General question about game design .. adjusting level difficulties

mshuraih

hey guys .. I am working on level based color matching puzzle game .. after few month of facing technical and programming difficulties .. now reach the point when setting up levels .. the problem when u work on the game alone its hard to get the difficulty of the levels right .. as I make the game and become expert in it naturally I tend to make levels may be too hard .. but then if you make them too easy wont be good either .. i understand the need for testers but before you actually get to the testing phase while building the levels any advice I can use ?

NNterprises

You said it yourself, it all depends on the player. Is he as skilled as you or is he such a beginner...

Make it so the easy stuff can be skipped after completion for the expert people, but you always need an easy/starting point

tatiang

It sounds like you need early-stage testers. A friend or family member is a great resource for this kind of thing. I have my kids test my apps. They aren't the perfect audience skill-wise but pretty close so I get good feedback right away. Also, TestFlight is relatively easy to set up and hugely rewarding if you get the right people (i.e. people willing to give specific, critical feedback, not just "I like it!").

Hopscotch

@mshuraih

1 - Make fun levels
2 - Use Play-testers to rate the difficulty of each level
3 - Rearrange the levels to progress something like in the graph below. This keeps the game challenging and gives the player a "I am good" feeling after completing a particularly hard level.

monsterhybrid

I sent you a message let me know if it helped.

Toque

I like a couple easy levels to learn mechanics, then ramp up the challenge but really depends on the game. I generally find most games difficult/ making my game easier.

AlchimiaStudios

@Hopscotch said:
@mshuraih

1 - Make fun levels
2 - Use Play-testers to rate the difficulty of each level
3 - Rearrange the levels to progress something like in the graph below. This keeps the game challenging and gives the player a "I am good" feeling after completing a particularly hard level.

Yep. I watched a video recently with Jonathon Blow where he essentially said the same thing.