Pleasing everyone, all the time.

We’ve been balancing QuBIT last week, tweaking the various stats in the game to try and get the difficulty ramp just so. Our aim is to ramp the difficulty in such a way that everyone finds their level and enjoys slowly pushing the bar up from there. We’ve also tried to iron out any difficulty spikes so that each wave becomes a small but discernable amount harder and you never get stuck at the same spot time and again.
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The masochism of a player

I’ve always found the way Mario dies in the original Super Mario Bros to be quite poetic. The way time stops, music is suddenly cut off and enemies and obstacles unexpectedly freeze in place. Mario turns to face you with a betrayed expression and raises his hands in hopelessness, as if to ask ‘what happened? I thought you had it in control’.

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Chess

I’m learning to play Chess. I can’t remember exactly what spurred me to do it but something did and I’m surprised by how interesting it is. Not the basics you understand – my Dad taught me the rules before I’d even learnt how to blow the dust out of a NES – I’m talking about how to play. Like most people, I know how all the pieces move, how you win, I’m aware of some of the weirder bits like en passant and castling, but I don’t know how to play.

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