1 00:00:03,139 --> 00:00:08,309 One of the most fascinating genres in gaming, is the roguelike. 2 00:00:08,309 --> 00:00:14,039 The term was originally used to describe games that closely mimicked the design of the 1980 3 00:00:14,039 --> 00:00:19,170 dungeon crawler Rogue - but in more recent times, it’s been commandeered to describe 4 00:00:19,170 --> 00:00:24,770 a whole fleet of indie titles that share two very important characteristics: 5 00:00:24,770 --> 00:00:28,240 The levels must be randomly generated each time you play. 6 00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:35,480 And the game must have permadeath, which means all progress is reset to zero whenever you die. 7 00:00:35,480 --> 00:00:39,690 But that second characteristic isn’t always what it seems. 8 00:00:39,690 --> 00:00:45,490 In some games, like Spelunky, permadeath means permadeath. When you die, all progress through 9 00:00:45,490 --> 00:00:50,609 the game is reset - and you start your next run with exactly the same starting criteria 10 00:00:50,609 --> 00:00:55,480 as your very first. So that means you always begin with the same amount of health, bombs, 11 00:00:55,480 --> 00:00:56,809 and money. 12 00:00:56,809 --> 00:01:02,670 But in others, like Rogue Legacy, dying isn’t quite so harsh. When you mess up in this game, 13 00:01:02,670 --> 00:01:07,970 you can use any money you’ve found to unlock upgrades that will improve your health, magic, 14 00:01:07,970 --> 00:01:13,950 attack power, and so on. And those upgrades persist from run to run, and will be applied 15 00:01:13,950 --> 00:01:16,620 to all characters going forward. 16 00:01:16,620 --> 00:01:22,580 Some have taken to calling games with no persistent upgrades, “roguelikes” And games that 17 00:01:22,590 --> 00:01:28,259 do carry persistent upgrades, “roguelites”. And in this video, I’m going to look at 18 00:01:28,259 --> 00:01:33,590 both the advantages and disadvantages of these two approaches - and also look at how clever 19 00:01:33,590 --> 00:01:39,599 designers have tried to find ways to design around those drawbacks. 20 00:01:40,599 --> 00:01:46,060 Let’s start with roguelikes - the games that don’t have persistent upgrades. I’m 21 00:01:46,060 --> 00:01:49,250 talking about games like Spelunky and Enter the Gungeon. 22 00:01:49,250 --> 00:01:55,340 The key advantage of this design, is that the games almost exclusively reward player skill. 23 00:01:55,340 --> 00:02:00,540 Because the game never changes from run to run, the overall difficulty level of the game 24 00:02:00,540 --> 00:02:06,820 - across multiple attempts, that is - is completely flat. That means the only way to smash through 25 00:02:06,820 --> 00:02:12,430 that barrier and win is to improve your own skill: by learning the ropes, practicing the 26 00:02:12,430 --> 00:02:16,350 controls, and becoming more familiar with the game’s world. 27 00:02:16,350 --> 00:02:21,220 Nothing is standing between you and the final boss, except for your own ability and knowledge 28 00:02:21,220 --> 00:02:27,310 of the game’s systems. Other than a particularly lucky, or unlucky random roll, of course. 29 00:02:27,310 --> 00:02:32,319 And this means that a highly skilled player has no barrier to simply finishing the game. 30 00:02:32,319 --> 00:02:37,400 But the disadvantage is that a low skilled player may never finish the game. Roguelikes 31 00:02:37,400 --> 00:02:42,819 ask you to play through a really difficult game in one go, and offer no real way to reduce 32 00:02:42,819 --> 00:02:49,260 the difficulty. And so if you can’t do that, you’ll just never succeed. Ouch. 33 00:02:49,260 --> 00:02:53,590 Another drawback is that because your progress through the game must be wiped clean every 34 00:02:53,590 --> 00:02:59,050 time you kick the bucket, every failed run can feel like a waste of time. Sure, you’re 35 00:02:59,050 --> 00:03:03,760 improving your skills - but with nothing tangible to show for it, you don’t get that unique 36 00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:09,340 dopamine rush that comes from numbers ticking up. 37 00:03:10,340 --> 00:03:16,810 Okay, now let’s look at roguelites- the games that do have permanent upgrades that 38 00:03:16,810 --> 00:03:22,730 carry over from run to run. I’m talking about games like Rogue Legacy and Dead Cells. 