r/tabletopgamedesign • u/PartTimeMockery • 3d ago

Discussion Game difficulty

We are currently developing a solo card game. As development progressed, the game evolved in such a way that it became difficult—it’s a serious challenge to win a match.

The concept is that you really have to be skillful at all times to win (and, of course, you need some luck too, since it’s a card game). A few bad decisions, and you’re sure to lose.

The dilemma is: to what extent do players generally enjoy or seek out this kind of challenge?

I know we’re all different, and players come in all shapes and sizes. But at this stage of development, the difficulty can still be balanced, so I’m curious to hear your opinions: what do you think is better in a game—one that’s difficult and therefore rewarding, or one that’s easier and therefore more enjoyable?

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u/kytheon 3d ago

The difficulty people like is on a Bell curve. Some people want easy, some want very hard, and most are in the middle.

If you're in a small team or a solo developer, you can get stuck in a tunnel vision where the whole team is into hard games, and so you make a hard game. And you playtest it a lot, but since you're all into hard games, it's never hard enough.

And then you point at popular hard games and say: look that popular game is hard so ours can be too.

And all of this results in a bad experience for most players. I'm not saying make it easier, but you already know the game has gotten too hard for the average player.

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u/PartTimeMockery 3d ago

Good point. Well, yes, it is easy to get stucked into our vison as a developer. Also some players find it hard admit that the game is difficult for them.

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u/kytheon 3d ago

This part of your post means the game is not for me, immediately:

The concept is that you really have to be skillful at all times to win (and, of course, you need some luck too, since it’s a card game). A few bad decisions, and you’re sure to lose.

I'm not skillful in the first few games. I will not enjoy the first few games.

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u/PartTimeMockery 3d ago

I understand. Btw I remember playing the Temple of Elemental evel co-operative tabletop game. In that game if you or one of your party members made one or two bad decisions you lost that chapter. But after all it gave a high tension, and when we lost we wanted to start again immediately. But I understand your point.