When we were building the first version of Crux, we had 340 levels. They took eight months to design, test, and refine. Two weeks before launch, we cut 310 of them.
It was the right decision. Here's why.
The temptation of volume
Mobile games compete on numbers. "100+ levels!" is a selling point on the App Store. It implies value, longevity, content. It also implies that whoever built it values your time less than they value their download count.
We spent years playing games that padded their level count. The same mechanic, repeated with slight variations. A difficulty curve that stretched horizontally instead of climbing vertically. We hated it. We decided to do the opposite.
How we decide a level is done
Every Crux level passes through the same three questions before it ships. First: does it teach something new, or just test what you already know? Second: is there a moment — a single insight — that makes it click? Third: would we replay this ourselves?
If the answer to any of these is no, the level doesn't ship. Sometimes we fix it. More often, we delete it.
Why we delete more than we ship
The decision to delete is hard every time. A level represents hours of design work — sketching logic trees, testing edge cases, writing the hint system for it. Deleting it feels like waste.
But leaving a mediocre level in is worse. It costs the player exactly one thing we can never refund: their attention. And attention spent on a forgettable level is attention that doesn't reach the good ones.
The outcome
Crux shipped with 30 levels. Our App Store reviews consistently mention "every level feels intentional" and "I wish there were more." That last part is the goal. We want players to want more — not because we withheld content, but because what we shipped was genuinely worth wanting.
Volume 2 is in development. It will have 30 levels too.