What features could be more correctly interpreted as Non-linear for the purposes of

difficulty assessment?

Non-linear features would be those that aren't correctly assessed to affect the difficulty of a
level in a way that if we represent it as a graph it wouldn't be a line or part of one. What this
means for the purposes of difficulty calculations is simple: Increasing or decreasing this
specific feature would cause an abnormality in the curvature of the difficulty of the game.
Determining if any feature would behave that way requires extensive research data from
both simulations of in-game levels and playtesters. Because of that reason we can only give
our guesses about the non-linearity of any given game feature:

Level Size: Because this is the most basic of the features, it is also the most difficult to assess
in a vacuum. Everything from the number of cars to the amount of moves a player can make
is bound by this feature. Furthermore, because of the game increasing this feature only on
the latest levels of play that it is (at least by the game's interpretation of difficulty curve) is
treated as a non-linear factor.

Number of cars: This is also a fundamental feature of the game, so we can argue that the
non-linear approach for this specific aspect of the game is also tricky. One observation that
can be made is that as we increase the number of cars, we obstruct the ability of the player
to predict the future moves that can be made. This happens mainly because each move
"locks" more potential moves when the grid is overpopulated with cars.

Percentage of 3 segmented cars: I don't know how this could correlate to non-linear
difficulty assessment.

Moves: The number of moves required to solve the level is the only feature that we can
highly derive linearity from. It is most probable that with the correct "weight" for the
difficulty function that this can be very closely and correctly measured. However, we suspect
that very high number of moves don't change the difficulty as much as one might think, so it
could be expressed for example as a log(n) where n is the minimum number of moves
required to solve the level.

Counter intuitive moves: This is also a very complex feature to correctly assess. However,
because of the non-standard correlation that this feature has on difficulty mainly because
the "weight" of this feature can vary from player to player we can't make any predictions on
how it could be affecting the difficulty function non-linearly.