With the rise of Dark Souls and the souslike genre itself, it is not uncommon to find games that bet on its difficulty as a vital part of the mechanics. Several of the latest games released, from triple A to indies, have as their main attraction the fact that they have high difficulty, which push the player to the limit and guarantee a high number of deaths along the way.
Taking this into consideration, many studios decide to seize it to enter the high difficulty niche, but they don’t take into account some design principles that become especially important in games of this genre and end up creating Cat Marios instead of successors to Dark Souls.
And what does it mean?
Both Dark Souls and Cat Mario are known to have a high level of difficulty, but anyone who has played them would not say they are similar games. Dark Souls is built to be tough with strong enemies, numerous and limited resources, all tied into the mechanics and made for the player to understand how each enemy works in each environment and, with each kill, understand the desired behavior to overcome each category of adversity. Enemies and challenges are consistent and there are no unexplained surprises.
Cat Mario is made to annoy the player. Although, as in Dark Souls the player can advance according to their deaths, this does not happen thanks to the game’s pattern of behavior or because the game presents the logic of its world to the player, in fact, it is necessary to memorize the stage and the adversities to that it is possible to advance. This happens due to the lack of feedback and coherence in the game world, which, in this case, is deliberate.
With this overview it’s possible to see the chasm of difference between both games, so why are so many studios aiming to create difficult games like Dark Souls, but players feel like they’re playing Cat Mario?
The first point is that there is a big difference between a hard game and a cruel game, but it’s a fine one and few developers can master the design of their games. Creating a difficult game is not about decreasing the number of feedback, putting multiple enemies in the same place or using timing challenges that need absolute precision, it’s closer to Cat Mario’s design, so it’s just cruel to the player.
To be difficult is to introduce all these elements to the player, give clear feedback on each action and not make the difficulty dependent on frustration, but rather on mastering the tools and situations that the game delivers.
And then we go to the second point, which is to understand how to deliver this to the player, turning the difficulty into something interesting and passable, not an irritating task.
Clear feedback is essential when it comes to difficulty, but still many developers do the complete opposite of giving no feedback at all. If the player has to go through a difficult path with falling platforms, for example, these platforms need to differ from the safer ones, either visually, in behavior or both. Making very similar platforms in order to confuse the player won’t make the game more pleasurably difficult, only more frustrating, as any distraction can cause the player to fall, and then, as in Cat Mario, it can turn into a situation of decorate the path rather than master mechanics.
This logic should apply to all mechanics regardless of game genre when wanting to work with difficulty. The player must be able to perceive the nuances of the environment and enemies and be able to overcome them without relying exclusively on luck or any excessive physical sense. Enemies with similar combos can be similar, weaknesses must be accessible.
This is not to say that the game should take the player’s hand to teach each aspect, in fact, a well-done design allows the opposite to happen: the player to unravel and discover how each mechanic and environment by itself, what well balanced with feedbacks should also be one of the challenges of the game.
Dark Souls explicitly teaches only its basic mechanics. Paths, items and techniques are explained from the player’s experience and interaction with the world, which can only be done with a strong sense of game design and measured from what experience the developer wants for the player. Not every difficult game needs to be Dark Souls, so the difficulty and the way it interacts with the player must be created and balanced for this unique experience.
Another thing to think about is that if a large number of player kills are intended, that kill shouldn’t be highly punitive, which even Cat Mario does well. Although, at first glance, the Dark Souls’ own death mechanic seems too evil, it gives the player chances to recover the requested resources and, thanks to the way its design was made, the game becomes easier with each death as the player gains experience. In Celeste, another difficult game, but with a different proposal, death is not even punished, being treated only as part of the player’s journey.
It is also important that the game is technically capable of delivering that experience to the player. If your game requires timing, for example, it’s unthinkable that animations are slow and heavy, which kills gameplay dynamics and can turn a healthy difficulty into sheer frustration. It’s essential that every technical aspect, from scenarios to loading screens, makes sense of the game’s objective and contributes to the player’s experience.
Finally, it’s important to test the game, observe player reactions and be open to feedback. It is very easy to receive feedback from a player who reported not being able to pass a stage, died too much or found it frustrating and think that he is “not the right type of player for the game” or “did not understand the concept”, and in games who aspire to be difficult can be very difficult to see if the game is difficult or frustrating.
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That’s why it’s essential to listen to the opinions and evaluate whether the user experience is in fact the desired one. When we are developing a game, we lose track of the difficulty because we experience it every day, hence the extreme importance of well-done tests, if possible even with Analytics data to analyze player’s behavior.
As you develop your next difficult game, pay attention to these points and, unless that is your intention, try not to replicate the frustration of playing Cat Mario on your players, as it does more harm than good. Good difficult games instigate the player to overcome their difficulties, reward them for their victories and make the experience of evolving within the game fun and empowering, while the Cat Mario games generate frustration and abandonment of the player.
