difficulty-curve

difficulty-curve is a command for Claude Code from sponticelli/gamedev-claude-plugins. It costs 10 tokens per session (1,013 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A command that designs a dynamic difficulty system, which changes a game's challenge in response to player needs or performance.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to plan adjustable difficulty elements, explicit difficulty levels, player control, and how quickly the challenge changes.
Why use it?
It helps define how a game should remain challenging without becoming too easy or too difficult for its intended audience.

Command for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the ai-systems plugin — 4 commands, 3 agents shipped together

Good fit Use it to plan adjustable difficulty elements, explicit difficulty levels, player control…

Compare 6 commands from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/sponticelli/gamedev-claude-plugins/difficulty-curve
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/sponticelli/gamedev-claude-plugins

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install ai-systems, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 4 commands, 3 agents.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for difficulty-curve

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/sponticelli/gamedev-claude-plugins/difficulty-curve.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/commands/sponticelli/gamedev-claude-plugins/difficulty-curve)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/sponticelli/gamedev-claude-plugins/difficulty-curve"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/sponticelli/gamedev-claude-plugins/difficulty-curve.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 10 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,013 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00010 $0.01013
Opus 5 $0.00005 $0.00507
Sonnet 5 $0.00002 $0.00203
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00101

Measured 7d ago against content hash f20c8256218d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

difficulty-curve scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 7d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/ai-systems/commands/difficulty-curve.md · 157 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 157 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Difficulty Curve Generator

Create a dynamic difficulty adjustment system design.

Context Gathering

Before generating the difficulty curve, understand the game:

Analyze Game Type

  • What genre is the game?
  • What creates challenge? (Combat, puzzles, platforming)
  • What's the skill ceiling?
  • How long is the game?

Understand Target Audience

  • Who is this game for?
  • What skill range do you expect?
  • Is accessibility a priority?
  • Competitive or casual focus?

Check Existing Balance

  • What difficulty options exist?
  • What's been tuned already?
  • What do playtesters struggle with?
  • What feels too easy?

Identify Adjustable Elements

  • What can change to affect difficulty?
  • What should NOT change?
  • What's visible vs invisible?
  • What's per-attempt vs per-session?

Use this context to design appropriate difficulty system.

Output Format

# Difficulty System: [Game Name]

## Overview
**Approach:** [Fixed/Adaptive/Hybrid]
**Player control:** [Full/Partial/None]
**Adjustment speed:** [Aggressive/Moderate/Gentle]

## Difficulty Levels (if explicit)

| Level | Target Audience | Key Differences |
|-------|-----------------|-----------------|
| [Easy] | [Who] | [What changes] |
| [Normal] | [Who] | [Baseline] |
| [Hard] | [Who] | [What changes] |

## Player Skill Tracking

### Metrics
| Metric | Weight | Collection |
|--------|--------|------------|
| [Metric] | [Importance] | [How measured] |

### Skill Estimation
**Formula:** [How skill is calculated]
**Window:** [How much history is used]
**Smoothing:** [How spikes are handled]

### Performance Bands
| Band | Skill Range | Response |
|------|-------------|----------|
| [Struggling] | [0-X] | [Easier] |
| [Appropriate] | [X-Y] | [Maintain] |
| [Dominating] | [Y-100] | [Harder] |

## Adjustment Mechanisms

### Enemy Adjustments
| Element | Easy | Normal | Hard | Adaptive Range |
|---------|------|--------|------|----------------|
| Health | [%] | 100% | [%] | [Min-Max %] |
| Damage | [%] | 100% | [%] | [Min-Max %] |
| Speed | [%] | 100% | [%] | [Min-Max %] |
| Count | [%] | 100% | [%] | [Min-Max %] |

### Player Adjustments
| Element | Easy | Normal | Hard | Adaptive Range |
|---------|------|--------|------|----------------|
| Health | [%] | 100% | [%] | [Min-Max %] |
| Damage | [%] | 100% | [%] | [Min-Max %] |
| Resources | [%] | 100% | [%] | [Min-Max %] |

### System Adjustments
| Element | Effect | When Applied |
|---------|--------|--------------|
| [Element] | [What changes] | [Trigger] |

## Target Experience

### Flow Metrics
| Metric | Target | Too Low | Too High |
|--------|--------|---------|----------|
| Death rate | [X/hr] | Increase diff | Decrease diff |
| Time per encounter | [Xm] | [Action] | [Action] |
| Resource usage | [X%] | [Action] | [Action] |

### Pacing Curve

Challenge ↑ │ ╱╲ ╱╲ │ ╱ ╲ ╱ ╲ │ ╱ ╲ ╲ │╱ ╲ └─────────────────────────→ Tutorial Mid-game End


## Special Rules

### Mercy Mechanics
| Trigger | Action | Reset |
|---------|--------|-------|
| [X deaths on boss] | [Reduce boss health] | [After victory] |

### Skill Gate Protection
[What prevents trivializing key challenges]

### Anti-Exploit
[What prevents gaming the system]

## Transparency

### Shown to Player
[What player sees about difficulty]

### Hidden from Player
[What adjusts invisibly]

## Implementation

### When to Adjust
**Check frequency:** [Every X seconds/On death/etc.]
**Apply timing:** [Immediately/Next encounter/etc.]

### Bounds
**Floor:** [Minimum difficulty regardless of struggle]
**Ceiling:** [Maximum difficulty regardless of skill]

## Verification
**Test scenarios:** [How to verify it works]
**Telemetry:** [What to track]

Read the full file on GitHub · 157 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 7d ago First seen · 157 lines · 10 tokens per session scan A f20c8256218d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

difficulty-curve is a command published in the GitHub repository sponticelli/gamedev-claude-plugins (15 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 10 tokens to every session and 1,013 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.