Post Mortem: 3 star ratings

This was my first time making a game that used 3 star ratings (instead of a single level with a high score)... and oh my gawd. By far, the biggest challenge was tuning difficulty.

It was extremely challenging trying to tune it for the flow state. Simply because some players had much better reflexes, and found the game not challenging enough till day level 20, but unfortunately would get bored by level 1 and never played more.

Having levels unlocked one after another gave a sense of mission and progression, but made difficulty tuning even more important as there was no real way for better players to skip to later levels. I kinda get why music games just give players all songs unlocked, with varying difficulties and a ‘rating’ based very objectively on a Perfect score. The other thing they did well was having more than 3 stars giving you feedback, music games give a rating from F to SSSS. So you could feel yourself progressing more.

After sinking days into tuning and retuning difficulty, I’ve decided to just let this rest. 😅 #FailFaster

I will try again on a new project! :) this was a great learning experience