Roguelike Genre Exploration, Run 2!

[Music] Good time zone, internet. Hello and welcome to Design Club, the only game design show on the internet where I confirm to my co-host Jeff live that the thing that I wanted to happen did happen and everything's working fine and nothing is broken. And that shouldn't worry anyone in the audience at all. I am your humble host, Will, joined as always by my pal Jeff. Welcome to Design Club. This is part two of a thing. I don't know how many parts this is going to be, but we'll get to that in a second. Say hi to the people, Jeff.
Hi to the people, Jeff. Hey, everybody. I am Jeffrey Zedkin, the studio director of Extra Credits and game designer, which is more relevant to this conversation since we're going to be talking about games and game design, joined as Will just said by voice. There we go. Voice of the people
this side. Yeah.
Will and we are going to be doing another deep dive into the rogike genre

and talking more from a design aspect of what just the fundamentals of rogue likes. Yeah. And in a
what that what that means. What do they have in mostly have in common if you were going to try and describe to somebody who' never played one. This is kind of what makes up rogue likes and makes them interesting and fun.
Yeah. And I think that this is it's kind of interesting. This is both a thing that more people know about. I would say more people know about rogue likes as like a concept than uh any time before in gaming. I would say that this is the period in time in which rogue likes are the most um active, right, as a as a concept, right? We just had the the full release of Hades 2. Bellatro just came out last year. We've got a whole bunch of very big, very well-known games that proudly proclaim themselves to be rogue likes, but also what does that mean? Right?

You're like, "This game is purple." And you're like, "What? Okay, it's a video game, and I know what the word purple means, but what does it mean in this context?" Um, so
yeah, it could be more of a rouge light. I wasn't going to bring up the fact that for two days the title of the video was misspelled, but it's spelled correctly now. So, if you saw it misspelled before, no, you didn't. Yeah, correct. That is a that is a common uh thing. Um, getting the G and the U backwards in Rogike. Um, it has happened countless times in the time I've been doing Rogue Review. Uh, and will probably happen countless more because I can't spell. So that's, you know, useful, helpful, reasonable.
Is it part of partly because you stay up all night wondering if there's a dog?
Yes, that's it. Although I am uh given

infinite comfort by being able to pet God uh in such times. Anyway, um so uh we we did an episode on this a couple weeks ago. We got started. So
actually longer than that. It it was longer than you think, but
was it time is a soup. Um, so we've we've mowled it over. We've looked at some of your comments, but we should also probably reiterate that one of the things that we're trying to do here is um get together the skeleton, probably not the exact wording, but the skeleton of a script. Um, we've did one of these a long time ago for the concept of MOBAs, which are much more both uniform and particular than the concept of a rogike. I would say MOBAs have many more things which define them uh as a group of games. Right.
A universal universal commonalities.
Yes, exactly. Than rogue likes, which

Jeff sent me a list that we're going to talk about. And I have no idea how I feel about this list. Uh, and so
number one was was it's one of those ones where if they'd been like top eight, number one will surprise you.
I actually would have been surprised. Yeah. Um, so we're going to be we're looking at this in the guise of an episode. So if we cut things, it's not that they're not important to the definition, it's that we don't think they fit neatly within the episode, right? And that is the lens that we're trying to have this discussion under.
Am I missing anything?
Probably, but we'll figure it out along the way.
I like that. Again, what we'll be throwing up some of what we talked about last time and you're going to hear probably one or both of us typing because we are as we're talking taking notes. This is like a discussion between us and Brad and Janet. So, YouTube and Twitch chat.
Yep.
Because last time everybody was super active. It was really helpful.
Yeah, it was. And
Yeah. And the comments, if you're watching this afterwards, comments were great, too. Um, lots of lots of

questions asked, lots of push back, lots of other interpretations of common definitions, which I thought was really interesting. Um, so good, good on all of those. All right, let's bring up
the sheet.
The sheet.
Ah, I'm small.
You are indeed a small.
I shrunk.
So, every episode of Extra Credit starts with a cold open. We're going to write that last
at the end.
That's the just like a good tutorial. you write that last when you know what you're introducing. Uh so we're going to do that
tutorial on know what you're teaching.
Yeah. Right. Um so uh we got briefly into the history of of the genre. Um, I think I the more I've thought about this in the intervening time, I do think that there's there might be one more like era
and it's it's the Hades era, but I'm less confident in that. I

