Challenge Substitution Principle

 Challenge Substitution Principle

Replace unwanted challenge with wanted challenge.

Introduction

Recently I ran into an interesting situation. I was designing ways to guide players through a maze without ruining the core experience of a maze and ended up designing secondary systems that would create an invisible path for players (Enemies, Wisps). During this development I realized I could replace part of the maze with another challenge, like combat, and make it a choice the player can make. In this way the player who does not enjoy a maze can replace the mindless searching with active combat to find the exit, and the player who enjoys exploration can stay enjoying their maze.

This led me to look up related design principles I could use to improve my own designs, except I could not find other people talking about challenge for challenge substitution using this framing. The closest related media I could find is APX(Accessible Player Experiences) from ‘The AbleGamers Charity’, where they talk about creating games that can be accessed by people with disabilities without sacrificing the experience of the game. They talk about many ways to achieve this, but don’t include challenge substitution. 

Enter me, a game design student who believes challenge substitution could be an important tool for making accessible games, both for people with disabilities but also for increasing target audiences and growing a playerbase. 

A Challenge Substitution Principle is not a design principle that exists, this is my proposal for how one could work. I will be going over its strengths and weaknesses and how to utilize it.

The Basic Principle

The Challenge Substitution Principle, as I propose it, states that you can replace part of a challenge/experience with another, as long as the original challenge/experience remains the dominant focus of the total experience.

Returning to the maze example;

At its base, a maze is 100% of the experience.

Now if you add a second system, like enemies, the maze has to share its experience with this new system, the maze should remain the dominant experience, regardless of how many additional systems you may add.

This ensures every player has a similar core experience, but with the ability to customize how they go through it.

A player that opts for fighting every enemy, still has to move through a maze and is still experiencing that core challenge, their experience of this challenge will differ from a player who prefers to sneak through and avoid the enemies. Allowing every player to craft a unique experience while staying true to the core.

This extends beyond just a maze.

Each game has a unique element to it, players will want to experience your story, art, levels, worldbuilding and many more! But they could also be unable to enjoy these experiences due to the provided challenge.

Imagine you craft a beautiful story but put it in a First-Person Shooter, any player with bad motor function/aim, or just a player who hates shooting games, will no longer be able to experience your story.

By substituting the challenge, you can have more players enjoy your unique experience.

Of course if your experience is linked to the challenge this becomes harder, you cannot take out the shooting, but you might be able to create a secondary system.

Instead of shooting an enemy directly, you could have a player command NPCs, and then give the player the choice between both systems (perhaps a class system). This way player A can run and gun as they please, while player B can sit back and strategize. Both players remain part of combat, both players experience the battle, but they do not have the same experience.

There is an important thing to note however when designing a substitution, it has to both be empowered by the core experience and has to support that same core. If the substitute challenge does not support the core fantasy, it may weaken the game’s identity.

Active vs Passive Substitution

There are two(2) ways to substitute, you can provide the player with an active choice of substitution (buttons, actions, triggers) or you can have the substitution always active in the game and the player’s path / playstyle determines which challenge(s) they face.

Both systems have their benefits and flaws.

Active Substitution

In an active substitution you give the player a choice on if they want to alter the experience. This is commonly done through a skip button. However providing a skip button can actually harm your experience more than not providing anything. ‘Making a game accessible should not mean to make it easier.’ (Grant Stoner, 2022). 

To provide an active choice means to replace one challenge with another, not removing the challenge altogether. If we look at the examples I used previously, we can see how an active substitution can be applied there.

For a maze, you can add a companion that the player can interact with to ‘play’ with it. Going into a hide and tag chase sequence through the maze, if the player succeeds in the challenge, the companion could guide the player towards the exit for a duration of time.

In this way the player can choose when to apply a substitution, if they are stuck in a particular area they can replace that part of the maze with a chase. 

A different way to go about this is by using a class system like in the shooter example. You can create different classes which promote different playstyles within the designated experience.

Another example of this system is during a parkour game, you may have players who have bad hand to eye coordination and thus would never be able to play your game. But you can replace the skill based jumping with strategic ladder placement. If balanced correctly both players will have the experience of climbing up through a series of challenges. But therein lies a main issue, the balancing.

