What makes a roguelike fun?
Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 4:41 pm
Well, its been a few days so it's about time for some new ramblings from me!
As I have been mired up in "day-job" work for a bit, I've had some time while driving across a few states to contemplate the direction that my new game is headed, and what I can do about the fun-factor.
I don't want this to become simply "Rogue Touch" with great graphics and animated attacks. And yet as I spend new money weekly on artwork I worry that it might end up becoming exactly that (or at least seen as that). Not that I am going to throw this all away and strip it back down to cardboard cutouts again... but a new look is only part of the package.
People have different ideas of fun, and a lot of people have certain things that they hated about Rogue Touch. It may be good to start on some of the things that have been identified as "not fun". Here are some comments from people over the last year:
1) Searching for secret doors is NOT fun.
2) Starving to death is NOT fun.
3) Traps are NOT fun.
4) Similar dungeon layouts are NOT fun.
5) Semi-permanent status modifiers are NOT fun... Rattlesnakes, Aquators, etc.
6) Permadeath is NOT fun.
I can try to address these a bit in turn...
1) Searching. If things were much easier to find, like 80-100% chance of finding the door on your first search, would it be more fun? Honestly I don't think so, it is still a hassle to walk along walls, pressing the search button every other step in hopes of finding a way forward. Maybe if progress could be slowed in other ways? A locked door and a key or lever elsewhere in the level? Maybe progress does not need to be slowed at all. Let the player dive quickly if they want, and die if not properly equipped.
2) Starving. There needs to be a certain constraint in place to prevent you sitting in a quiet corner and resting back to full health after every fight. Food serves the purpose of driving you forward. Must hunt for food to survive! I agree the random fainting can get really aggravating though. What is required is a reason to keep moving that makes you want to go forward, but is not so damned annoying when you accidentally run low on food due to random chance.
3) Traps. Randomly placed traps may make sense as a way to hamper an adventurer's progress in your dungeon, but I can see how they can be annoying too. Maybe the biggest complaint of all is, "why don't the monsters fall for them too?"... In Rogue Touch, they do not because the original Rogue was designed that way, and I wanted to stay true to that as much as I could. What if there was a more obvious risk-reward with traps? Say that all your treasure was found in chests, and the majority of these chests have traps armed on them? You want the loot, you need to take a chance. What if traps were found in the dungeon, but they were not so random? Maybe more obvious traps like a flamethrower in a wall that blasts anything trying to walk by (you can see the flame in the rock, giving it away) and you need to find the lever to disarm it, or otherwise avoid it. What if you could SET TRAPS yourself, and have monsters trigger them?
4) Dungeon Layouts. Ok, so Rogue never had amazing dungeon design. They were always unique, but the pattern is similar every time. A 3x3 grid of areas, all or some of them containing rooms (or mazes deeper in the game), interconnected by hallways. Each wall of a room only has one door. I nailed the layout generation in Rogue Touch to match. Ok, so that is probably the easiest to fix from my point of view in this new game. I have a handful of different tilesets, so you are not always looking at the same background. Better still, have different layout rules based on these areas. Some of them may have simple grid layouts, others may be more oddly carved out of rock... caves for example.
5) Status modifiers. Getting bit by a Rattlesnake for the 5th time, or rusting your armor down to -5 with an Aquator or rust trap does suck. But without these types of "gotchas" to make them unique every monster becomes a generic sack of hit points with teeth. Maybe a compromise, where most status modifiers are temporary and wear off on their own so you don't have to pray the random generator will give you that "Potion of Restore Strength"... Say you lose EVEN MORE strength from a rattlesnake bite, but you get better roughly 100 turns later? Or maybe you get tangled in a large spider web which hampers you movements (agility) and reduces your effective "armor class" because you can't dodge as well. After a number of turns the webbing is broken down and your agility returns to normal. Of course there would be new types of trouble to get into, but most of them would wear off on their own given enough time.
6) Permadeath. This is probably the thing that pisses off the most people who are not familiar with roguelikes. It is a very necessary component of the game though, and cannot be eliminated. There is the possibility of finding or purchasing a one-shot use item that brings you back to life, maybe with reduced stats. There is also another idea I am working on, based on Shiren the Wanderer gameplay- the ability to carry over an item or items into the next game. Shiren has the storehouse and storehouse jar method (as well as couriers that will run an item back to storage for you). I'm thinking something a bit different, but it would likely take some of the sting out of starting over for people new to the genre.
OK, so these are some major topics and some possible solutions to make things more "fun" to some, while retaining the roguelike aspects and appeal that make things more "fun" to us hardcore types. Your opinions on these topics are welcome!
Does anyone care to share their thoughts on what would make a roguelike more fun? It can be any wild idea you have, since we are not constrained to Rogue, Nethack, and the likes. Please share with me and the group, and if I can make it fit, I will!![Mr. Green :mrgreen:](./images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif)
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
As I have been mired up in "day-job" work for a bit, I've had some time while driving across a few states to contemplate the direction that my new game is headed, and what I can do about the fun-factor.
