For my game, I’ve had three different difficulty modes, with the hardest difficulty mode locked until the player beats the game on normal difficulty. I wanted to share my thoughts on how well that went, and also in general share some decisions I’ve made about the difficulty progression in my game and how well they were received by the players (at least according to the streamers I’ve watched).

Please note: obviously, this post contains "spoilers" for my game. If you have some free time, you can try playing my game without spoiling it at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/pyramidion

Including an easy mode for the game

This was my first Ludum Dare, but before starting, I’ve read some advice saying most players have very little patience for the game, so I should make sure not to make the game too difficult so that a very casual gamer can get through it. At the middle of the second day of the jam, I had the game completely playable and finished balancing the game for normal difficulty mode. I then let my wife, who’s not a gamer, try to play through it. I saw that she couldn’t even get past the first level. I realized the game might be too difficult for casual gamers, and made the easy version.

The guidelines I had for the easy version: 1. Minimal randomness. Enemies should be predictable and easily avoidable. This lead to the two types of snakes - walking snakes and jumping snakes. The walking snakes never jump, and almost always chase the player. The jumping snakes always chase the player, and jump when they get close to the player. This is in contrast to normal difficulty snakes who jump/walk randomly. 2. My wife (non gamer) should be able to complete the game within a few minutes.

Walking snake:

Jumping snake:

What went well with easy mode

• Easy mode ended up serving as a great tutorial for normal mode! I saw many cases where streamers were stumped with normal mode (usually because they didn’t realize they need to go under the snakes when they jump), changed to easy, and after finishing easy it was very easy for them to go through normal.

• Many more streamers got to the end of the game thanks to easy mode. As predicted, many streamers (and I assume other players as well) didn’t have the patience to go through the game at normal difficulty. However, easy difficulty allowed them to get to the end game and have a much more positive experience with the game.

What didn’t go well with easy mode

• Many streamers (and I assume players as well) only finished the game on easy mode and complained the game is too easy (as I said above, easy mode was supposed to be easy enough so that even a non-gamer can get through it). I'm not sure what could be done about this, except maybe give a message at the end of easy mode reminding the player that normal mode is much more challenging.

Difficulty progression for normal mode

For normal mode, I had one main guideline for my design: * Enemies should have random elements, but be predictable enough to avoid. My basic rule was that I should balance the game so that I could consistently beat normal mode with only losing up to one life. If I’m losing more than that even though I know the correct “strategy” to go through the game, it means the enemies are too random.

I made three main mechanisms to support the guideline above: * I made the snake give a little hiss and wait a moment before jumping, to allow enough time for the player to adjust their movement to go under the snakes while they jump. * I made the snakes significantly slower when they “random walk” (they are faster when they’re chasing the player). The slower random walk allowed the player to cancel their jump if a snake changes direction as they try to jump over them. * I made the snakes “communicate with each other”, so the snakes actively try to avoid a situation where the player could not avoid one snake without bumping into the other.

However, I found out that I can’t put more than a single snake in the smaller higher levels of the pyramid without making the game too difficult. This meant that only the 2nd level of the pyramid had more than a single snake, making it the hardest level on medium difficulty.

Normal mode snake:

What went well with normal mode

• Many streamers felt the design was fair, and commented that the snakes are challenging but predictable enough so they feel it’s their fault when they die.
• Good learning curve - I saw many streamers getting better as they played through the game (as I said above, especially for the ones that tried easy before going into normal)
• Having the most difficult level be the 2nd level (and then levels 3-5 being much easier) actually made the game much less frustrating because after players finally figured out how to go through the 2nd level, they usually passed levels 3 to 5 without dying and were able to complete the game. If I’ve made level 5 much harder, I’m afraid many people would be really frustrated with dying after going through the entire pyramid.

What didn't go well with normal mode

• Many streamers/players did complain the game was unfair and that they do not feel the deaths of the player was their fault, complaining the snakes move too randomly and are unpredictable
• Some players could not figure out that you can go below the snakes when they jump (almost everyone figured this out in easy mode, which is why easy mode made normal mode so much easier).
• Many players complained that the hitboxes were too aggressive. Next time I’ll definitely look into making the hitboxes a bit more forgiving.
• Some players complained that the last level in the game was the easiest level, making the difficulty progression a bit weird for normal mode. I still tend to think it’s a good thing to have the most difficult level early, but I’m not sure. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Including a hard mode for the game

I made the hard mode at the last minute - basically spent the last 3 hours before the deadline to draw the bird sprite, program the bird enemy, and balance the hard difficulty mode. Because of that hard mode is not too well balanced, and might be significantly easier than normal mode.

Bird enemy:

What went well with hard mode

• Hard mode was not just “more of the same”. It actually included a new enemy (the bird) which looked different and had a completely different behavior. I think this made players (judging by streamers reactions) feel actually rewarded for completing normal difficulty, as they got significant new content for the game.
• The fact that hard mode was easier than normal mode was probably not good for difficulty progression of the game, but was kind of nice for streaming, because it usually took a long time for streamers to be able to get to hard mode, and I assume at that point they had much less patience to go through the game many times, so it was nice that they were usually able to complete it within the first few attempts.
• The last level of hard mode was very easy, but looked kind of crazy (with both the snake and the bird jumping around inside a very small space), and made a lot of streamers laugh. I think it was a good ending for the game (to the select few who actually got that far).

What didn’t go well with hard mode

• I spent quite a while designing an additional enemy character that was exclusive to hard mode. The fact that it was locked until finishing normal mode, means most players never got to see this enemy, which was kind of frustrating for me. I still think it was worth it (see my point above about rewarding players who got this far), but it was kind of frustrating, especially when watching the first few streams and realizing how few people actually get far enough in the game to see hard mode.
• As I said, hard mode was probably not hard enough, but surprisingly I didn’t hear anyone complain about this one :) Probably by the time people get to the end of hard mode, they are pretty happy the game is done and don’t want it to be any harder.

TL;DR

Had a lot of fun spicing up the game with different difficulty modes and seeing how people progress through them. I think locking up the hardest difficulty was a good decision as it allowed people to feel rewarded for completing the game. A lot of people complained about the game being too difficult (mainly people who only played through normal mode and did not try easy mode), but also a lot of people complained about the game being too easy (mostly those who finished the game on easy but then never progressed to normal).

Would be interested to hear your thoughts about difficulty, in general in Ludum Dare games, or in my game specifically. If you want to try out my game, please do so (and I'd appreciate any comments or feedback) at: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/pyramidion

One last shoutout

Thank you to all the streamers who allowed me to watch them play my game! This has been invaluable for my learning experience. Special thanks to the following streamers: @bigbosserndog, @ursagames, @outstar, @saoi-games, @firesplash-entertainment, @wertle, @rebecca-kremer, @tigerj, @jtn191, @messinabrothers, @mike-inprinciple. I tried to include as many as I could find, but if you're not included and you streamed my game it's probably because I couldn't find your Ludum Dare user. In any case thank you everyone who is out there playing and streaming games, you guys are awesome!!