Challenging and stimulating experiences are powerful weapons against boredom, but using them to their best effect is a difficult art. Even in a game with a set, unchanging difficulty setting, the intensity of moment to moment gameplay is rarely constant.
Instead, we ought to steadily escalate the physical and mental difficulty but also remember to give players a moment to catch their breath, plan their next moves, invest resources, and start anticipating the next big thing. Moments of lower intensity do not need to be empty; they can be populated by scripted events, storytelling, socializing, and sensory stimulation.
Contrast applies to pacing as much as it applies to art. If everything explodes, nothing really does. ...
