Controling Game Speeds

A game should be challenging but not too hard (frustrating) and not too easy (boring). Getting the balance right is challenging but Nanogames makes it easy to experiment until you find the right balance. If games are generally too fast then there are three easy ways to slow Nanogames down to ensure they a playable and fun to play (and win).

The #1 tool for experimenting with game speed in Nanogames is the 'Global Game Speed' slider control.

You will find this slider control on the main screen (just above the grid of game icons). This powerfull control will adjust the speed of all 30 games simultaneously, slowing the games from full speed to as slow as 90% of full speed. It's perfect for testing out speeds across a range of games to see approximately how much you need to slow the games (you can refine the speeds of individual games later).

So launch Nanogames, try a few of the games at full speed, then move the speed slider to about half-way, and try those same games again and see what difference it makes. Repeat this cycle, experimenting with different positions until you find one that is close to what the player requires.

The next step is to lock in those approximate settings. From the main screen and with the 'Global Game Speed' slider at the setting your player requires, hold down the shift key and click on one of the game icons. A window will display showing the speed setting. Click on the 'Save' button. This will save your new speeds for all the Nanogames so that each time you load Nanogames, all the games will play at that speed. You can also set the speed (and much more) of individual games and we will cover that in the following sections.

Part 2: Changing the speed of individual games.