Blogs - Gold5Games

Now that our game Arcane Golf has been out for a week, and we've released a number of small updates, we wanted to share our thoughts on game balancing as indie devs. This is something a lot of indie devs might experience with small tester teams, so I thought it was worth discussing- please share your own experiences in the comments below (gamers and devs alike).

In the days leading up to Arcane Golf's release, we at Gold5Games began to panic. "Our game is too easy! What if people beat it really fast and just refund it?!" On multiple play-throughs, we were able to complete all 200 levels in under 2 hours. It was a nightmare. We consoled ourselves in the thought that we had just gotten too good at our own game, and shipped "as-is." We were right. We just didn't know how right.

In the hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of playtime leading up to release, we had apparently gotten so good at our game that we were beating the first dungeon alone about 800% faster than our average player. We always wanted our game to appeal to both hardcore and casual players in a "just keep trying, you'll get better" kind of way. We made restarting a level quick and painless, and there are no penalties or checkpoints to restart to. Just try, try, and try again. Levels are pretty quick, so even if you almost beat a level and then fail, you've only lost a few seconds of playtime.

The problem, as it turns out, is that even with those features, our casual players were still being left behind. We've released 3 patches since launching to improve the play experience for those players, with today's being the biggest toward that aim (pun not intended): The "Casual Aim Mode" option. Now players that might have difficulty aiming quickly and accurately can take all the time in the world lining up their shots. The very first time we read that feature request we were hesitant to implement it because some levels were built entirely around players figuring out how to maximize their time alive, by holding the ball in place at just the right moment for the full timer duration. Ultimately though, we set aside that fear, because making a couple levels too easy is a fair trade-off for making the entire experience more enjoyable for our more casual players. And for any players looking for a bigger challenge, the default mode still has the shot timer. It's just one more way that we allow players to enjoy our game how they want.

We hope this might help any indie devs struggling with difficulty balance in the lead up to their own releases, even if just to add some extra perspective, and we'd love to hear from others who have gone through similar growing pains.

Blending genres can be a great thought experiment that can lead to creative new game ideas, but translating those ideas to an actual working game isn't always so simple.

With our game, Arcane Golf, we started with a typical mini golf game, but played from a different perspective. This immediately presented us with a few difficulties one might not associate with miniature golf. For instance, gravity became much more of a factor from a side perspective than a top down one. Ironically, it was a simple element of golf so typically affected by gravity, that presented the hardest design challenge. The cup, or hole (or in our case the portal) where the ball would be aimed no longer worked like normal. Our gravity, like all gravity, pulls the ball downward (on the Y axis, in our case), but from a side perspective the target for the ball would be in the background (on the Z axis). Instead of a place for the ball to fall into, naturally affected by gravity, we had to create our own physical force separate from gravity to simulate a similar experience to the ball circling the hole and falling in. This simple element is just one of many ways that altering a genre's typical format can ripple outward causing a number of unforeseen effects, and for us it was only the beginning.

Had our game stayed a simple mini golf experience from an a-typical (but not unique) perspective, that might be the end of this post, but as we progressed, our game became more and more unique within that space. We would eventually do away with elements such as "par" (a suggested amount of shots to complete a given hole), in favor of a much more rigid system where we dictated exactly how many shots a level would take- no more, and no less. With this system in place, we were free to explore a number of puzzle-like elements that allowed us to dictate when and where a player could shoot the ball, by limiting their shots or control of the ball, and even giving them more shots as the level progressed through power ups and special creatures. As our repertoire of creatures and powers expanded so too did the play experiences a player might experience on any given hole.

We found that as we designed levels and leveraged all of our new creations, some levels might challenge player's reflexes and timing, while others would challenge their aim, or puzzle solving skills. With this came a whole new set of issues for us as game designers. How do we balance which types of elements and challenges a player will face at any given time, and how do we do that with a variety of player types in mind? Some players that want to play our mini golf game might come to the experience hoping for a game of precise aim and timing, while others might see the puzzle elements and be less interested in the reflexive traits. Others still might want a mini golf game, but not be prepared for the need for quick reflexes since most golf games don't have you changing the ball's direction mid-shot. For every type of player that might try our game based on one of the genres we built it from, we had to consider how we scaled the difficulty.

If any single element scaled too much for a player ill-equipped for it, we risked losing their interest. Ultimately, we settled on focusing on level complexity and creating peaks and valleys instead of a steady increase in difficulty. For instance, if we had a large level built around carefully navigating a maze like structure with precise control and reflexes, we might then give the players a few quicker levels built around less mechanical skills, such as a short puzzle or matter of timing. This way, players wouldn't become frustrated with mechanics they weren't expecting, and would be rewarded for pushing through a level they might not be the best at with a number of levels that better cater to their skills. Of course, as players progress the overall difficulty would increase, but the peaks and valleys would remain, and past experience would encourage players to complete those challenges they weren't originally expecting, especially now that they had learned they could complete them.

We'll find out whether we succeeded in our goals July 26th, when Arcane Golf launches on Steam. Thanks for reading!

Arcane Golf is a game that wants you to complete it. We want everyone that picks the game up to feel like victory is attainable. We ourselves aren't casual gamers, so we also want to make sure the game still feels challenging, and those two concepts can often conflict. So how did we tackle this issue? Three rules:

• Assisted Consistency: There are a lot of variables working together (and against one another) in Arcane Golf. From the physics to the magical powers and traps, the ball can bounce all over and even through things. So when a player starts their attempt at a level, we want them to get consistent results even if their shots aren't perfectly consistent. This means that we try to avoid shots where the player is required to make a 1 in 1000 perfectly timed, powered and aimed shot. We offer a variable window of opportunity and accuracy in each level. Some are more specific because they require less shots, and some are more forgiving because they involve many shots, powers and moving parts. Of course, we never want to make the game so easy that any shot can win so we...
  
  
• Make Losing Easy: When a player fails a shot, we do our best through a number of systems to make it NOT feel punishing. We design levels with missing and failing in mind, so if a player misses they will often end up in a penalty that ends the level immediately, instead of waiting for the ball to stop bouncing. We can't always do this because it can inadvertently reveal the correct path on levels where we want players to figure it out for themselves, so we also use a quick restart system. At the top of the screen is a small restart button that instantly resets the level. It's out of the way, and you're never at risk of accidentally clicking it, but it's easy to use. And that brings us to the final thing we do. There are no long "failure" or "game over" screens if you mess up, and no real loading times to speak of. Even if you don't use the quick restart, the game will, after only a short time, offer you 3 simple choices: "replay," "exit," and if you're playing a level you already beat "next level."
  
  
• Player Choice: In a way, all 3 items on this list offer player choice. We allow shots to have a wider variety of solutions when possible, give players a number of options to quickly restart or move on from a level, and finally we give players a choice about how difficult they want the game to be. Included in our initial launch are over 30 achievements. Most of these allow players to replay a number of levels with special goals in mind. Some are easier than others, but many offer distinct challenges that aren't necessary, but can add considerable replay value for those players seeking a tougher challenge. This is a system we hope to expand on if Arcane Golf is a success, and we've had a blast testing them all out.

Hope you all enjoyed this little entry about our game, and look forward to hearing back from those of you that pick it up on July 26th and beyond!