aside from that one demo under the door this was all weirdly consistent

however I think that even stuff like going in and manually changing attack startups and stuff *can* be worth it. maybe being in the thick of game dev would change my opinion, but I’m steadfast in thinking that it’s going to be worth it more than not.

I think Celeste is a great example of a game with difficulty options that couldn’t really get all the way. It’s so transformative a lot of the time that it really can’t be considered the same experience. and I think it’s a game where it’s maybe not worth it.

it is a development sink but my guess is that for a very large percentage of games, the increased development time and difficulty is going to be pretty small compared to the whole project. when that’s not the case, then I can see it being okay.

here's my chart. you maybe make some people that would enjoy the game not, but more than make up for it elsewhere.

the only thing that this changes is a small amount of development time and what percentage of people will enjoy the game. if you don't put in a difficulty system it reads as if you don't care. that you didn't want to put in the effort to make it more accessible.

the downsides: some small minority of people might end up picking the wrong difficulty for their level of genre familiarity, general mechanical skill etc. and their experience will be negatively affected.

the upsides: more people can play the fucking game!

my issue with this is mostly that that one "specific" difficulty is going to end up different for different players.

my argument for difficulty options to exist is this:

i'd be on the side of this more if i didn't have multiple people in my family, who want to play some games, but just genuinely can't due to deteriorating reflexes or just plain age. my aunt was really excited for silksong, but just couldn't react to things.

tasty worms…

ideally, I would be the one defeated.