Hi everyone!

From the feedback so far, one of the things the game seems to really have going against it is its difficulty.

Difficulty has been a concern throughout the game’s development. The game has been rebalanced a few times based on feedback from friends that have played it. When I first showed the game to Jake, the game’s composer, the first boss had a whopping twenty-five hit points per phase compared to the fifteen that every boss has now (ten in easy)!

I just started developing games, so maybe this isn’t the same for everyone, but, at least for me, it can be tough to know when something in my game is difficult. Jake and I have played the game a lot the past year and a half. I think it’s safe to say that we’re pretty decent at it, so things that we think might be easy could be really hard to someone picking up the game for the first time.

It’s a tough act to balance. Jake grew up playing the original Sonic games on his dad’s Sega Genesis, where if you game over, you go all the way back to the start of the game. He plays mods that make Terraria, a game I already die every five minutes in, even harder! There are definitely players out there who are looking for the difficulty of the older games Operation Winston was based on; however, I really want people to play my game, and, the harder it is, the less likely it is that someone will see it through.

I’m starting to realize that it’s possible to appeal to both. There can be plenty of accessibility options for the players that need them, but, if someone comes looking for a challenge, they can just ignore those options.

Ultimately, that’s the reason why I ended up letting the cat out of the bag on the game’s hidden level select menu. In the game, there are hidden clues that show you how to access it, so it was kind of a bummer to spoil it, but, ultimately, it adds more accessibility options and will hopefully let players that are struggling reach the end of the game. Plus, there are still some secrets left to find!

Thanks for reading and keep saving the world!

- Alec