Giving my permission not to make the most difficult setting the baseline

During a recent play test on Button Shy’s play testing forum, I was bummed because I hadn’t gotten around to doing play throughs on the highest level of difficulty. Then, when other players had a conversation on that very topic, someone wrote that trying to beat a game on the hardest level wasn’t a requirement and that many people don’t bother to do that.

Which should be very obvious but that profoundly struck me. That the highest level of difficulty shouldn’t be considered the baseline.

On the one hand, I think that it is important to try and improve yourself and to challenge yourself. That’s how we grow and get better. On the other hand, frustrating yourself isn’t a  great idea. And I’m playing games for fun and relaxation. Intentionally playing a game that doesn’t do shouldn’t be _my_ baseline.

And there are games I regularly play on the lower difficulty levels. Aqueducts, which I play on a regular basis, I usually play at the beginner, 3x3 level. The highest level, 4x4, actually seems to require the cards to come out in the right order to win, with almost no margin of error.

And I sometimes feel guilty about playing at lower levels. But the forum has made me realize that’s silly. Yes, a challenge is a good thing but chilling out is a good thing. They are different rewards.

Treating the highest level of difficulty as the baseline is like arguing true art has to be angsty or edgy or incomprehensible. It’s creating a barrier not for some kind of standards but for gatekeeping.