Someone posted up saying that adding too many free activities will disrupt the game balance.
How does one test for game balance alterations?
So far I’ve added the “Indian Restaurant” group activity (at the same prices as Chinese Restaurant), and am in the process of adding “Archery Range” (I’ve never heard of anyone realistically practicing archery in one’s own apartment, unlike how the game currently uses the Bow) and “Skate Park” group activities, but do not know how they should be priced.
I don’t know of any formal way to test for this, though maybe Cliff does. In general, if the game is too hard, it’s frustrating and not any fun. If the game is too easy, there’s no challenge and it’s not any fun. So ideally, a game needs to be made at a difficulty level that intrigues the player, rather than either frustrating or boring them.
To me, Kudos seems like it’s at a reasonable difficulty level already… That means that adding activities that are free or nearly so would make the game lots easier, probably too easy. But the nifty thing about Kudos is that you can adjust it to your preference. If you want the game to be really easy, go ahead and add a bunch of free activities. If you want the game to be harder, then take out the cheap things and add some expensive ones. It’s all up to you!