I don't want this to become simply "Rogue Touch" with great graphics and animated attacks. And yet as I spend new money weekly on artwork I worry that it might end up becoming exactly that (or at least seen as that). Not that I am going to throw this all away and strip it back down to cardboard cutouts again... but a new look is only part of the package.
People have different ideas of fun, and a lot of people have certain things that they hated about Rogue Touch. It may be good to start on some of the things that have been identified as "not fun". Here are some comments from people over the last year:
1) Searching for secret doors is NOT fun.
2) Starving to death is NOT fun.
3) Traps are NOT fun.
4) Similar dungeon layouts are NOT fun.
5) Semi-permanent status modifiers are NOT fun... Rattlesnakes, Aquators, etc.
6) Permadeath is NOT fun.
I can try to address these a bit in turn...
1) Searching. If things were much easier to find, like 80-100% chance of finding the door on your first search, would it be more fun? Honestly I don't think so, it is still a hassle to walk along walls, pressing the search button every other step in hopes of finding a way forward. Maybe if progress could be slowed in other ways? A locked door and a key or lever elsewhere in the level? Maybe progress does not need to be slowed at all. Let the player dive quickly if they want, and die if not properly equipped.
2) Starving. There needs to be a certain constraint in place to prevent you sitting in a quiet corner and resting back to full health after every fight. Food serves the purpose of driving you forward. Must hunt for food to survive! I agree the random fainting can get really aggravating though. What is required is a reason to keep moving that makes you want to go forward, but is not so damned annoying when you accidentally run low on food due to random chance.
3) Traps. Randomly placed traps may make sense as a way to hamper an adventurer's progress in your dungeon, but I can see how they can be annoying too. Maybe the biggest complaint of all is, "why don't the monsters fall for them too?"... In Rogue Touch, they do not because the original Rogue was designed that way, and I wanted to stay true to that as much as I could. What if there was a more obvious risk-reward with traps? Say that all your treasure was found in chests, and the majority of these chests have traps armed on them? You want the loot, you need to take a chance. What if traps were found in the dungeon, but they were not so random? Maybe more obvious traps like a flamethrower in a wall that blasts anything trying to walk by (you can see the flame in the rock, giving it away) and you need to find the lever to disarm it, or otherwise avoid it. What if you could SET TRAPS yourself, and have monsters trigger them?
4) Dungeon Layouts. Ok, so Rogue never had amazing dungeon design. They were always unique, but the pattern is similar every time. A 3x3 grid of areas, all or some of them containing rooms (or mazes deeper in the game), interconnected by hallways. Each wall of a room only has one door. I nailed the layout generation in Rogue Touch to match. Ok, so that is probably the easiest to fix from my point of view in this new game. I have a handful of different tilesets, so you are not always looking at the same background. Better still, have different layout rules based on these areas. Some of them may have simple grid layouts, others may be more oddly carved out of rock... caves for example.
5) Status modifiers. Getting bit by a Rattlesnake for the 5th time, or rusting your armor down to -5 with an Aquator or rust trap does suck. But without these types of "gotchas" to make them unique every monster becomes a generic sack of hit points with teeth. Maybe a compromise, where most status modifiers are temporary and wear off on their own so you don't have to pray the random generator will give you that "Potion of Restore Strength"... Say you lose EVEN MORE strength from a rattlesnake bite, but you get better roughly 100 turns later? Or maybe you get tangled in a large spider web which hampers you movements (agility) and reduces your effective "armor class" because you can't dodge as well. After a number of turns the webbing is broken down and your agility returns to normal. Of course there would be new types of trouble to get into, but most of them would wear off on their own given enough time.
6) Permadeath. This is probably the thing that pisses off the most people who are not familiar with roguelikes. It is a very necessary component of the game though, and cannot be eliminated. There is the possibility of finding or purchasing a one-shot use item that brings you back to life, maybe with reduced stats. There is also another idea I am working on, based on Shiren the Wanderer gameplay- the ability to carry over an item or items into the next game. Shiren has the storehouse and storehouse jar method (as well as couriers that will run an item back to storage for you). I'm thinking something a bit different, but it would likely take some of the sting out of starting over for people new to the genre.
OK, so these are some major topics and some possible solutions to make things more "fun" to some, while retaining the roguelike aspects and appeal that make things more "fun" to us hardcore types. Your opinions on these topics are welcome!
![Uber Geek :ugeek:](./images/smilies/icon_e_ugeek.gif)
Does anyone care to share their thoughts on what would make a roguelike more fun? It can be any wild idea you have, since we are not constrained to Rogue, Nethack, and the likes. Please share with me and the group, and if I can make it fit, I will!
![Mr. Green :mrgreen:](./images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif)