Tuning Don't Squish Bob After Playtesters Said "Too Easy"

The first playtest verdict on DON'T SQUISH BOB was blunt: too easy. The second, after a round of changes, was "slightly harder." This post covers what changed between those versions and what the tuning taught me about difficulty.

The original problem: a ceiling

In the first version, the number of spikes in the box climbed for a while and then stopped. From about 84 seconds into a run, the box held at most nine spikes, and it stayed that way. Once a player could handle nine, they could handle the rest of the run indefinitely. The game had a ceiling, and good players reached it.

Round one: raise the speed

The first fix was straightforward: spikes got about 8 percent faster. That helped, but speed alone doesn't change the shape of a run. A frozen difficulty curve that's slightly faster is still frozen.

Round two: change the shape

The second round changed how a run escalates rather than just how fast things move:

• A busier start. More happens early, so the first thirty seconds aren't a warm-up.
• No more ceiling. The spike cap now keeps climbing, up to 13.
• Late-game heat. From about 40 seconds in, newly spawned spikes travel faster, rising toward 75 percent faster late in a run. Spikes already in flight keep their speed, so the change is gradual rather than sudden.
• Less warning. The pulsing marker before a spike appears starts at 0.8 seconds and shrinks to about half a second as the run heats up.
• Less personal space. Late spawns are allowed to land closer to Bob, so a big purge is followed by a replacement wave that's genuinely threatening.

Speed went up another 5 percent on top of all of that.

What I learned

Difficulty isn't one number. Making things faster is the obvious lever, but it's the least interesting one. The changes that mattered most were about information and space: how much warning you get, how close danger can appear, and whether the game keeps asking more of you or settles into a routine.

The other lesson was to take "too easy" seriously even when it's uncomfortable. A game you can't lose isn't relaxing; it's boring. The first version was too forgiving, and two rounds of honest feedback fixed it.

See the Don't Squish Bob guide for how to survive the current version.