39 00:03:22,730 --> 00:03:28,170 The key advantage of this design is that almost every run is given meaning. When you die in 40 00:03:28,170 --> 00:03:32,530 Rogue Legacy you don’t feel like you’ve wasted your time, because you know that you’ve 41 00:03:32,530 --> 00:03:36,989 earned enough money to unlock a new upgrade - and improve your chances at succeeding in 42 00:03:36,989 --> 00:03:42,310 future runs. Ultimately, every attempt at the game helps bring the difficulty of the 43 00:03:42,310 --> 00:03:43,540 game down. 44 00:03:43,540 --> 00:03:48,480 And this also allows pretty much all players, regardless of skill, to finish the game eventually 45 00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:52,519 - they’ve just got to keep upgrading their character until they’re super powerful and 46 00:03:52,519 --> 00:03:54,810 the game becomes a bit of a pushover. 47 00:03:54,810 --> 00:04:00,150 The disadvantage is that this is actually a really weird difficulty curve - where the 48 00:04:00,150 --> 00:04:06,209 game is at its most challenging when you begin, and slowly gets easier and easier over time. 49 00:04:06,209 --> 00:04:10,939 That’s the opposite of pretty much every other type of game, where the difficulty should 50 00:04:10,939 --> 00:04:13,640 ramp up in sync with player skill. 51 00:04:13,640 --> 00:04:18,430 And one of the most pernicious outcomes is that your success with these games is much 52 00:04:18,430 --> 00:04:23,350 less about your own skill - and much more dependent on the level of your character. 53 00:04:23,350 --> 00:04:28,500 In a game like Dead Cells, it’s easy to feel like you have no real chance of winning 54 00:04:28,500 --> 00:04:33,030 until you’ve purchased a few more health potions from the shop - creating this artificial 55 00:04:33,030 --> 00:04:37,440 barrier you’ve got to grind through until you can really start focusing on winning. 56 00:04:37,440 --> 00:04:41,920 But once you finally do win one of these games - it’s ambiguous whether it was because 57 00:04:41,920 --> 00:04:47,001 of your improving skill level, or just the ever-decreasing difficulty of the game. Did 58 00:04:47,001 --> 00:04:52,380 you get better, or did the game just get easier? 59 00:04:52,380 --> 00:04:58,840 So both types of game have their advantages and disadvantages. But luckily for us, clever 60 00:04:58,850 --> 00:05:04,970 designers have found ways to alleviate the worst drawbacks of the two design archetypes. 61 00:05:04,970 --> 00:05:10,070 So roguelikes can be accused of offering no sense of progression. However, lots of these 62 00:05:10,070 --> 00:05:14,790 games have found ways to give you a feeling of advancement - without changing the difficulty 63 00:05:14,790 --> 00:05:19,450 level of the game. By letting players unlock stuff that’s fun, but has no meaningful 64 00:05:19,450 --> 00:05:22,200 impact on their chances at finishing the game. 65 00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:26,700 Take Enter the Gungeon. In this game, killing bosses nets you a special currency that you’ll 66 00:05:26,700 --> 00:05:31,310 hold onto - even after you die. And you can use this money in a shop in the game’s hub 67 00:05:31,310 --> 00:05:35,820 world: but it’s not to unlock new powers for your character like extra health or bigger 68 00:05:35,820 --> 00:05:41,130 ammo crates. Instead, it simply adds more weapons to the game’s already bursting selection 69 00:05:41,130 --> 00:05:45,740 of randomly dropped guns. Meaning next time you go to a treasure chest, there’s now 70 00:05:45,740 --> 00:05:48,440 a few more firearms that could pop out. 71 00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:53,070 