This document discusses various concepts for balancing games such as providing the right level of difficulty, complexity, and smooth learning curves to allow players to progress from novice to expert. It also covers techniques for balancing multiplayer games, including handicaps, symmetry, and team balance to give all players an equal chance to succeed. Game mastery, empowerment, and rhythm-based actions are addressed as ways to promote player engagement.

1. Level 9
David Mullich
Game Mechanics
The Los Angeles Film School

3. Game Narrative
 Narrative Structure
 Cut Scenes
 Ultra-Powerful Event

4. Emotional Immersion
 Gameplay Immersion
 Anticipation
 Tension

5. Role-Playing
 Characters
 Character Development
 Player-Controlled Character Development
 Role-Playing

6. Story-Telling
 Creative Control
 Illusion of Influence
 Freedom of Choice
 Story-Telling

8. What Is Game Balance?

9. Game Balance
 Single Player Games: The game’s difficulty
is matched to the player’s skill level
throughout the entire game.
 Multiplayer Games: All players have an
equal opportunity to win regardless of their
starting position, resources, goals, or skill
level.

10. The Fighting Game Problem
Extra Credits: How To Teach Complicated Mechanics

11. What Was The Main Message Of This
Video?

12. Making Fighting Games More
Accessible
 Single Player Mode
 Add Actions Through Leveling
 Provide Clear Choices For Actions
 Give Hints About Best Actions

13. Does This Make The Game EASIER?

14. Complexity vs. Difficulty
Difficulty: The skill required to successfully
reach a goal.
Complexity: The number of actions required
to successfully reach a game goal.

15. Right Level of Difficulty
The right level of difficulty is the one intended
by the game designer.

16. Why Designers Want Right Level of
Difficulty
 If challenges are too easy, players will
become Bored
 If they are too difficult, players will become
Frustrated
Other reasons:
 Combine Tension and Empowerment
 Promote Game Mastery

17. Difficulty Level Design
Considerations
 Which challenges should be made easier?
 Which challenges should be made harder?
 Which challenges should occur at another
point in the game?

18. Right Level of Complexity
The right level of complexity is the one
intended by the game designer.

19. Why Designers Want Right Level of
Complexity
• Influences Level of Difficulty
• Makes Game Mastery easier to achieve
• Supports Experimenting and Constructive
Play
Warning! Can lead to:
 Analysis Paralysis

20. What Determines Complexity
 Actions need to reach a goal, particularly if
rhythm-based
 Game elements the player must interact
with
 Relationships game elements have with
each other
 Narrative structure

22. Balancing For Skill In Multiplayer
Games
Extra Credits: The Link from Optimal Power to Strategy

23. What Was The Main Message Of This
Video?

24. Balancing Effects
Rules and effects that lessen the difference of
value used to measure competition between
players.

25. Pre-Emptive Balancing Effects
• Handicaps
• Making Extended Actions into Interruptible
Actions
• Delayed Effects
• Selectable Set of Goals
• Diminishing Returns

26. Correcting Balancing Effects
Favoring Disadvantaged Players through:
 Better Rewards for Completing Goals
 New/Improved Abilities
 Shared Rewards
 Spawning
 Turn Taking
Handicapping Advantaged Players through:
 Worse Penalties for Failing Goals
 Lost/Decreased Abilities

27. Why Designers Use Balancing Effects
 Smooth Learning Curves
 Right Level of Difficulty
 Perceived Chance to Succeed
 Mitigates Asymmetric Abilities

28. Balancing Effects Design
Considerations
 Is the balancing effect designed to be pre-
emptive or correcting?
 Is limited foresight used to mask an
imbalance?
 Are there more than two players or teams
competing?

29. Symmetry
Symmetrical relations exist between players
regarding the goals, resources, and actions they
can perform.

30. Why Designers Use Symmetry
Allows:
 Player Balance (set-up only)
 Team Balance (set-up only)
Supports:
 Game Mastery

31. Symmetry Design Considerations
 Abilities
 Goals
 Resources
 Teams

32. How To Balance Turn-Based Games
Extra Credits: First Move Advantage

33. What Was The Main Message Of This
Video?

34. Rock-Paper-Scissors
Sets of three or more actions form cycles where
every action has an advantage over another
action.

