ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors take a look at the relationship of numbers to one another, explore different curves, and discuss how the relationships affect our balance decisions. In essence, progression is a tradeoff between two resources where the player gives up something (such as their time) in exchange for progress in the game. In free-to-play games, for instance, it is common to “ramp the player out”: increasing the difficulty of the game rapidly at a specific point so that only the monetizing (paying) players stick around, choosing to pay money to keep pace with the game’s scaled progression. Triangular numbers are a series of numbers that are commonly used in game design, particularly in resource progression in board games. The series is called “triangular” because the sequence follows the pattern of a triangle shape made of dots, where the designer keep adding a row.
