This post is about game design and contains practical hints and ideas for you as a developer how to design game mechanics and how to balance your game. I explain things using "Life is Quarantine" as a case study, so if you are a player enjoying that game, you might find this an interesting read too.

So I recently published an update adding various new items to the game. During development of the recent update I discovered one thing, maybe every game developer is facing:

Adding new game components is easy
Balancing them is not

So what did I learn along the journey, and what can you learn from it?

How to balance your game

While the game "Life in Quarantine" in it's raw state without too much items, was already fun to play, it's amazing how these items work together to create more game depth and offer new interesting strategies to the player.

So what are some key points to end up with a balanced game? I went with these guide lines:

• create unique items that are powerful in their own way
• allow game items to be combined in an interesting way
• allow for multiple viable strategies
• remove unnecessary mechanics
• remove grinding

Case Study: Life in Quarantine (LIQ)

Let's have a closer look on these key points using LIQ as an example. You don't need to play the game to understand this article, but it might help here and there.

While the first version of the game was based purely on vision, the new version adds another aspect to the game: sound. The police will not only be attracted by having plain sight to your character, but also by noise you or any item produces, even if you are not in sight. Note that the police has no idea about you and your position. All they know is the origin of sound, if they are close enough to hear it. The police reacts on anything they hear and run to the origin of sound to investigate.

While normally your character doesn't make any sound, there are various conditions when he does. If you need to be silent the player can choose to sneak, which avoids making sounds at the cost of reduced walking speed. We wanted the aspect of sounds in the game explicitly to have a natural reason for the player to sneak. See also the section about "puddles and towel" below.

Empty can - combining items

The loudest item in the game.

You can throw the empty can and the police will be attracted (distracted) by that noise. One might think this is a rather weak item, and on the first impression it really is, because situations where you can distract the police without them actually taking your path are rare. But the empty can is a perfect example of a utility item. It's not very strong on it's own, but very powerful combined with other items. For example, throw the can while hiding in a bush - the police won't see you and run to the point of impact. Another example: open the sewer and throw the can to attract police. These two use cases make the empty can one of the more powerful items and it justifies its existence.

Addendum: we later discovered more emergent game play where the empty can plays a role. We leave this for the player to discover.

Speed Potion - remove unnecessary stuff

Which brings me to another point: remove unnecessary stuff. It seems obvious, but as a developer, you are often biased by the amount of effort you put into various game mechanics. An example in "Life in Quarantine" is the speed potion. The character by default has a higher speed than the police, so in basic conditions, the player can outrun the police. From that point of view, the speed potion might be the weakest item in the game, because it's not adding much to the table. Still it's strong enough in situations where you get chased by a lot of police men. It also mitigates the effect of you making noise because of walking on gravel or having wet feet. Additionally, you almost walk normal speed while sneaking and avoid making noise. All these properties add up enough to keep the item in the game.

Addendum: After having multiplayer implemented, the speed potion (aka energy potion) turned out to be one of the most useful items in PVP mode, where being fast is important.

Puddle and towel - remove grinding and frustration

Which brings me to another interesting game mechanic: the puddle and the towel. When walking in a puddle your feet get wet and you will make a little noise while walking until you find a towel to dry your feet. 

The interesting fact about these items is that it was explicitly added to the game to remove grinding by replacing a quite grindy and frustrating game feature called "sneak mode". 

In this mode your character permanently had a speed penalty such that you are walking slower than the police. You could not out run the police. So the only strategy to win is to go completely unnoticed. While this adds quite some challenge, it also caused quite some grinding and frustration when failing at the brutal difficulty this implies, especially with more than 3 police on the stage.

So we added puddles. With wet feet, you still walk quickly, but your steps do permanent, splashing noises which attracts the attention of police in a 2 tile radius, even through walls. The only thing you can do is to either find a towel or sneak, to prevent making any noise. What we effectively have here is a temporary version of the earlier "stealth mode" game play. Being temporary and still being able to use the "run and hide" strategy takes away a lot of the grinding and frustration we faced with the earlier stealth mode feature.

Picklock and Jackhammer - offer interesting choices

And this is the best hint I can give to you to balance your game:

Let someone play your game!

You will quickly notice where your game has flaws and problems. You can use that feedback to adjust mechanics and balance your game. Don't be afraid to experiment and add/remove things to address certain problems.

At some point during development the random levels allowed only a single way for the police to go, making it really hard for the player to cross the level. The solution was to add a picklock item and doors (and the jackhammer in later levels). These items not only help to mitigate the game play problem, but also offer intriguing choices to the player: how use these items to gain more freedom of movement. While the main goal is still to visit trees with your dog, this item offers a tactical side quest, emerging from the need to go unnoticed by the police.

Sewer cover opener - allow multiple strategies

Another interesting item in terms of game design and balancing is the sewer cover opener. It's the last item to be unlocked before free play mode becomes available. And for a good reason. You can open sewer covers that act like a trap to the police who will be absorbed when they walk over it. It is the only somewhat violent item in the game and because of that I had huge doubts if this is a good choice to add. Because one of my main design guidelines is: no violence. However, the sewer cover and opener add an interesting game change. Because you can decrease the number of police, it is now possible to potentially visit endless trees, as long as you don't get caught. This is exactly what makes "free play" and a highscore a perfect fit in that point of the game.

Hiding and running being the main strategies of the game, the sewer cover adds a new viable strategy to the game: trapping and luring the police.

Conclusion

Adding new content to the game is easy, but balancing is not. It takes a lot of effort and test games to a point you start to feel like working when playing your game. Also, while testing, you get much better at your own game, losing sense for what the game feels like for new players. That's why it's so crucial to have others play your game to end up with a balanced game.

I hope you can use some of the hints and practical tips provided to improve your game and make it more fun for your players to enjoy :)

So as always - be creative and have fun making games!