Challenge is an interesting design approach that many developers struggle to flesh out in a way that betters their projects. In this post we’ll be diving into two games that nail the challenge aesthetic and compare how it benefits both titles in a similarly beneficial way.
The first title we’ll look at is Super Puzzle Platformer. SPP brings forward an excellent twist on the matching color/grouping mechanic introduced by more recent titles like Candy Crush. It provides us with a colorful aesthetic that is a refreshing take on retro classics like Tetris where instead of controlling the falling blocks, we control the mechanic that consumes the grouped up blocks in the form of the player character. The game centers around challenge by providing the player with an increasingly difficult obstacle course in navigating falling blocks and traps.
Another title designed around challenge is This is The Only Level. In contrast to the previous title, this game uses challenge other ways. Each stage changes the input of controls and the win condition. One stage, in particular, the win condition was to literally smash the left and right keys for the player token to move forward and meet the win condition! I really enjoyed how challenge in this title was gauged through puzzling win conditions and hidden control schemes but it felt fair due to the hints always given. Definitely a unique game worthy of recommendation in the way it attempts challenge.
While playing This is The Only Level enlightened experiences about it’s purpose, observing revealed an entire different set of challenges. Observation is an interesting part of game development in that you notice things you might not otherwise when you’re partaking as a player. My partner quickly caught on to each gimmick during each level and adapted their strategies accordingly. I immediately noticed that playing a game is significantly different then observing a player in that your hypotheses immediately get tested as a player. While both experiences test your knowledge as a player, both offer difference advantages towards being an observer or a player that can benefit your grasp on the mechanics. At the end of the day, the player that participates the most seems to have the greatest grasp on mechanics of a title and I look forward to the future tests we have on game titles.
Dev's Game Dev 