Crimson Skies was an absolute BLAST! Blowing bits of blimps off, expose a weak spot, then exploit it!

Apparently, this was too challenging for some and Crimson Skies 2 saw a hideous change where they removed that feature. The difficulty suddenly dropped as the big battle blimp became just an easy target to unload on. :-(

If they felt this is necesary, I would have liked to have seen a “Difficulty” setting AND a “Technical Challenge” setting where those of us that like the air strategy of attacking a blimp was the primary fun.

CS2 was a crushing disapointment and I gave up after the first couple of levels.

Medals, optional missing objectives, secrets, collectibles, level (and game) completion percentages – all of these allow you to have more than one level of difficulty on the same map at the same time, which can substantially reduce QA time and other design problems that come from a situation where you need to run the same content more than once during testing.

The nice thing about doing it that way instead of dynamically adjusting difficulty is that it allows the player to decide how difficult they want the game, in real time in a highly contextualized way. If the one section is too frustrating, then they can ignore the side missions and just get things done. If another is going really well, they can reach for the gold.

Yes, that was great!

> Other games have done reactive difficulty

Also a great thing when implemented correctly. Many games lack this feature entirely, or implement it poorly, or rely on it excessively and miss problems that snag inexperienced gamers whose problems extend beyond, for example, having sufficient health.

> I went to a fascinating talk at the Austin Game Conference last year
> by a guy from an interactivity think tank. They did a lot of focus
> tests to evaluate all kinds of issues, but one thing they learned
> was that players responded best when, having mastered a new weapon,
> enemy, or other form of gameplay, the game then allowed them an ample
> period of time in which to display that mastery before introducing
> the next new challenge or level of difficulty… Conversely, they
> found that games where the difficulty slope was a constant, always
> staying right in step with the player’s growing abilities, were
> great at keeping gamers playing in the moment. But once the session
> was ended, the player was much less likely to pick up that game again
> because of the perception that it was a lot of work.

Makes sense, and yes, sounds like a fascinating talk! I’m sorry I missed it. Thank you for mentioning it.

An important thing to remember is that difficulty is expressed across time played, rather than being a static measure. I went to a fascinating talk at the Austin Game Conference last year by a guy from an interactivity think tank. They did a lot of focus tests to evaluate all kinds of issues, but one thing they learned was that players responded best when, having mastered a new weapon, enemy, or other form of gameplay, the game then allowed them an ample period of time in which to display that mastery before introducing the next new challenge or level of difficulty. So once you’ve learned how to use the chaingun, I should give you a few minutes of chaingun-fodder enemies so you can display your new mastery and revel in it. Only then should I start stepping you up to the next plateau.

Conversely, they found that games where the difficulty slope was a constant, always staying right in step with the player’s growing abilities, were great at keeping gamers playing in the moment. But once the session was ended, the player was much less likely to pick up that game again because of the perception that it was a lot of work. So perfectly matched difficulty is great at making you feel “in the zone” but can actually inhibit you wanting to play again later on.

So: difficulty should increase as the game goes on, to avoid becoming boring. It should not increase steadily, because that discourages subsequent play due to a feeling of it being hard work. It should instead hit plateaus at which new mastery can be displayed.

Quality, yes, though I’m not sure how useful it is to think of it in that regard (i.e. would you ever want to make a low-quality game?) :-)

I actually try to avoid looking at this from a genre perspective. Yes, there are some people who are simply uninterested in certain genres, and it probably doesn’t make sense to bend over backwards to make them interested. My wife doesn’t like horror films, and it’s unlikely she ever will. But that sort of thinking can be a crutch for game developers who dismiss whole groups of potential customers as “not interested in this kind of game.” If you make a game highly accessible to someone who has never played a game of that type before, you’ve covered your bases — you’ll get the people who are more open-minded, as opposed to worrying about the people who aren’t. There are plenty of the former category who are being neglected today.

Donkey Kong Country is an example of a traditionally hardcore game genre (action platformer) that was made accessible and fun for casual players, but it works the other way too. Uno (XLBA) is clearly a casual game, but does such a great job with presentation and quality that hardcore gamers have no trouble finding value and enjoyment in it.