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.