Here's how you can use logical reasoning to balance games and adjust difficulty levels.

What's the goal of your game's difficulty? There are many different approaches to that question and usually involves thinking about the target public of the game and their skills, frustration acceptance and competitiveness. Games for hyper-casual players should keep the difficulty and mechanics really simple, to the point losing or dying is unimportant for the game's goal. Casual players tend to be more open to experience history, more characters, mechanics and some complexity and challenge in the game. Competitive players love to be challenged; they have a strong soul against frustration. They tend to enjoy fighting or comparing themselves against other players.

Hardcore or Casual? Knowing your target audience is key. Are you building a brutal challenge for gaming veterans, or a welcoming experience for everyone? This will guide your difficulty settings. Fun First! No matter the difficulty, your game should be enjoyable. Balance mechanics to create a satisfying experience that matches player expectations. Steep climb or gentle slope, make the journey fun!

To analyze data, best approach is to set events. You should wait for 5 days after making the game live so you can see mature data. Then analyze the funnels and point out where churn rate is comparatively more. Play the game and see the points and figure out why the user is losing interest at that specific point. You can keep repeating this process until you get better retention, Play time and progression.

few ways to analyze data 1. aggregated data through analytics systems like appsflyer/firebase/singular (whichever works best for you) 2. by looking at top/bottom ranked players in your database individually and understand the way the play - super important in my opinion!

Having data recollection for your players inputs, navigation preferences and some in-game milestones are important to understand what the players prefer doing inside your game, from the menu and its screens navigation to in-game preferences and frustration or rage quit problems. Have some game testers for this, to obtain important data with anticipation and be able to correct it, if necessary, without having important reprocesses or cost overruns.

According to your game difficulty preference and objective, set some parameters of acceptance from the user's behavior. Register their progression data and check for specific parts where they just stopped playing because of difficulty level and define an umbral of acceptance for a percentage of quitting players. Also measure if they come later on to continue the quest or the game, since that could mean the game is hard but interesting enough to keep a player returning to finish what he/she started. Adjust the difficulty based on your game target public and its tolerance to frustration.

Iterative testing is the key to determining the right balance for game difficulty and economy. Take Royal Match & Homescapes for example; they have figured out the right combination for their target audience. The progressive difficulty curve (starting from easy to medium difficulty to hard & super hard & then going back to the easy level) allows them to create IAPs and Rewarded Ads opportunities for the players since the hard & super hard levels rarely ever get passed without a booster or a feature on rewarded ad. Logical reasoning should always go hand-in-hand with iterative testing because even though the combination mentioned above might work for the match 3 games, it might not be effective for a different kind of game.

Players are your best testers! Their feedback can expose hidden difficulty issues you might have missed. But listen wisely! Balance their insights with your game's goals and data. It's a balancing act (pun intended) between your vision and what players need. By integrating feedback, you can fine-tune the difficulty without compromising your core gameplay. It's a win-win: a game that stays true to your vision and rocks for the players!

Game balancing is like riding a unicorn - magical, but requires constant adjustments! As your game grows and players level up, revisit difficulty to keep it challenging and fair. This isn't a one-shot deal. It's about staying responsive to player feedback and market trends. By adapting, you create a dynamic experience that keeps players hooked for the long haul. Happy players, happy game!