Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design

Special Design Considerations for Action Games

We've already covered most of the design considerations for action games in this chapter, but there is one important point that we have not yet considered. If we compare a game such as Defender with a game such as Super Mario World (aside from the cutesy graphics of the latter), when just watching them being played, one would appear to be more difficult than the other.

Defender is a very unforgiving game. It tolerates no mistakes on the part of the player. If the player makes a mistake, then the player loses a life. End of story.

Super Mario World, however, is a lot more tolerant of player mistakes. The difficulty of some of the tougher levels are on a par with those of Defender, so it's not just ...