 star for something that barely ...
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13
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What is the design rationale behind hard content that's limited to only a couple attempts per week?
Another aspect that hasn't been mentioned yet is basically a variation on "security through obscurity". In this case, it's difficulty through obscurity. The content is hard because you can't ...
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13
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How to determine what difficulty is right for the game?
Playtest, playtest, playtest.
Get testers from your target demographic, let them play the game, and see which parts of the game are so difficult they are frustrating and which parts are so easy they ...
- 123k
10
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Accepted
How can I test if my rage game's hardest levels are achievable?
One major strategy that helps is something we call level design metrics.
Here you work out what kinds of level design arrangements are navigable, by testing them out in isolation.
We'll often build ...
- 141k
10
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How to solve the “stuck on a level, the next level is locked” problem
Here’s my contribution. These are methods I’ve seen used. I do not necessarily like some of these methods either for my games or in the abstract, but for completeness I think it’s worth listing them.
...
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9
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How to make a 'One Hit and Dead' platformer feel fair
The best thing you can do when dealing with situations like these is to study other games that share mechanics and systems with what you intend. Given your description, the two off the top of my head ...
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9
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What is the design rationale behind hard content that's limited to only a couple attempts per week?
Basically, unlike in most parts of many games where the goal is at least partly to teach you how to understand the game mechanics, the primary goal of limited tries is to cause emotional reactions.
...
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9
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As a solo developer, how best to avoid underestimating the difficulty of my game due to knowledge/experience of it?
Unfortunately there is no way to get the difficulty curve of a game right without playtesters.
After designing a couple games and witnessing how they fell apart in the hands of the playtesters, you ...
- 123k
8
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Accepted
How can I prepare the different difficulty levels for my game?
There is never just one way to do things in game development.
But the usual unspoken consensus between developer and player is that "medium" represents the way the game is meant to be played. So you ...
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7
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Avoid player getting stuck with underpowered character
There are many solutions:
Allow backtracking. Two approaches:
Allow grinding. Many games allow you to replay old stages to grind for money or experience to get strong enough to clear the next stage. ...
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6
votes
What is the design rationale behind hard content that's limited to only a couple attempts per week?
Another reason not yet listed is to increase communication. With limited attempts, what you do outside of the attempts gains value. Sharing info online, talking with guildmates, watching runs on ...
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5
votes
How to design simple turn based combat system with multiple difficulties?
Your core combat mechanics seem to be very simplistic. If I understood you correctly, all the player does is pick one of two strategies and hope for the best. There is not much room for skill ...
- 123k
5
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Avoid player getting stuck with underpowered character
Offer the shop also at the beginning of each level but with a caveat. You have to complete a short bonus level at (current difficulty - 1) to access it. It could be about rescuing the shop keeper or ...
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4
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How to solve the “stuck on a level, the next level is locked” problem
Branching
You can have alternates of level 1 equivalent. For instance: A1, B1, C1. Progressing past through any level 1 unlocks all branches of level 2.
The mechanic or challenge introduced in each ...
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3
votes
How to increase difficulty of a catching game
First of all, punish the player for missing multiple objects in a row, so they can not just ignore objects that seem difficult to catch.
Increase the falling speed and frequency, so the player needs ...
- 123k
3
votes
Accepted
Balancing stats for combat difficulty in RPG Maker MZ
If there is one evidently best strategy the game is not balanced. Similarly, to make combat interesting, it must have meaningful decisions. Hopefully you can find ways to achieve that in this answer.
...
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3
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Balancing stats for combat difficulty in RPG Maker MZ
Interesting battles require interesting choices for the player to make. An interesting choice is one where the player has multiple options of what to do, all (or at least some) of the options seem ...
- 123k
3
votes
How can I prepare the different difficulty levels for my game?
Basically to define a base difficulty to scale (whether down or up), you must considerate a playable difficulty, one that engages the player on your game, with challenges (peak points) and points on ...
- 1,431
3
votes
How to test if a level is passable?
My advice would be to test each obstacle independently. Since you are using a level editor, make the best out of it by manually moving the player to the obstacle in the editor and then try it. If you ...
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3
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How to solve the “stuck on a level, the next level is locked” problem
The player getting stuck on a level is usually not a problem with that particular level, but rather with the levels that came before. Their job was to prepare the player for the challenge. Teach them ...
- 123k
2
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How to test if a level is passable?
Without knowing more about your game, this is the solutions I see available to you:
Get better at your game, and make sure that you can actually finish the levels by hand.
Game testers tend to become ...
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2
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How to test if a level is passable?
It helps if you understand your game mechanics very well to gain an understanding of what is and is not possible.
For example, knowing the acceleration and maximum speed of your player character ...
- 123k
2
votes
How to design simple turn based combat system with multiple difficulties?
The system as described is inheritly flawed and does not allow for much skill/difficulty.
Any encounter results in player death or victory, nothing else. And the player also has only the two modes to ...
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