Dynamic difficulty adjustment
What is dynamic difficulty adjustment? How games like Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil 4 change difficulty to match the player, and its history.
Dynamic difficulty adjustment changes a game’s parameters, scenarios and enemy behaviour while you play, based on how well you are doing. The aim is to keep a player from getting bored when the game is too easy or frustrated when it is too hard.
Where the term comes from
Robin Hunicke and Vernell Chapman described such a system in their 2004 paper “AI for Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment in Games”. Earlier games balanced themselves too: Danielle Bunten designed M.U.L.E. and Global Conquest to even out play between players, and Archon’s computer opponent slowly adapts to help players beat it.
Examples
Each game links to the source that describes it using the mechanic.
- Left 4 Dead, made with Source
- Resident Evil 4, made with RE Engine
- Flow, made with PhyreEngine
- Crash Bandicoot
Related terms: Rubber-band AI, Level scaling, Permadeath.
Sources
Checked .
- Dynamic game difficulty balancing — Wikipedia
- AI for Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment in Games — Northwestern University