Michael Dunnam

How to Design Difficulty in Puzzle Games Based on the Playliner (by SensorTower) research, here is a guide to designing difficulty: 1. Offer multiple difficulty tiers • Easy, Hard, Super Hard — with clear visuals to indicate the level. 2. Use attempts, not win rate, to tune difficulty • Low attempts (1–3) = Easy • High attempts (20–35) = Hard 3. Follow a recommended difficulty curve • Start easy (Levels 1–20) to build confidence • Add a hard spike (Levels 20–30) to create challenge • Introduce progressive increases and major paywalls after Level 50 4. Gradually introduce mechanics • Let players master core gameplay before adding complexity. 5. Reward wisely • Scale rewards with difficulty. Tougher levels should yield better prizes. 6. Test and iterate • Track completion rates. • Adjust blocker levels. • Fine-tune using player feedback. • Alternate between challenging and easier phases. Make the game feel “just challenged enough” to keep trying. Good puzzle design isn’t just about difficulty — it’s about balance. What’s your strategy for designing difficulty in games? ---- More mobile game references at: https://playliner.com

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Most designers think polishing the game feel comes last. A bit of VFX. Some sound tweaks. Maybe a juice pass before launch. True polish isn’t a last-minute step. It’s one of the hardest, most misunderstood parts of game design. While mechanics are the bones of gameplay design, polish and game feel are the flair, style, and charisma that help anchor your game deeply in the player’s memory. Polishing a game is a deeply intentional, iterative, and multidisciplinary process that touches everything from controls, animation, sound, camera, balance, and player psychology. All of it has to work together to create gameplay that feels tight, responsive, and viscerally satisfying. This is why we created the Establishing and Refining Gameplay Bootcamp to help support the designers who want to elevate the quality of their game experience. Over the past 4 years, this bootcamp was built from the ground up with the help of 16 colleagues behind some of the most memorable games in the world from Riot, Infinity Ward, Respawn, Valve, Ready at Dawn, Moon Studios, and more. Thanks to Alex Yee , Devon Giehl, Michael Anderson, Joseph Sopko, Mohammad Alavi , Chad Verrall, André de Miranda Cardoso, Celia Wagar, Jacopo Vanicore, Emmanuel Lagumbay and their expert contributions for making every lesson more nuanced and practical. See full curriculum here - https://lnkd.in/grM67zbm When polish is done well, it drives everything that matters: Satisfaction + Viscerality = Memorability = Retention + Word of Mouth That’s how smaller teams, like the ones behind Expedition 33, Black Myth: Wukong, or Belatro are outperforming AAA studios with a fraction of the budget. 🎮 Establishing and Refining Bootcamp's enrollment is now open You'll learn how to make polish visible to studios, so when they see your work, they recognize your eye for quality and your process behind every player decision. Here’s what’s inside: - Player psychology & satisfaction frameworks - Skill types, difficulty curves, and how to test them - The 3Cs: Character, Controls, and Camera - Game Feel: How to make gameplay intuitive, responsive, and visceral - Game Balance: How to adapt to evolving player behavior - Interview prep & game design test coaching - 7 Guest Instructors | 4 Adjuncts - 12 weeks · 24 live sessions - 3 Interactable Unity game feel technique demos - Sound Design 🗓️ We start the week of October 25th If you’ve ever shipped a prototype that felt “meh”… If you’ve ever lost a player after the first test… If you’ve ever wanted your work to stand out… You’ll learn how to build polish into your process, so your gameplay feels satisfying from the first click to the final boss. Last day to book your fit call is Oct 24th Book your fit call here -https://lnkd.in/grM67zbm P.S. GDS will also offer a limited number of partial scholarships (no full ones available) for those facing layoffs and financial hardship.

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When a client asks for character animation, most beginners start keyframing every limb manually. But pros? They rig. In this tutorial, I broke down the process of using Duik Angela—a free tool inside After Effects—to build a custom skeleton and automate complex character movement using Inverse Kinematics (IK). What I covered: • What is Rigging? Creating a skeleton system that lets one body part influence the others—for example, when you move the arm, the hand follows naturally. • Planning the Character: I designed a custom character (“Karubhuddhi Lal Bhaiya in an MJ jacket”), broken into layers—arms, legs, torso, hands, etc.—to prep for rigging. • Setting up Duik Angela: Built a full bone structure using custom joints, linked everything together, and created a fully controllable puppet. • Animating with Ease: Used controllers to animate the dance sequence, with smooth movement and minimal manual keyframing. 

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