Week 9

• The term "roguelike" was originally used to describe games that closely mimicked the design of the 1980 dungeon crawler Rogue, but has been commandeered in recent times to describe indie titles that share two characteristics:

  • Randomly-generated levels per play; and

  • A "permadeath" mechanic, meaning that all (or in some cases, almost all) progress is lost whenever you die.

• Games that have no persistent upgrades are known as "roguelikes", and games that do have persistent upgrades are known as "roguelites".

• Some examples of roguelikes are Spelunky (Mossmouth, 2008) and Enter the Gungeon (Dodge Roll, 2016).

• Roguelike games almost exclusely reward player skill. The difficulty of roguelike games stay the same across multiple attempts, and the way to win is to improve your own skill to break through the difficulty barrier, aside from rolls of random chance.

  • The advantage of this is that high-skill players may be able to easily beat the game, but the disadvantage is that low-skill players may never be able to finish the game.

  • Roguelikes typically don't offer a way to reduce the difficulty and require you to play through them in one go.

• Some examples of roguelites are Rogue Legacy (Cellar Door Games, 2013) and Dead Cells (Motion Twin, 2017).

• Roguelite games give almost every run a meaning. Deaths don't completely reset your progress, which gives you the ability to, say, use the money you collected leading up to that death to upgrade your abilities and have a better chance at succeeding.

• Unlike roguelike games where the game has a constant difficulty, roguelite games have a difficulty that goes down with every attempt. The advantage of this is that this allows all players, regardless of skill, to have a chance to finish the game eventually. The disadvantage of this is in regards to the difficulty curve—the game is most challenging at the start, but gets easier and easier over time instead of keeping in sync with player skill progression.

• Roguelite games rely more on in-game stats such as your character's level, abilities, etc. than the player's skill.

• Some roguelike games have found ways to deal with the lack of sense of progression, like unlockables that are fun but have no meaningful impact on your chances of finishing the game.

  • Enter the Gungeon has a special currency only obtained from defeating bosses, which allows you to buy more weapons in an already bursting selection of weapons from a special shop in the game. This doesn't affect the balance of the game because using these weapons give you as much of a chance to beat the game as the starting weapons; it only adds variety for future attempts at the game.

  • Nuclear Throne (Vlambeer, 2015) allows you to unlock new characters to give you more options when starting another attempt. These characters are just as powerful as the starting characters due to their own unique advantages and disadvantages that balance them out, but add more ways to play the game (variety).

  • Downwell (Moppin, 2015) gives you a variety of colour options as rewards for collecting a certain number of gems across multiple runs. These rewards are entirely cosmetic, but serve as an incentive to keep playing.

  • Hades (Supergiant Games, 2018) incorporates lore and character backstories. Every time you respawn, you unlock more about each character. You can also find items in the game world and give them to characters in the hub to unlock more story content. Unlocking more story content serves as an incentive to keep playing.

• Some roguelikes games do have ways to give the player a helping hand without impacting the balance of the game permanently.

  • Spelunky (Mossmouth, 2008) allows you to complete chores for the Tunnel Man, and in return, you will be able to create a new door in the hub world and start your adventure in a new world, allowing you to skip previous rooms. This does make the game a bit easier, especially for newer players, but it does become clear that you will need to play the game from the beginning to finish it properly.

  • Into the Breach (Subset Games, 2018) allows you to keep one levelled-up soldier after death to use in a future attempt, but because these characters don't remain forever, the game's difficulty isn't being changed persistently.

• Roguelite games have an ambiguity over whether your successes or failures are due to the player's skill or the game's difficulty level. Designers of these games are often careful to introduce elements that require a certain level of skill and stop you from continuously grinding through the game until you eventually win.

  • Rogue Legacy (Cellar Door Games, 2013) has a doorkeeper named Charon that stands at the front door of the castle and stops you from entering until you give up all of your unspent money. The idea is you can't save up small amounts of money over multiple runs and then spend it all at once on an expensive upgrade; you instead have to earn a lot of money in a single run, which proves your ability to stay alive long enough to get a big enough saving of money.

  • Dead Cells (Motion Twin, 2017) doesn't let you keep your money when you die, but will allow you to keep upgrades, thus prompting you to spend your money at upgrade stations before you die, or else the money will be gone forever. The idea is you need to be good enough to get through to the end of the area and bank your money, or else it will be gone for good.

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