I was trying to figure something out. why is it that I enjoy hard games, but I find so many games that are often called "hard" to not be satisfyingly hard, but instead to be tedious? why do I hate playing these games when in theory they should be fun and rewarding? why am I *good at* some of these games but don't want to actually put the effort in to beat them? Let's take a look.

1. Roguelike structure and what it means

there's two different types of roguelikes and roguelites. the first is one where you can take something permanent from the game loop (like Hades, with its upgrades) and the kind where when you die, you keep nothing whatsoever and lose it all.

I'm not against the second type. But I think it lacks one thing, and I'll try to describe it: i.e, when I lose everything, I lose everything, but my skill and mastery of the game remains in my brain. In the best kind of roguelikes, this means something. it means that on my next attempt, I'm better. I can get things faster, I can beat enemies quicker, I know where to go, etc.

...however, the problem is, most of these roguelikes DON'T work like that.

...If I die, I'm back at the start, with my pea shooter and low health, and I'm doing it again. What I want, now, is a faster route.

(Enter the Gungeon: I spent so long in this first area every single time I died that I got sick of it)

I want a shortcut so I can trade off my higher skill level for getting my upgrades back faster. I want to have a direction I can go where the enemies are stronger, which a new player would struggle with, but a seasoned player can get through with no trouble.

this fixes an issue I have with a lot of these games: I can be good at these games- I can be *really* good at these games- but no matter how good I am, I have to go back to the start, and spend 15 minutes with a pea shooter, having no fun at all, daydreaming about the build I *could* have later, if I don't die.

2. Not dying

There is a problem in a lot of these roguelikes, which is that at the start you have like, maybe 3 or 4 hit points but they're so hard to get back that if you die, you might as well restart.

This puts the entire game's risk into the very first enemy you encounter. if it hits you, you're worse off than you'd be if you restarted, as now you've been given an additonal quest to go find some more health. Get hit, and the game is over. also, you have your very first weapon and that's it. This encounter will be basically identical every time you play the game, without fail.

(spelunky: you get 4 hit points from the start in spelunky. they're so hard to get back that if that first enemy hits, you're now on a quest to find mre health, in addition to the quest you're already doing. you'd be a fool not to just restart!) (nuclear throne: health pickups are a common item drop from enemies, and so losing a bit of health on level 1 usually isn't a problem, and it's not as much of a risk to keep playing.)

3. Builds

once you get a while into the game, a "build" appears. You're stuffed up with upgrades, the numbers are going up, there's "juice", it feels different. It's harder to die. There are way more choices to make moment to moment. You're in the "real" game.

if this part of the game takes a while to get to, I think the game looks like this:

(I call this the "inverted pyramid")

the "inverted pyramid" structure: the start of the game has fewer branches, and the end of the game has more branches. you can make fewer choices at the start, and more at the end! In fact, the game usually ends right at the point that opens up the most!

I propose a different structure to play with:

(I call this the "pyramid")

what if the early game had the most choices, but the later game starts bottlenecking you into fewer, really putting that build to the test and deciding if you live or die?

I thought about it and realised the second structure is more akin to how most puzzle games work. Roguelikes aren't puzzle games, though.

A more likely structure for a fun roguelike could be this:

(the "trellis")

4. Chaos

The problem with the inverted pyramid structure is something I'll try and illustrate here:

(high chaos at the start of the game. You can live or die based on one decision. Low chaos at the end of the game. the difficulty levels out and it's easier to stay alive. the entire game happens at the start.)

I'm going to name this effect "chaos", and mark it as something different to "difficulty". chaos is when a game becomes a bit quantum and unstable.

alternate definitions of chaos: "how easy it is to lose", "how tight the tightrope is", "how quickly it can go wrong". I define it as similar to quantum instability, or schrodinger's cat. when you are in chaos, you are in a cloud where the game could be won or lost at any second.

dying and restarting a lot at the start of a game is something you could call "reshuffling the deck over and over until the game is fun"

This is chaos. it's not challenging, it's just chaos.

another way of doing a roguelike could be this:

(low chaos at the start of the game. You don't die as easily, but as the builds get juicier as the run goes on, the tradeoffs become more drastic, and the game becomes more hard, really putting you to the test.)

achieving this is difficult, mind, because, out of all the examples I went over in my head, a run that is "high chaos" at the end and "low chaos" at the start could easily once again turn into a case of the early game being unfun and the later game being a lot more fun.

IDEA: what if you started with a lot of max hp, which was easier to get back, but your max hp actually *went down* as the game progressed, instead of went up?

At the moment, a lot of roguelikes feel like this:

(high chaos at the start, fewer choices)

I think it could feel good if it felt like this:

(fewer choices at the start, but low chaos.)

or even THIS:

(lower chaos at the start, fewer choices)

these structures trade away the major problem of the start of the game being *both* a low-choice, AND a high-difficulty challenge, by swapping only one of these things around. if you swap both, it becomes un-fun again.

Conclusion

sometimes people will say "git gud" about games that are simply no fun to "git gud" at. games that waste time every time you die but require dying to get the knowledge to progress. Games that put you through chaos instead of difficulty and then turn into an easy game as soon as you figure it out. I think that a roguelike can reset entirely and lose all your progress and still be fun if it aknowledges the fact that at the start of the game, it may be addressing an experienced player, and not a newbie. I think it could make the games more fun and more juicy AND more difficult without spending my entire run in the chaos.

we forgot to do it oops

What did you make in 2019? Answer with some checklists or screenshots or whatever. Doesn't have to be finished

I've started a few things this year that I haven't finished yet cause they got too big. I'm gonna finish 'em though. I did promise I was gonna bring "the juice" this year and ooh boy things are looking juicy

I've unleashed 7 HITS upon you this year and I'm not even half done

In 2019 I will make games faster than you can play them. I will make games like I'm gonna die cause I always fear that I just might

MY GUARANTEES:
- I will bring the juice
- Everything will be bigger, louder, more emotive than before
- Make games like I'm gonna die
- Make music like I'm gonna die

I will make juicier games. Games that get to the core of what I'm feeling.... Games that take no prisoners. Games that turn the weirdness slider all the way to max... Yes!!! We're doin' this

Just remembered one thing I wanted to explore a lot when I came here and moved onto smaller more experimental works was multiplayer. I think local multiplayer is pretty underutilised in AAA games. It's still there obviously, but I think it's like... It should be used more, cause it can turn an average game into a very good game, and a short game into a game you play for days at a time. I know I've sunk days into things like Skullgirls, which I otherwise wouldn't if I was playing it by myself.

The other thing I am exploring is multimedia. Games that are like... The stuff you found on old promo CDs or educational CDs back in the old days, and they resembled websites rather than games. I'm not sure what genre I'd categorise them as.

I tried exploring the multimedia genre by looking into long-forgotten genres like "animated storybooks" "activity centres" and stuff like this. I think it's a genre that was always aimed at kids but I reckon you could do more with it. Like that third example is not a kid's game. Anyway I threw this idea for an animated storybook together where I wanted it so there was a room with a few things you could click on.

What I like about these games is it's not clear who the protagonist is or even what the plot is or who you are. Are you playing in the second person, ie A cursor following the protagonist on their adventures? Are you the protagonist controlling yourself with a cursor? Are you just someone reading a book? Are you controlling the reader AS A character? Are you playing in the first person? ARE YOU PLAYING IN THE FIFTH PERSON???

I've been thinking about music too and what I like about the medium of music is that it is THE medium if you want to deal with disparate concepts rather than characters. If you make a song, it doesn't need characters. Otherwise every song would be kind of a novelty song. And thinking about this with relation to video games makes me wonder: Are video games un-evolved as a medium to the point we could be making more games about CONCEPTS rather than characters, but we are still borrowing from film to the point we think they're required?

I feel like... Can you imagine what music would sound like if it only borrowed from literature and tried to tell a story, for example? Is that what we're doing with games right now?

Anyway, I'm thinking of various games that move away from the idea of characters, or even "the player" as a character who exists in a world, and thinking of more weirder structures where it's less clear- using the above examples as my starting point, and I have come up with something. It's something that'll probably be finished just before the year is out- and that's a good time to release it, as it'll be the denoument of the first part of these studies

I'm also not doing it yet- I'm working on a smaller game first, it's called LEGACY OF REALMS I: REALMS OF DARKFYRE and it's as silly as it sounds. It looks like this. I'm pleased with the flat shading it has. I'm also doing music for this game, it's got a bangin' metal soundtrack

I've been making some stuff that seems to be steadily increasing in scope (Caught Between Dimensions and Flamingo Quest both being stupidly large for the scope I want to work in) and it stresses me out so I'm kind of forcing myself to scale down, have fun, and relax, which is sorta why I signed up to this site in the first place.

Every time I finish one of these games, I usually decide which game to make next. I have a list of games at the back of my last 3 notebooks that are all small ideas I want to make at some point. I enter ones that interest me most in that moment into a tournament bracket and then see which one wins

Usually... The one that wins isn't the one I make next. And it's usually one I don't expect. I'm currently working on a microgame about attending terrible lectures. It's called "terrible lectures". But that might not even be the next one I finish.

Right now I'm just sort of riding whatever idea takes my fancy and if I lose interest in something and get interest in something else I'll work on that. It feels much healthier and ensures everything I work on is something I'm actually passionate about and the work I release will be the games I was most invested in

I'm swearing off health bars for a while. If you see me making a game with a health bar, tell me off

ALTERNATIVES:

1-hit death- I've done this a few times in a few games. It works well, and if you need to give the player leeway you can have it so like, there's a really small hitbox on some things that hurt you, or there's like... Bombs that go off on a timer, and overlapping them makes that timer count down faster, for example

No HP/No death- Speaks for itself. More interesting penalties are: the game's story continues but you are handicapped in some way. Like you're on fire (which doesn't kill you but does inconvenience you on future obstacles)

Getting launched across the map- What is death in most games but simply sending you back a few paces to try again. I think that's why dark souls worked so well, cause there was another penalty on top of that. Anyway, why not cut out the middle man and just launch the player somewhere else as penalty for their fuckups

"Weird Health"- I also had a game still in development where if you get hit dirt appears on you, and once you get dirty enough you have to take a shower (sent back to somewhere else) you healed yourself by physically wiping the dirt particles off yourself. I also tried the opposite where your HP was a petri dish full of bacteria, and whenever you got hit an explosion randomly went off in the dish, killing some of the bacteria. The dirt system evolved out of that. Also you could get different bacteria in your petri dish that changed you into cool alternate "forms"

Anyway that's tha plan