This doesn’t massively affect the balance of the game, because these items are no more 72 00:05:53,070 --> 00:05:58,370 powerful than the guns you could find at the beginning. It just adds extra variety to future 73 00:05:58,370 --> 00:06:00,130 attempts at the game. 74 00:06:00,130 --> 00:06:05,090 Another idea can be found in Nuclear Throne. In this roguelike shooter, you can unlock 75 00:06:05,090 --> 00:06:10,050 new characters - giving you more options to choose from when starting your next game. 76 00:06:10,050 --> 00:06:14,380 Just like before, these character aren’t any more powerful than the default ones because 77 00:06:14,380 --> 00:06:19,780 they have their own advantages and disadvantages to balance them out. They just provide different 78 00:06:19,780 --> 00:06:25,040 ways to play. It’s like the character classes in the older roguelike games, but if the devs 79 00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:29,380 held most of them back to be unlockable after a certain amount of play. 80 00:06:29,380 --> 00:06:33,620 Another option is to simply offer players cosmetic upgrades that have zero impact on 81 00:06:33,620 --> 00:06:38,370 the way the game plays. The new colour options in Downwell, for example, are given out as 82 00:06:38,370 --> 00:06:42,930 rewards for collecting a certain number of gems across multiple runs. That gives you 83 00:06:42,930 --> 00:06:47,780 a small reward for continuing to play, but they have no impact on the balance of the 84 00:06:47,780 --> 00:06:48,780 game whatsoever. 85 00:06:48,780 --> 00:06:54,070 Then, go look at Hades. This one does actually have persistent upgrades, but I want to focus 86 00:06:54,070 --> 00:06:59,310 on something else: the way it incorporates lore and character backstories. So in this 87 00:06:59,310 --> 00:07:04,770 game you unlock more about each character every time you respawn, and you can find items 88 00:07:04,770 --> 00:07:09,810 in the game world that can be given to characters in the hub to butter them up and unlock more 89 00:07:09,810 --> 00:07:15,460 story content. Unlocking new narrative stuff gives you something to hold onto, even while 90 00:07:15,460 --> 00:07:22,360 you’re failing over and over again at the actual game. 91 00:07:22,360 --> 00:07:26,400 Roguelikes can also seem impenetrable, because there’s no way to reduce the difficulty 92 00:07:26,410 --> 00:07:31,420 of the game. But some of these titles do have stuff to give players a helping hand - but 93 00:07:31,420 --> 00:07:34,130 without permanently changing the balance of the game. 94 00:07:34,130 --> 00:07:39,900 One of which is shortcuts, as seen in Spelunky. Here, if you do some chores for the tunnel 95 00:07:39,900 --> 00:07:45,930 man you can create a new door in the hub world and start your adventure in, say, the jungle, 96 00:07:45,930 --> 00:07:50,681 skipping the first four rooms in the mines entirely. This arguably does makes the game 97 00:07:50,681 --> 00:07:56,260 easier, and definitely allows new players to practice at the the harder areas in the game. 98 00:07:56,260 --> 00:08:00,080 However, Spelunky makes it clear that you’ll eventually want to play through the game from 99 00:08:00,080 --> 00:08:05,750 the beginning to finish it properly. For one, your time won’t show up on the leaderboard 100 00:08:05,750 --> 00:08:11,250 if you use shortcuts. And for another, the game’s true ending - where you descend into 101 00:08:11,250 --> 00:08:16,610 hell - requires you to find a series of items that are hidden in every area. Meaning that 102 00:08:16,610 --> 00:08:21,030 if you use a shortcut to skip an early part of the game, you won’t be able to get all 103 00:08:21,030 --> 00:08:25,060 the stuff you need to unlock the secret entrance to the underworld. 