High Scores and Friendly Competition in Browser Games

A number on a leaderboard brings a certain satisfaction to any player, even the absence of prize pools has its advantages. Climbing up personal rankings or seeing a familiar name in the neighborhood chart gives a pleasant sense of achievement that encourages returning to a game after a long break.

Many html5 games implement weekly resets of their leaderboards, allowing less experienced players to climb up without being suppressed by the high scores of veteran players.

The browser gaming scene does not see much use of such techniques, but it is better to treat leaderboards as a light-hearted competition between friends and not as a life-changing contest. Scores are often beaten in games that have their main build available to everyone, while different apks can hide varying modifications of the same game.

If a title has a daily mode or seeded puzzles, the same problem does not arise at all since players compete against a fixed set of challenges available to everyone on a given day.

On the other hand, competition should not be disruptive to one’s enjoyment of the game regardless of their skill level. If a certain type of challenge is more frustrating than satisfying, it is better to switch to a more relaxing genre or disable score tracking entirely if the game allows hiding score-related UI elements. Completing three-starred levels or puzzle packs can be just as rewarding as leaderboard entries, if not more so.