Question Question about setting level difficulty

I'm working on a game where a player has to collect items from rooms and once all the rooms are clear of items they can complete the level. I have the time it takes to clear out each room and the time it takes to travel between the rooms. A timer counts down from a starting value to zero. When the timer counts down to two minutes it starts flashing red to indicate time is running out. If the timer reaches zero before the player can finish the level they have to start over again. I added a variable to the inspector so I can manually add time to the levels so I can adjust the difficulty. The game will run on PC's or laptops.

The question I have is how easy should I make the easy levels. Should I set enough time so the player doesn't reach 2 minutes? Should they be able to complete the level with 2 minutes left or 5 minutes. I'm not sure what to do.

Thanks for any advice.

 

People like "close calls" - it's thrilling. Some games even manipulate the circumstances to achieve those. So a tighter limit is better as long as it does not make the game frustrating for less skilled players (something you can only find out with playtesters).

Here a useful video on this topic:

 

Thanks for the video, I didn't know how extensive this was behind the scenes.

 

It depends, are the objects hard to find? Are they always in the same place or their positions and random??

If they are easy to find, and in the same place, increases the difficulty. Conversely if they are hard to find and in a different place lowers the difficulty.

And if it's in between, do medium levels, some a little harder than others.