How do you differentiate a 'tricky' level from a 'taxing' one?

[hrb264]

I'm currently making a pack of 40 levels with 8 levels in each difficulty. However I am finding categorising them a bit of a challenge especially because a lot of levels which I initially think seem easy are actually pretty hard. How do you decide which levels will go where? Do you go by how hard they are compared with the original lemmings game?

[Proxima]

There are a couple of axioms I follow:

* The designer is the worst at assigning difficulty to their own levels, because you cannot have the experience of solving it from a fresh start. This doesn't mean you should treat testers' words as gospel (especially as they can and will disagree with each other), but it does mean that testers' opinions should carry more weight than yours.

* Almost all usermade content is harder than the original games, and a different kind of difficulty. This is partly because NeoLemmix and Lix remove most of the execution difficulty, and have quality of life tools that allow designers to realise more complex puzzle ideas than were possible previously; it's also because when we played Lemmings for the first time, we were still learning what the skills do and how they interact, whereas almost all usermade content is aimed at players who are already familiar with the game.

* Different people will find different things difficult, and that is especially true in a puzzle game, where so much depends on how quickly you happen to hit the correct insight or get onto a good way of thinking about a level.

* It doesn't matter very much whether there is a strict difficulty curve. (For one thing, there is no reason why a pack has to have difficulty ranks at all; a pack that is all easy, or all medium, or all hard will be enjoyed by players at that level. But since it sounds like you want to make a pack with progression, I'll focus on that.) As far as possible, you want to avoid howlers like the original game putting the easy "Highland Fling" in the last rank, or (worse) a very hard level sticking out in the easy rank. But no-one will mind very much if, say, Tricky 14 of your pack is a little easier than Tricky 13. Occasional breather levels can be good to encourage the player to keep going.

[hrb264]

There are a couple of axioms I follow:

* The designer is the worst at assigning difficulty to their own levels, because you cannot have the experience of solving it from a fresh start. This doesn't mean you should treat testers' words as gospel (especially as they can and will disagree with each other), but it does mean that testers' opinions should carry more weight than yours.

* Almost all usermade content is harder than the original games, and a different kind of difficulty. This is partly because NeoLemmix and Lix remove most of the execution difficulty, and have quality of life tools that allow designers to realise more complex puzzle ideas than were possible previously; it's also because when we played Lemmings for the first time, we were still learning what the skills do and how they interact, whereas almost all usermade content is aimed at players who are already familiar with the game.

* Different people will find different things difficult, and that is especially true in a puzzle game, where so much depends on how quickly you happen to hit the correct insight or get onto a good way of thinking about a level.

* It doesn't matter very much whether there is a strict difficulty curve. (For one thing, there is no reason why a pack has to have difficulty ranks at all; a pack that is all easy, or all medium, or all hard will be enjoyed by players at that level. But since it sounds like you want to make a pack with progression, I'll focus on that.) As far as possible, you want to avoid howlers like the original game putting the easy "Highland Fling" in the last rank, or (worse) a very hard level sticking out in the easy rank. But no-one will mind very much if, say, Tricky 14 of your pack is a little easier than Tricky 13. Occasional breather levels can be good to encourage the player to keep going.

Yeah I am playing RetroLemmini, which is a lot closer to the original, I haven't really liked playing with too many new features aside from stuff like framestepping, although I am aware you can turn these off in NeoLemmix and some of the new skills etc seem great.

That's a good point in that most people who use custom user packs obviously know more about Lemmings, but part of the reason I'm doing this is that I hope to teach my almost 4 year old nephew about the game of lemmings at some point, and I have many friends that played it when they were kids and haven't played since the 90s and said they'd like to play it again, and it would be nice to make easy levels for them to get familiar with it again. Also I really like just the art aspect of it and being creative.

[Proxima]

That's awesome! Good luck with that

I'm aware that I didn't really answer your original question, so I'll give it my best shot. Assigning a level to a difficulty rank is some combination of a few different factors:

* How open-ended is it? If there are lots of different ways to solve a level, it's much easier for the player to find at least one.