35. Rock-Paper-Scissors in Quick Games
 Choices tend to have immediate
consequences
 Played repeated so that a Metagame
evolves of gaining knowledge of
opponent’s strategies

36. Rock-Paper-Scissors in Long-Term
Games
 Investments gain Asymmetric Abilities
 Players gain information about other
players by
 Public Information
 Sending Units into Fog of War

37. Why Designers Use Rock-Paper-
Scissors
Provides:
 Symmetry between actions or tactics
Promotes:
 Tension about chosen action/tactic
Supports:
 Game Mastery through knowledge of
successful actions/tactics

38. Handicaps
Making gameplay easier for certain players to
ensure that all players have the same chance to
succeed.

39. How Handicaps Are Provided
 Asymmetric Abilities
 Asymmetric Resource Distribution
 Asymmetric Goals
 Reversible Actions For Novices
 Reconfigurable Game Worlds

40. Why Designers Use Handicaps
Provides:
 Right Level of Difficulty in Multiplayer
Games
 Player or Team Balance
 Trans-Game Information
Warning! Conflicts with:
 Symmetry

41. Ways For Players To Set Handicaps
 Individual levels of difficulty
 Individual resources or abilities
 Individual negative consequences to be limited
or ignored
 Different thresholds for evaluation functions
 Individual bonuses to score values
 Individual starting locations or skill advantages
 Take back actions and perform other actions

42. Team Balance
Teams have equal chances of succeeding
with actions in a game or winning a game.

43. Ways To Provide Team Balance
Before Game:
 Team Configuration with Player Balance
 Symmetric Competency Areas and Privileged
Abilities
 Starting Positions
During Game:
 Handicaps
 Spawning

44. Why Designers Want Team Balance
 Gives players a Perceived Chance of
Winning
 Encourages Team Play and therefore
Social Status
 Players feel Empowerment

46. Game Mastery
That one can clearly distinguish between skillful
and incompetent players when they are using all
their skills and abilities in a game.

47. The Player’s Journey

48. Allowing For Game Mastery
Requires:
 Right Level of Difficulty
 Right Level of Complexity
 Smooth Learning Curves
Nullified by:
 Randomness
 Balancing

49. Why Designers Promote Game
Mastery
 Empowerment
 Emotional Immersion
 Replayablity
 Varied Gameplay
 Competency Areas
 Strategic Knowledge
 Risk-Reward Trade-offs
 Trans-Game Information
 Social Statuses
 Investments in Gameplay

50. Game Mastery Design Considerations
 What skills can a player train and develop?
 Mental-Based
 Dexterity-Based
 Social-Based
 How is mastery revealed?
 How can mastery be maintained past game
sessions?

51. Smooth Learning Curves
Games designed to provide players with the
possibility of smoothly progressing from novice to
master.

52. Requirements
 Right Level of Difficulty
 Right Level of Complexity
 Consistent Reality Logic

53. Why Designers Want Smooth Learning
Curves
 Immersion
 Illusion of Influence
 Perceived Chance to Succeed
 Game Mastery

54. Smooth Learning Curves Design
Considerations
 Information provided to players for
overcoming challenges
 Automatic challenge difficulty adjustments
to the player’s skill
 Player-adjusted challenge difficulty

55. Empowerment
Players feel that they can affect the events
and final outcome of the game.

56. Ways To Provide Empowerment
 Right Level of Difficulty
 Privileged/New/Improved Abilities
 Producers & Converters
 Strategic Planning & Knowledge
 Freedom of Choice
 Player-Decided Results
 Creative Control
 Social Status
 Game Mastery

57. Why Designers Provide
Empowerment
 Emotional Immersion
 Competence Areas
 Higher Level Closures as Gameplay
Progresses
Warning! Can conflict with:
 Player Balance
 Team Balance

58. Empowerment Design Considerations
 How empowered does the player feel at
the beginning of the game?
 Does the empowerment increase
incrementally?
 What opportunities does the player have
for creative control?
 Do the players vote on anything?
 Can the player construct the game world?

59. Group Quest
Balance one of the games you previously
designed in class.

61. Rhythm-Based Actions
Actions that require players to time their
actions several times in a row.

62. Implementation of Rhythm-Based
Actions
 Extended Actions
 Combos
 Moveable Tiles
 Deadly Traps

63. Why Designers Use Rhythm-Based
Actions
 Sensory-Motoric Immersion
 Game Mastery

64. Rhythm-Based Action Design
Considerations
 What is the extended action to be
performed?
 How long should it be performed?
 What feedback is provided to the player?
 What rewards or penalties are associated
with performing the action?

65. Boss Battle Ahead!
There will be a test on Levels 4-6 the next
time we meet!

66. On the LMS, describe a rhythm mechanic and
how you would balance it.