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I've been creating a small little mobile game on and off for a while now.

Having got all the game mechanics in place I'm now trying to figure out how to organise these into levels to get satisfying pacing.

Are there any good guidelines for this? Or articles on it?

I've got a few variables that I can play with that can make the game more interesting and varied for example:

  • Number of entities to deal with
  • Number of kinds of entities
  • Directions they come from.

I just don't have much of a clue how to pace it.

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This question should help if your game teaches several skills to the player:

How do I elegantly teach players how to play?

Otherwise, it's just a matter of smoothly increasing complexity, by adding more entity, interesting combos, etc.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Cheers for the response! That question more relates to how to explain the game, which isn't so much the issue here. Until I went to do it, I glossed over the specifics of how often to add a new element to keep it interesting - but when I actually sat down and started doing it I discovered it's harder to gauge when it's required to keep things interesting. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joshua Mee
    Commented Jun 3, 2013 at 11:35
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I don't think there are any books, articles or papers on this topic. The best you can do is to get as many similar games as you can and play them. Find what works well, what doesn't. Use the variables you already have and experiment.

I am doing the same with my game. I picked a couple of the most popular games using similar concepts. Having a couple of beta testers is good as well - just employ your family and friends.

Without knowing what are you actually making, it's hard to say how you should pace it. From your description I'd guess it's a Desktop Tower Defense type of game. There's plenty of them out there...

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Fear not, it's not another Tower Defense game - nor does it include zombies! Closest thing to it is Flight Control on the iOS I guess. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joshua Mee
    Commented Jun 4, 2013 at 12:20
  • \$\begingroup\$ (And to a degree, I was trying to keep the question slightly game agnostic so as to make answers more useful to others!) \$\endgroup\$
    – Joshua Mee
    Commented Jun 4, 2013 at 12:36

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