do think that the last
Was Hades 22? When was Hades?
I believe Hades was 22. Um, but I definitely agree that there's like the OG OGs in like Rogue and Organ Trail. I definitely think that the early 2010s with Isaac, FTL, Spelunky are like one whole group. And then I
actually there is one we should put it. Let's see. Hold on. What was it? 2008. When was the Berlin interpretation?
Oh, yeah. Was Yeah, we can. Yes. Yeah, we could talk about
because that that was a specific point in time. Hold on. I was just looking at it. Um 2008.
Yeah. And Jeff and I dis well not disagree, but like have I think a bunch of thoughts on the Berlin interpretation. The other thing that I'm not sure of from a like make an episode perspective is how much throwing that in is going to

affect the mysterious quantity known as flow, right?
Yeah. Oh, some we'll probably leave lots of this on the cutting room floor, but it's kind of interesting to know. I mean, one of the biggest ones is just how old the genre is, but then how recently it expanded.
Yeah. that it's and I've almost never seen a genre like that before where it exists for a while and then suddenly explodes in popularity.
Yeah. Um so Hades original release date on Steam DB is listed as the 17th of September 2020.
So that could go next to Spire.
Yeah. I I think yes. I also think that that was its early access release and that full release was I want to say 2021, but I don't have a basis for that belief. That's just a gut instinct hunch kind of thing. Um so um

yeah
but for me it's funny era 4 though we have tag there is I think when they started blowing up because I think as much as FTL was really good and Binding of Splunky I wasn't seeing big writeups of them in kind of like mainstream gaming things like
there maybe I actually Isaac was mentioned a lot all of these were mentioned a Right. There there weren't overtures to a broader audience. Isaac notoriously is a game that is meant specifically for its creator and no one else. And it is designed with the explicit intent to make the player suffer. That is a part of the game, right? The original Isaac um the OG Wrath of the Lamb lies to you. It lies to you about what items do. It lies to you about how mechanics work. The original game just lies to you and you need to know that it's lying to you.

Like that level of like just not a game that is friendly. Like so there weren't any in the in era three here. I would say that these were all particular games for themselves and that there wasn't a broad overure at mass marketability, right? And there were some that began to approach that like with um Rogue Legacy, right? was really one that sort of made kind of overtures at being more playable, more broad. But I don't think it's until we get to Slay the Spire on every um you know platform available and Hades being the mass market hit
for all of its reasons that it was.
Yeah, that I feel like that's the in I almost feel like Slay the Spire was the inflection point. I think that's fair
that it's kind of that new generation of games that
aimed at playability, ease of play and playability. Like FTL was an amazing game,
but that was not a game you would

casually hand off to someone.
Yes, correct. And it has its own quirks and peculiarities, we'll say.
Um, I did want to talk about the um Well, I want to bring this up. I think Chris has a really great point here about the rog like rogue light difference. Um I do want to bring that back up when we get there further down. So Chris, hang on to that thought because I think it's a good one. Um and I I want to engage with that further and I didn't want you to think that I've missed it, but we're not there yet. Um
yeah. So basically we did a history. We'll do why should you care which is basically hey they're getting super popular and they're fun.
Yep. And the other one is we're seeing point 2B incorporation of game features into a wide variety of genres that this to me is like I think one of the most interesting parts is there are certain characteristics of games. RPGs being one of the most ex um prevalent examples of

certain styles of mechanics that just trans end up transcending the genre and just going everywhere. Yep. like RPGs were the level up like the level up mechanics from RPGs there were once pretty much a defining factor of them have just gone into everything
right
like there are you can level up in every almost every genre I've ever seen now has pop very popular games that include level up mechanics or kind of that inventory collection and the core RPG loop of you know adventure tra t treasure adventure or fight, reward, level up. Fight, reward, love. Like the RPG Circle of Life.
I mean, we can look at both of these too. Um, at uh God of War, right?
Like the new generation of God of War has both RPG elements and the newest uh one, Valhalla. I
want to say Valhalla, that's wrong.

