Voliday Balancing
Context
As Lead Game Designer, one of my tasks is to create a game that is playable by users and fun. Balancing is a very important task, in order to adjust the values that have a direct impact on the functioning of the game and its playability, especially in a city builder, where the management of money and available resources is an integral part of this style of video games.
Prices balancing
When designing the GDD, I created a table that contains all the information about the buildings. Their purchase price, resale price, monthly maintenance cost, income per tourist, the amount of resources used or produced and the type of tourist targeted (poor or rich). This was a good basis for the development of the game.
But as we got to the end of the project, and playtested the game, we noticed some gameplay problems with the values used. I quickly set about changing these values logically, play-testing each change myself so that the player would not end up with a negative amount even if all the buildings were placed correctly. As my comrades have created a very handy spreadsheet to use, most of the values are in the same file, which makes the modification very simple.
Balancing accessibility and noise zones
The accessibility and noise zones are of great importance in the gameplay of the game. This determines the placement of buildings on the island. If the player places a house too close to an activity, it will suffer from noise and the AI will be unhappy. Conversely, if the player places the house too far away from an activity, the AIs will not be able to access it and will also be unhappy. The adjustment of the size of the zones is therefore of great importance in order to allow the player to have an enjoyable game experience while at the same time having some challenge so as not to bore the player with a game that is too easy. It’s a balance, which is sometimes not easy to find. In order to help me in this process, I made a diagram of the island at the beginning of our project to determine the size of the zones of each building.
I think luckily the zone sizes didn’t need much change, just a few tweaks to make the gameplay interesting.
Based on one of the feedbacks we received, we subsequently decided to add these two types of zones to the resource buildings. The interest of our gameplay lies in the accessibility and nuisance zones to challenge the player when placing the buildings. The fact that the resource buildings have no constraint zones for placement pushed the player to place these buildings in a corner of the island. So we decided to do a combination of the two.
Difficulties encountered
This part of my GD role was the most complicated, given the importance of balancing in the gameplay of the game, the balance of values is very difficult to find. The time constraint was also a problematic factor, I was only able to get into balancing very late in the development of the game, due to the delay in the design of our game.
What I learned
If we were to do a project like this again, I would definitely focus on this part of the development earlier, which is essential for the desired user experience. I learned that I still have a lot to learn in game design.
I also learned how to develop and improve more complex systems that are not necessarily visible on the surface when playing, but which are indispensable and vital, especially in a project like ours, where resource management is one of the main game mechanics.
Conclusion
Looking back, I realize how much work is involved in balancing, all the different parts of it and the thinking that goes into it. I am very grateful for the help my fellow students gave me in this task and, despite some difficulties, I am happy with the result I was able to achieve and the knowledge I gained in this field and in the field of game design in general.