A different approach to game difficulty

25 October 2018

A different approach to game difficulty

The concept of game difficulty is always a challenge for developers. Games that are too easy won’t get played. Games that are too hard will frustrate the users and they will quit. You have to find that right balance of difficulty where the player feels challenged yet feels as if they are progressing.

To compound matters, no two players are the same. Some need an easier game, others need a lot more challenge. How do you strike that balance? Alex Vu, pixel artist and game designer working for Fine Monkeys, LLC has contemplated the problem, and discusses some solutions in his blog post A Different Approach to Difficulty.

In this post, he talks about the problems with simple difficulty modes as well as Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) and offers a deep dive into Organic Difficulty and Effectiveness-Ludoaesthetics Spectrum. This advice might just make your game more interesting to your players.