Colwell's Castle Defence: A Custom Game Using Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment to Increase Player Enjoyment

TL;DR

This paper explores implementing Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment in a custom castle defense game, demonstrating that adjusting enemy spawn rates based on player performance enhances player enjoyment.

Contribution

The paper introduces a DDA system that dynamically adjusts enemy spawn rates in a custom game, improving gameplay experience based on player performance metrics.

Findings

Players reported increased enjoyment with DDA enabled

DDA effectively balanced game difficulty based on health metrics

Player engagement improved through adaptive difficulty adjustments

Abstract

Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) is a mechanism used in video games that automatically tailors the individual gaming experience to match an appropriate difficulty setting. This is generally achieved by removing pre-defined difficulty tiers such as Easy, Medium and Hard; and instead concentrates on balancing the gameplay to match the challenge to the individual's abilities. The work presented in this paper examines the implementation of DDA in a custom survival game developed by the author, namely Colwell's Castle Defence. The premise of this arcade-style game is to defend a castle from hordes of oncoming enemies. The AI system that we developed adjusts the enemy spawn rate based on the current performance of the player. Specifically, we read the Player Health and Gate Health at the end of each level and then assign the player with an appropriate difficulty tier for the proceeding level. We tested the impact of our technique on thirty human players and concluded, based on questionnaire feedback, that enabling the technique led to more enjoyable gameplay.