sponsors gamedev.net search:

Getting devious Of course, anyone can just use the rules. There are however some "special tricks" that can be used, which help making parts of the game harder, or increase the player's tolerance to frustration caused by failure. Music The music has an unconscious effect on the player. The faster the tempo, the faster the player wants to move on. Using this trick too often will naturally spoil it. A good way to use this is through playing a slow music throughout the level, and when the player reaches the checkpoint before a critical section, start playing a faster music. The player will almost always start acting faster. This happened a lot in Crash Bandicoot, for instance. When Crash picks up three "aku-aku" shields in a row, he becomes invulnerable and a special, fast tribal music starts playing. Although sometimes players don't even need that invulnerability to move on (it doesn't prevent you from falling into pits), they usually start moving on faster, misjump, and end up at the previous checkpoint. The "Almost there" effect When the player needs to go through a difficult obstacle, and hasn't encountered checkpoints for a moment, he might feel miserable if he dies and needs to start over again, and even quit the game (I have seen my brother angrily turn off his Playstation many times because of this). But if he saw another checkpoint on the other side of the obstacle just before having to start over again, he'd usually come back asking for more. this is the "almost there" effect. Besides, the sight of a new checkpoint when the player is desperate for one might make him lose his concentration. The "almost there" effect also makes that last obstacle in a row harder, because the player is thinking more about what is behind the obstacle, than about that spiked wall closing in on him... Changing the rules So, the player has been jumping over similar-looking holes and dodging fireball traps for a while now, and he's getting really good at it. This is bad news for you : your game is becoming easier. The cure? Change the setting : the way obstacles react, the way the player controls his character, the goals, add in some rules or take some away. Why not add homing fireballs? Why not reuse that hole with jumping crocodiles from level 2? Of course, the designer shouldn't be jumping out from behind something shouting "Surprise!" as the player frustratingly discovers things are not the same, but should introduce patiently the new features instead. Returning to previous settings, however, allows the designer to skip this introduction, and hopefully the player might have lost the grasp of this previous setting in time... Almost all games have distinct game locations (outside, inside a castle, etc...). Sonic The Hedgehog 2 made a great job of having various levels. In zone 2 you had to avoid falling in the water with well-timed jumps, in zone 3 you had to actually go through the water for a moment, in zone 4 you could gamble for rings (and get Time Overs), in zone 5 there was lava and weird jumping, in zone 6 you had to activate levers, in zone 7 you had to slide down ramps, and survive in an oil ocean... However players did not return to previous settings, so the game had to constantly keep introducing new features, leaving less room for actual difficulty. Removing the tips Suppose you, as a player, need to jump on a platform when it's green, but not when it's red. If the platform turns yellow, or emits a sound just before turning green, you'd have a great tip about when to start jumping. If it merely changes from green to red, you have to time the start of your jump yourself. Similarly, if there is a "hint" (something special that happens) at a moment when the player should take an action ( platform B going up when player should jump on platform A) then by taking it away you are making the game harder. Sometimes, jumps are extremely hard to time, and if the hints are removed correctly the player will have a hard time figuring out. Pitfall : the Mayan Adventure featured stones that went in and out from walls, above a tar pit, where the player had to jump on a stone, then wait for the next stone to go out. The time the stones spent outside of the wall was too long to allow the player to predict when it would be going back in (something like 5 seconds). There was a sound that played just before they retracted, which marked the moment for a new jump. While players could handle the obstacle correctly with this hint, if the sound was turned off they had a real hard time going through it. Funny death It's always a good idea to make the player laugh, especially when he's just been blown to smithereens by a mistimed dodge. Humour is your friend! Add fun-looking things, surprise the player with unusual situations (a killer tiger nicknamed "Tiny") so he'll have a good laugh. Once this is done, he'll try suceeding. If he fails, he will think "I wasn't serious enough" instead of "That game won't let me win". Conclusion I provided in this article some of the rules that apply when creating difficulty in a platform game, but by no means could I have listed all of them. Designing a game takes much more than standing by the rules : it requires creativity, imagination, critical sense and above all a true love for games. Making your game have an unique feel is as important as the way it plays, and the general situations I have listed can look like anything you want as long as they retain their functionality. Create a game you love playing.

Contents   Difficulty 101   Increasing chances of failiure   Getting devious   Printable version   Discuss this article