How to Study Hard Gameplay and Game Design

Video game difficulty can mean different things for everyone. Some people can only relax if a game is testing them every which way, and there are others who just want to breeze through a game and treat it as an extended movie or TV show. For games designed around reflex-driven gameplay, if you want the game to resonate with fans, then there must be some meat on the gameplay bone for them. In the last few years with developers furthering their chase of Hollywood and “cinematic” experiences, the conflict between story and gameplay has grown. Whether this is from trying to balance the “gamey” elements with a serious story or wanting to engage both the story fans and hardcore gameplay ones with a single title. For developers who are trying to have it both ways, they tend to create an experience that is all over the place — where “easy” mode has no gameplay, and the highest challenge is a borderline masochistic ordeal with no attempt at balancing. I want to stop here for a second and say that if you design a difficulty level that is so hard that your play testers can’t finish it or no one on the design team, then you may not be creating a fair and balanced difficulty. As I’ve said many times before, there is a difference between fair and challenging and unfair and brutal difficulty. The games that get this right create a title that is challenging but still provides players with the means of success within the gameplay. If the only way to succeed is to break the game or use exploits to get past challenges, then that is a failure from the designer. <a href="https://medium.com/@GWBycer/how-to-study-hard-gameplay-and-game-design-f7cf2fabe6e7">Learn More</a>