A Game Design Vocabulary: Exploring the Foundational Principles Behind Good Game Design

Chapter 6. Resistance

Difficulty is one of the oldest ways to look at a player’s journey through a game. A novice player usually starts with simple challenges: learn to jump over this obstacle, understand that pushing the joystick to the right will move her avatar to the right. Even in multiplayer games like chess or golf, a new player will often take on easy opponents: other novice players, or skilled players who are “taking it easy” on the novice by playing with a handicap or deliberately playing below their level of skill. As the player masters some simple verbs, she’s faced with more difficult challenges.

Push and Pull

As a beginning designer making Lode Runner levels, I had a naive idea of difficulty: harder is better, and the ultimate ...