That's the Assassin's Creed Ragnarok
um has a rogike DLC, right? that like those things are becoming more
combined
and to me it's I think that's just going to be at a certain point rogue light and that kind of gets to are rogue lights a genre or a tag
right
which is genre means a grouping of features from game play where a tag is something that could apply to a lot of games right
so for example MMO
right and this was a question that this came up a lot in the comments and I think this is that that's a sign that we probably need to be Um, we don't need to spend a ton of time on this, but we need to find a way to make this set of ideas approachable and explain why that matters to the conversation, right? Because I I think there's like there is uh there were sort of two broad ideas. One of them is I don't actually think this matters that much to the conversation because everyone knows what we mean, right? And for some people, um,

we got into a bunch of stuff. First, for for instance, there was an idea put forward, and I kind of find this quite interesting, that rogue likes are a genre and rogue likes are a series of game mechanics or a tag, right? That rogue likes need to be like rogue, like the original Rogue, and that that narrows that genre down to a very select few games, the most recent of which would be Caves of Quidd. But I disagree. I disagree with that, but I could see where that's coming from, right? Um, as an example, right? So, I think that this section is really the first place that I think we need to like sand file like put down um like where how how does this matter really to the conversation or is this just us trying to unnecessarily disambiguate jargon that we're very used to? Right? Like I guess that's my question, right? Like
I'm hold rogue lights would be a genre

and rogue likes. Hold on
backwards.
Did it back?
In this case, the the idea presented was that rogue likes would be a genre. Rogue likes would be a
uh
Actually, I don't disagree with that because you're not seeing Actually, hold on. I do and I don't right
because theoretically you could make a rog like
that is a actually could you make a rog light ra rogue like racing game or card game? In other words, if rogue like is very specific, you know, set of features that may preclude it from going out or the rogue lights, which is what almost every rogue game people talk about actually is, spread out and go everywhere,
right? And I I'm not 100% sure. So the

um okay so this this comes into the whole like what is the real difference between them right thing right because we can clearly have a rogue light card and racing game we've got examples of those right could we have a rog like version of them I would argue probably so let's take spire as an example right
um so This is where
this is where Chris's thing comes up, right?
And we'll get to this comment because
Exactly. So, um Chris's idea is that
um the that Spire is a rog like because without any of the meta progression involved, you can beat every run. You could beat all runs of slay the spire without invoking the meta progression

all of the way from a z to a 20 and people have done this right that's not a theoretical one might that is a practical people have uh without losing um and the meta progression sort of happens throughout those runs but it's not it might be necessary at higher levels but in a way that the game doesn't um say that you have to it's just a thing that's part of the runs. I guess that increasing runs get more complicated for whatever reason. Um, and that that saves us from sort of the problem of needing to say that at some state of completion, the rogue light has become a rog like by saying that it always was. I don't know how much I agree with that, but that's I'm trying to present that as an idea. I also think it's okay to say that a

thing morphs.
I kind of I kind of do
a non-static thing can change. A non-static thing by definition can change.
Yeah.
But that also doesn't invalidate his point.
Yeah.
Like
it could actually be both. There may be cases where a game like Spire was all along but feels like it is morphing from one thing to another. And I think that the the game feel right is very important because the other important thing to keep in mind is that just because someone could win every run
of one of these games that does include meta progression but does not demand it does not mean that most players will win every run. And the difference there is in the player experience of having an additional fallback in the form of meta progression. So for instance in um inspire you might struggle on a zero.

Plenty of people do. It is a game that has unique pecul peculiarities that must be mastered and some of those people find additional benefits in their ironclad runs by unlocking some of the uh ironclad specific relics and cards in order to beat that first run. So are we talking like does the it could be beaten, it can be beaten or it will be beaten like that those things all speak to different player experiences which is also really important, right? Because we like I worry about us getting too theoretical and like the well if you look at the math like you can do this exactly kind of um mathematically it's possible.
I'm looking for general shorthand. will never, you know, kind of writing in that, you know, there will always be exceptions, but this is true a vast majority of the time for defining these genres.
Yeah, I think that's fair. Um,

or tags.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know that we need to put genre versus tag in the episode. That that might be a thing that we leave uncutting later. That might be a thing to cut for time. But
I could also probably give it that whole thing a sentence or two.
Yeah.
Like Yeah. I don't I don't think that's a main part of it. You maybe something like you know I'll write the script for Matt. It's like and you know all in all rogue lights are actually more of kind of a tagging feature than a genre. meaning sports, which is well defined, where a tag like RPG progression or MMO can go on any number of games. Rogite seems to be falling into that grouping because we've seen Rogite, you know, RPGs, brawlers, shooters, card games, you know, like
and we could even do like as an art note, we could add an art note there of like every time we reference one of these, we need to show the art of that game to make the point that we're like we're not doing this like randomly,

right? We're not like making up examples like well-known things that have that.
Yeah. And even actually I should add tag. It's also mode like cuz games are adding rogike modes to them.
Yeah.
Like you were just saying with Valhalla.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Didn't like a Call of Duty or something just add a Rogue light one?
It might have. I mean, um, in some ways, uh,
some other floor has kind of done that. Yeah,
this is a mode now.
Yeah.
I'm trying to think. I don't play enough Call of Duty to know for sure. I don't think I remember hearing about it. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's that is that is an incredibly good.
That is an incredibly correct point. The

