One thing to always keep in mind is difficulty progression and how other factors in your game might affect it. Eg: If the player gains a heal ability then the the difficulty should ramp up.
Another common error is starting a game with an unrealistic difficulty level. One should start off easy first and progress to a higher difficulty later. This not only gives the player more time to get accustomed to the controls, but also gives them time to learn the mechanics of the game.
Eg: In my game Floor 13 you have to defeat 13 floors of enemies which starts with a simple melee enemy but gradually scales up to a boss battle with lasers and projectiles. This enables the player to learn about ranged enemies, tank enemies, stage enemies, and gives them time to practise combat.
Finally, setting the difficulty can be a challenge in of itself. One issue is that the ability to judge its difficulty from a player’s perspective is almost impossible since you’re the game designer. This is especially annoying in puzzle games. The key thing is to think as if you are a new player and try not to overcomplicate things without sufficient time for them to learn. (linking back to difficulty scaling)
Very interesting trying to find all the different ramps and their connections for any given palette. Really helps in understanding how all the combinations of colour create unique overall colours. Here I’m using Polyduck’s japanese-woodblock palette as an example
Here these 2 balls seem to be very different despite how only 1 colour has changed
The leftmost ball appears more orange, as brown is just dark orange, but also more desaturated overall. The right ball is much brighter and warmer due to the red completing the colour shift.
Basically remember that you should think about the whole ramp, not just one colour at a time, as colours influence each other nearby. It’s like this optical illusion (both squares are actually the same) but far more subtle.
Try and experiment with unusual ramps, they can yield interesting results
Very different hues, but works surprisingly well!
Was going to post this on weekly art challenge but this is probably better. Although I’m not sure how well this falls under “game design” lol
I definitely follow specifically this rule completely to heart at all times and do not make impossibly hard bosses and gameplay that drive people, including myself, completely and utterly, incomprehensibly insane.