If not done carefully, one of your substitutions will provide a player with a clear benefit or lack thereof. You could end up designing a game where instead of giving players a choice, you force everyone into a single system because it is objectively better.

Another issue is presenting this choice. Some players can react negatively to perceived handholding and assistance. If you go online you’ll find plenty of examples of people being annoyed with hints or skip buttons. You don’t want to give the players the impression that you think they need help.

Passive Substitution

Unlike the active substitution, passive systems are always in play. They are designed to be avoidable while providing a second playstyle. This way each player dynamically chooses how much they want to substitute each time through their behaviour and personal playstyle. 

Looking at the maze example once again, a player can either sneak through the maze and avoid the enemies, or fight the enemies and get closer to the exit that way. Every player will have a unique experience where some people will have a 90/10 split, some have a 60/40 split.

The game offers all substitutions to the player at all times, it is the player’s playstyle that determines their path, which in turn determines which (if any) substitutions that may encounter.

This dynamic choice does make balancing around the core difficult as even the players who go all in on the additional system, need to remain in the primary experience of the core. For a passive system, the rule of your additional systems needing to support is more true than ever. If your system is out of place and a player runs into it, they could be taken out of the experience entirely.

However, if implemented correctly, you can reach a wide range of players as your game suddenly opens up to many playstyles, the more systems, the more players, but also the harder it is to balance correctly.

It does come with a massive disadvantage. A player who wants a pure 100% core experience may run into your additional systems by accident. With passive systems, it is impossible to maintain this 100%.

Framework

In the previous chapter I said there were only two(2) choices when it comes to challenge substitution, but there’s actually a third. No substitution. Sometimes a game or project does not have the space for it, which is why it’s important how, when and why to provide a challenge substitution. 

How-When-Why

The very first step in determining if you should provide challenge substitution, is to understand the cost of implementing it. Every additional system is an additional mechanic to implement, you will have to change your level design and core to support your substitutions. This means in the earliest stages of development, you should already know if you are going to provide substitutions, because adding them during production is difficult.

You will have to account for additional man-hours for designing, creating and implementing these systems, and if you don’t have the budget for it you will have to carefully consider what to add and what to avoid.

Adding substitutions should never hurt your game, but that all counts for how well you design around them. If your team does not have the proper resources, then avoid them. You risk ruining the game for your intended audience by trying to widen your scope.

But there are situations where you should provide substitutions as well. 

When you create a game with the express purpose of making it accessible to a specific audience, you must ensure everyone within that target demographic is able to actually access the game you provide.

If you make a children’s game and have levels around skill expression, you could provide multiple solutions to the problem for the children who are unable to reach your set skill floor. 

For some audience groups, including older adults, sensory differences such as hearing or vision loss can be significant design considerations. (Reed et al. 2025. Annual Review of Public Health).

Challenge substitution is one of many ways you can improve your games to reach a wider audience, it’s not always the right solution to a problem you are facing, but it remains a useful skill to have.

Sources

The AbleGamers Charity. “Accessible Player Experiences”. Accessible Games. Accessed 05/04/2026. https://accessible.games/accessible-player-experiences/#access-patterns

The AbleGamers Charity. “Challenge Patterns”. Accessible Games. Accessed 05/04/2026.

https://accessible.games/accessible-player-experiences/challenge-patterns/

Grant Stoner. “Accessibility isn't easy: What 'Easy Mode' debates miss about bringing games to everyone”. IGN. Accessed 06/04/2026.

https://www.ign.com/articles/video-game-difficulty-accessibility-easy-mode-debate

u/BJgobbleDix. “To all Devs about Puzzles: Make "Hints" an OPTIONAL Button Press and NOT automatic!”. Reddit. Accessed 06/04/2026.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/yspwdg/to_all_devs_about_puzzles_make_hints_an_optional/

Reed, N. S., Jiang, K., & Deal, J. A. (n.d.). “Hearing Loss Among Older Adults: Epidemiology, Disparities, and Gaps in Research”. Annual Review of Public Health. Accessed 06/04/2026.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12697576/#S17