What is a sawtooth difficulty curve? Why the level after a hard one feels so easy

November 12, 2026

A sawtooth difficulty curve is a level plan where difficulty climbs for a few levels, then drops right after the hardest one. Drawn as a graph, it looks like the teeth of a saw. The easy level after a spike is not luck. It is a planned break that lets the player breathe, feel strong, and keep going.

What the game is doing

Most games get harder over time. A sawtooth curve still does that, but not in a straight line:

A run of levels gets a little harder each time.
One level is a spike: the hardest in that run. You win on your last move, or you need several tries.
The very next level drops low. You clear it fast, often in a few moves.
The climb starts again, from a slightly higher base than last time.

So the overall trend still goes up. The game just refuses to make every level harder than the one before. Over a long map, the line zigzags upward like a saw blade lying at an angle.

Why it works

A hard level makes you sweat. You focus, you fail, you try again. When you finally win, you are tired. If the next level is even harder, many players stop right there.

The easy level after the spike does three things:

It pays you back. You just proved you can do it, and now you feel how much better you got.
It gives a rest. Your attention gets a short break before the next climb.
It keeps momentum. A quick win makes "one more level" feel cheap, so you stay.

Without the drop, every level is harder than the last. Players hit a wall and quit at the same spot. King has said this plainly: if you make a level harder, the chance that more people churn goes up.

Real games that use it

Candy Crush Saga (King). John Davies, a senior product manager at King, told PocketGamer.biz in January 2026 that the team varies difficulty on purpose instead of raising it all the time. He says a particularly hard level is often "followed by something lighter". King does not call it "sawtooth". That is the common design term for the shape.
Where's My Water? (Disney). Writing on Revert to Saved, Craig Grannell quotes a description of the game's pacing as a kind of sawtooth curve: each set of levels gets tougher, then the game eases off when a new set starts.

Neither source says that every hard level is followed by an easy one, and neither gives numbers, so we don't either.

How to use it in your game

Plan difficulty as a list before you build levels. Give each level a target score, then shape it:

// target difficulty per level, 1 = easy, 10 = brutal
int[] plan = { 2, 3, 4, 6, 8,   3,   4, 5, 6, 8, 9,   4 };
//             climb ...  spike drop  climb ...    spike drop

Tips:

Put the drop right after the spike. Not two levels later. The relief has to land while the player still remembers the struggle.
Drop low, but not to zero. The easy level should still use the mechanic the player just learned. It feels like a victory lap, not filler.
Raise the base each cycle. Each new climb should start a little higher than the last, so the game still grows.
Use real data. Measure win rates and how many players stop at each level. Spikes are where the stop rate jumps. That is where your drops belong.
Don't spike on new mechanics. Teach a new idea in a calm level first, then test it in a hard one.
Pair it with live help. A planned curve sets the shape. Dynamic difficulty adjustment helps the player who is stuck inside a single level.

FAQ

What is the difference between a sawtooth and a stepped difficulty curve?

A stepped curve rises in jumps and then stays flat for a while. A sawtooth curve rises, then drops back down after the hardest level before climbing again.

Does Candy Crush make levels easier after hard ones?

King says it often follows a particularly hard level with something lighter, to give players variation and momentum. It does not say this happens after every hard level.

Why do games add easy levels at all?

Constant rising pressure tires players out, and many quit at the wall. An easy level after a hard one rewards the win and gives a short rest, so more players keep going.