* How long and complicated is the solution? For example, Fun levels and the first half of Tricky are both full of 20-of-everything levels, but the Tricky ones tend to be longer or give the player more that they have to do (e.g. two trapdoors).

* How close are the player's first impressions to the actual solution? For example, forging the path with a single lemming while the crowd are trapped is something the player learns early on, and is likely to be the first thing they try. Following a straight line to the exit, building over any gaps and bashing through any walls in the way, is easy to see; having to go around what looks like the main path is trickier.

* Does the level require any knowledge of game mechanics that goes beyond the basics of what the skills do? For example, traps killing only one lemming at a time; blockers turning lemmings performing a skill; interrupting a basher to make a little step -- all of these make levels harder for players who haven't seen the tricks before, but even for players who have seen them, as your repertoire of tricks expands, the process of analysing a level to see what tricks are needed gets more and more complicated.

[WillLem]

A question as old as custom lemmings levels, this one.

The difficulty of custom levels (as Proxima has already pointed out) is greater than that of the original games, but if we stretch the graph so that Fun still means "as easy as the game can be" and Mayhem still means "as difficult as the game can be", the following questions can provide a good barometer to sort levels out:

1) Does the level expect the player to find a single intended solution? Yes = 1, No = 0
   1b) Is the level a tutorial level, or a level where the solution is intended to be obvious? Yes = -1, No = 0
2) Does the skillset provide more skills than are required to solve the level as intended? Yes = 0, No = 1
3) Is the layout of the level specifically tailored towards patching out all other possible solutions than the intended one? Yes = 2, No = 0
4) Does the level's intended solution feature a specific trick that the player must know/discover in order to find the solution? Yes = 3, No = 0
5) Once the solution is known, how easy* is it to play the level in real time without using the pause button? Easy = 0, Not easy = 1
6) Are there any assignments which cannot be made without the use of the pause button, L/R arrows, or any other player assists such as framestepping or skill shadows? Yes = 2, No = 0

*For the purposes of this question, if the level provides little to no challenge when playing out the known solution in real time, it's "Easy". If executing the solution presents any significant challenge at all during real-time play, it can be scored as "Not easy".

If the level scores more than 0, it's probably at least Tricky difficulty. The higher the score, the more likely it is to be Taxing or Mayhem, keeping in mind that the highest possible score from the questions above is 10.

The questions matter in combination as well. For example, if questions 1, 2 and 3 all score positively, I'd say it's at least Taxing if not Mayhem. If questions 1 and 4 score positively, but 2 and 3 score 0, it could be a more difficult Taxing level or even a Tricky level depending on how lenient the skillset is.

Really, measuring difficulty is a learn-by-doing process. The more levels you make, and the more solutions to your own levels by other players that you see, the better an idea you'll have of how difficult your level is.

As a player, I always appreciate it when a pack starts off with a bunch of easy, open-ended levels just to get me going. It's a good way to get to know the author's level design style and get warmed up for the later levels. Like a professional piano player doing a few scales or playing a few easier pieces to warm up before a concert, I see it as a necessary part of the process.

Anyways, keep going, keep creating. That's the best way to learn.

[hrb264]

Thanks very much both

So I made a repeating level that gets harder, I finished the 'mayhem' version of the level which I was intending to be hard, it's definitely more difficult than the previous ones but I don't think it's as hard as my other levels in that rank and is probably a difficult 'taxing' level? Is it OK to leave it in Mayhem as a kind of 'breather'?

 

[hrb264]

Also I usually like to be quite generous with the skill set because I often make mistakes  especially if I make levels with 100+ lemmings, or where you have to assign a load of floaters etc, but I get the impression many people often like to have 1 or 2 of each skill and don't like this sort of level? (To be honest, 1 of everything levels aren't my favourite type )

[WillLem]

Is it OK to leave it in Mayhem as a kind of 'breather'?

Yes. It's your pack, go with your instincts

I get the impression many people often like to have 1 or 2 of each skill and don't like this sort of level? (To be honest, 1 of everything levels aren't my favourite type )

Mine neither, I'm also a fan of more open-ended levels that provide enough skills to find more than one solution. To each their own.

Don't try too hard to please others. Make the levels you'd want to play yourself.