104 00:08:25,060 --> 00:08:29,200 And then there are boosts that will carry over into the next run - but don’t stick 105 00:08:29,200 --> 00:08:35,660 around permanently. In the tiny tactics game Into the Breach, you can keep one levelled 106 00:08:35,660 --> 00:08:40,590 up soldier after death, who can then be used during your next attempt. But because these 107 00:08:40,590 --> 00:08:45,980 characters don’t stick around forever, it’s not making a persistent change to the game’s 108 00:08:45,980 --> 00:08:52,500 difficulty. It just gives you a bit of a leg-up, and also an excuse for “just one more go”. 109 00:08:52,500 --> 00:08:57,720 And then there’s roguelites. Here, there’s a real ambiguity over whether your successes 110 00:08:57,720 --> 00:09:02,550 and failures are due to the game’s difficulty level - or your own skill. But the designers 111 00:09:02,550 --> 00:09:07,370 of these games are often careful to introduce elements that still require a certain level 112 00:09:07,370 --> 00:09:12,820 of skill - and stop you from just grinding through the game forever until you eventually win. 113 00:09:12,820 --> 00:09:18,460 Take Rogue Legacy’s creepy doorkeeper, Charon. This dude hangs out at the front door of the 114 00:09:18,470 --> 00:09:23,650 castle and stops you from entering - and thus starting your next run - until you give up 115 00:09:23,650 --> 00:09:29,150 all of your unspent money. The idea is, you can’t save up small amounts of money over 116 00:09:29,150 --> 00:09:34,311 the course of multiple runs, and then spend it all at once on an expensive upgrade. You 117 00:09:34,311 --> 00:09:39,450 have to earn a lot of money in a single run - thus, proving your ability to stay alive 118 00:09:39,450 --> 00:09:42,030 long enough to fatten up your wallet. 119 00:09:42,030 --> 00:09:46,830 And then in Dead Cells, you don’t actually keep your money when you die. You have to 120 00:09:46,830 --> 00:09:50,990 make sure that you spend your cash at one of these upgrade stations, or it will be gone 121 00:09:50,990 --> 00:09:55,800 for good. The idea here is that you need to actually be good enough to get through to 122 00:09:55,800 --> 00:10:01,050 the end of an area and bank your money - or else it will vanish into the ether. 123 00:10:01,050 --> 00:10:06,450 Another downfall of roguelites is this feeling that player skill isn’t as valuable as time 124 00:10:06,450 --> 00:10:10,250 invested. But pretty much every roguelite is made with the intention that the player 125 00:10:10,250 --> 00:10:15,580 can actually finish the game without buying a single upgrade - check YouTube and you’ll 126 00:10:15,580 --> 00:10:18,950 find players who can finish Rogue Legacy with a level zero character. 127 00:10:18,950 --> 00:10:23,198 In fact, this could be turned into a meta level challenge within the game - 128 00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:28,100 how few levels do you need to ascend before you can finish Rogue Legacy? 129 00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:33,700 So, there we have it. But, as I’ve found out, everyone’s got a different viewpoint 130 00:10:33,700 --> 00:10:34,700 on this. 131 00:10:34,700 --> 00:10:40,780 Personally, I love the purity of roguelikes. Random generation and permadeath mean you 132 00:10:40,780 --> 00:10:46,000 can’t memorise the level layouts, or rely on the slow accumulation of power. It’s 133 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:51,840 all about your skill. Roguelites, however, do allow for that slow accumulation of power 134 00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:56,740 - and, if you ask me, that creates a weirdo backwards difficulty curve that brings in 135 00:10:56,740 --> 00:11:01,850 an unpleasant ambiguity over whether you success is down to your increasing skill, or the game’s 136 00:11:01,850 --> 00:11:03,430 falling difficulty level. 137 00:11:03,430 --> 00:11:09,980 But what about you? Do you prefer roguelikes or roguelites - and why? Please let me know 138 00:11:09,980 --> 00:11:13,360 your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks for watching. 139 00:11:13,360 --> 00:11:15,360 ZAGREUS: Well, time to go get killed again.