Gameplay balancing and power-ups
Power-ups are essentially a momentary advantage for the player, when determining the length of their effects, it’s impossible to address the matter without considering the concept of gameplay balance. Gameplay balance is a game design philosophy in which a character’s strengths are counterbalanced by a relative disadvantage from the opposing forces to prevent one character or tactical approach from dominating the game. The opposing forces can come in the form of enemies or level design and must provide a challenge for the player as much as the player is provided with means to overcome them.
Consider a platforming game where the core gameplay challenge is the traversal of levels with varying degrees of altitude, obstacles, moving platforms, and enemies. For each core challenge, the player is provided with a core action, or gameplay element to overcome it such as jumping, attacking, or even getting new powers or abilities to explore previously blocked areas.
It’s important to have a solid understanding of the kind of game you are building, and whether or not the game has varying difficulty settings. For instance, some games are more unforgiving with difficulty scaling by design, while others take a more laidback or balanced approach. Regardless of the kind of game, there is always a balancing act when designing gameplay. Even games as unforgiving as Demon’s Souls provide the player with all the elements they need to overcome its challenges, however grueling they may be.
Gameplay Balancing for Power-Ups
The duration of your power-up will directly affect the gameplay balance by giving the player a new advantage over their obstacles. To answer the question of how long a power-up effect should last you need to consider the kind of power-up it is and how much advantage does it give the player. A power-up that makes the character invincible should probably not last longer than a power-up that gives your character superspeed, although, that entirely depends on how you want to balance out your game. Some power-ups might even be a one-time-use only if they are considered overpowered like a deathray that lets you destroy all enemies in sight. The process may require some trial and error — testing out how the game feels and tweaking your code is commonplace, and good practice as well.
In my 2D Space Shooter game, the first power-up consists of a triple-shot laser, rather than the single laser from the regular attacks.
To determine the length of its effect, I tested out how much easier the game became when the power-up was active, and how often the power-up spawns. It’s important to keep in mind how often you provide a player with heightened advantages as the frequency of it can also make or break your gameplay balance. Programming how often a power-up spawns and how long its effect lasts can be easily done through the use of coroutines.
In my next article, we’ll be exploring how to create modular power-ups!
