Multi Tiered Progression

While I was reading this post on the guardians excellent video game blog I got thinking about how game progression works.

Whats progression?
Progression is measured by looking at where you started, looking at where you need to get to and then working out where you are in relation to that. In a computer game this is usually measured by your movement through the linear space of the game, I.e. if there are 10 levels and you are on level 5 then you are about half way through the game. Other games do it based on plot exposition and as games become more open ended the primary way of measurement will be how far you are through the story.

One of the most frustrating things i find in games is when i sit down the play for an hour, then I die or something happens and im back where i started. I am left in exactly the same state as I was when i turned the game on, infact i might aswell have just done that! Now this is a surefire way of getting me to turn the thing off in frustration. Essentially you have just lost an hour of your time and you have accomplished Nothing.

A solution to this is tiered progression. This consists of creating several different types of progression in your game so that no matter what you do, you will have accomplished something. There are several types of game that already have systems like this in place. RPG's are a great example. Everytime you kill something you get experience points of some kind that help you towards some kind of secondary goal (in this case it would be advancing your character a level). Experience points also have a secondary benefit when it comes to games with a linear storyline. If you fight a boss character and die, you should still get experience points or some kind of bonus for fighting him. The next time you fight him you will be a little bit more powerful and so the odds will be slightly more in your favour. Obviously this can cause a situation where the designers need to be careful that the player does not have to be a certain level before they take on the boss as this can create frustration.

Of course for some games its not really appropriate to have experience points in the way described here, however every game should reward the player in some way just for playing the game. 2 examples of games that accomplish tierd progression in novel ways are ikaruga, which awards the player a bonus continue for every hour that they play the game and after 5 hours gives the player unlimited continues, allowing the player to finish the game and Project Gotham racing which Awards the player with bonus music tracks and driver helmets every time the player drives a set number of miles.

Structuring your game to make use of tiered rewards is a great way of making sure that players keep coming back for more rather than getting frustrated at making no progress and never getting to the end of your game.

Tom Out