This game is based on very peculiar skills. As such, the game designer has to lead the player through levels. Levels should challenge the player, but should also teach him how he can think in order to beat the puzzles. Each new concepts / pattern will be introduced by an "tutoring" level, directly followed by one (sometimes two) application levels. Sometimes, multiple comcepts can be brought together in order to create a more challenging experience.
As designers, we should keep track of the difficulty balance of the game, of its learning curve and more importantly its pace. The key in the pace will be the learning stages, which will be the main "haHaa" creators.
The learning path could be as following :
Chapter one - THE BASICS 00-3| Basic movement. Swipe ! 00- Hit a Wall. OUCH. 00- Clear a stage, Congratz ! 01-3| Clear another stage. 02-3| Stage with some dead ends. Teach double taps to go back to start. 03-4| Stage with two paths that intersect. Player can use his knowledge from mistakes. 04-4| Stage with a repeating note. Could get lost... 05-4| Stage with a backstep near the end. 06-5| Stage with a backstep near the start. 07-5| Roundabout. 07-6| Backtrack stage (find the way, then backtrack it) 08-6| Backtrack with a repeat. 09-8| Half backtrack (fork) (06-8| Circle around the start.)
This should be the end of the Chapter one... Expected time to complete : 5-15 minutes.
Chapter two - ELEMENTS 10-2| Air wheel. Introduce the wind room. 11-4| Air backtrack. 12-4| Well well well... this time you fell. Simple introduction to the pitfall. 13-10| Back to the wind. Multiple reps around a windy spot. 14...20-?| Things are getting tough... levels require the player to project into bigger and bigger mazes (mazes so far were relatively small), and there find the correct way through it. Each level uses different game concepts we learnt so up to this point. Beating the game should be challenging.