SJ Longthorne

Are there any narrative games out there with a difficulty scale that correlates not to something like combat or action, but to the level of drama and social conflict you have to navigate? Where casual means everyone's easy-breezy and on deathmarch you're walking on eggshells?

if not then dibs

To clarify, I'm not talking about normal choice and consequence in-game. I'm talking about an up-front difficulty setting that toggles how reactionary characters are and how much drama you have to deal with in your game, specifically in branching narrative games.

I've been thinking a lot lately about stress in games. I react negatively to stress related to combat/my ability to press buttons at the right time, which I suck at. I don't enjoy it. But what if we considered other types? How would that change the way we approach difficulty?

What are some other mechanics where degrees of difficulty could be applied, and what do they look like? What other kinds of skills do they appeal to?

I love the idea that someone who plays a combat game on deathmarch might play a game that's pivoted on emotional intelligence on casual. Talk about normalising the validity of different difficulty settings.

What prompted this was reading player reactions to Love Island The Game S03. Discussions of drama/social volatility preferences feel eerily similar to discussions by "serious gamers" about how hard they like their combat in games. What else can we translate?