MML ro the MMO rogike bullet heaven game Realm of the Mad God is a fantastic example for that 100%. Have you ever played Realm of the Mad God, Jeff?
No.
It is old school bullet hell perma death roglike MMO.
It is It used to be much better. It's gone downhill, but it is a wild bizarre piece of code. Um, but yeah, like and that to me kind of gets to that like it's it's transcending genre or elements of it are when you start getting to like tag and mode like, hey, we're going to take this game that's this whole other thing. We're going to make a mode that's go play. You know,
they just did it to Donkey Kong.
They just did it to Donkey Kong Bonanza. Donkey Kong Bonanza has a rogike mode now. Like that's another good example of just like yeah, this is like a weird thing, right?

Um
yeah,
I think that's really as deep as I'd ever want to dive into that. Like
you could do an entire episode about that, but that's not what I think most people are interested in,
right? cuz I think there is Yeah. There I think this Yeah. The the thing I want to avoid getting too bogged down in when we're doing this section because we're spending a lot more time on this here than we will in the episode is
Oh, yeah.
That distinction exists and matters to some people but is not crucial to giving an overview of the idea of roguish stuff in general and is too much depth for someone coming in for the first time.
I think most people won't care when they come in for the first time. Mhm.
Does that make sense as like a conclusion based on on what we've said? Because I'm seeing like a lot of good thoughts, but I also don't know that like they will matter to people who already aren't deeply entrenched with the um

within like this uh particular fandom.
Yep.
Yeah. Okay. Onward. You're going to lose a lot.
Yeah. Main element number one.
Yeah.
And this is fairly unique to this style of game that most games don't expect the player to play repeatedly, losing a great majority of the time. I think that is one of the fun idiosyncrasies of the genre.
Right. Okay. So,
I'm going to start limit testing that notion real quick.
Oh boy. Okay.
I've been playing a lot of a um for the sake of not derailing this entirely. Let us say a 2D action

exploration game heavily inspired by the work of FromSoft uh which embraces wholeheartedly its the the Dark Souls roots that uh typify those works. Um and I've spent an awful lot of time losing. Like a great deal of time. I've spent so much more time losing than I have winning. I spent five hours on a boss yesterday. I had to tap out because my hand cramped up. Um,
here's the thing though. You're not losing the game. You're reverting to a save point.
Okay. Is and that that difference, right, is that when we when loss occurs in a rogike, we have wagered a greater portion of the time, right? It we're reverting farther back to a beginning of game state rather than to a um
uh to a thing. Um, and uh, yes, I I have heard that this has been happening. Um, I I have I have heard that this has been happening. My question is, did they

account for it at least this time? Because in Hades one, if you beat the game too fast, the story broke. Uh, I would hope that they have at least accounted for that possibility this time. Yeah. And I don't think it's about the brutal gameplay lurker. I think it's I think it's just about the um I think it's just about the amount the the wagered stakes for losing, right? You can have easy rogue likes and easy souls likes.
You can have an easy souls like I promise you. That's a good line.
Yeah.
And part of it player skill. I play a I played a lot of Monster Train and Monster Train 2 and even on their maximum ascension. I'd say I probably have at least a 50% win rate or higher. Like I don't have that when playing Spire on Spire. Like anybody who is hitting a 50% win rate on

Spire on like a random, you know, kind of running through all the different characters is a well above is into the top 1% of players in that game. And I'm pretty sure I'm not in the top 1% or even 10% of players of Monster Train 2.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're actually about to get some uh or we've got some good data on that. Dorbs did every uh
some of those runs.
Yeah. Jorbs did every combination of primary and secondary clan for Monster Train 2 and published all the stats. So fascinating. Jorbs is incredibly data driven. He's a former poker player who also likes card-based rogue likes. Data is
and spreadsheets
and spreadsheets. Really likes those. Um so um so anyway, so yeah, one of the main concepts of a rogike is expecting players to hit a game loss condition repeatedly in a very unsimilar way to

say if you're playing Tomb Raider or actually let me hold sports games aside, but
or sports and racing is like a weird thing because like if you're in a if you're going to go play Mario Kart
with six friends,
you're probably expecting to win 16% of the time,
right? At best.
Mhm. Or, you know, if you're particularly good, maybe you're winning 25% of the time.
Yeah.
But that's still a But it's weird that like losing a race doesn't feel like losing the game
in the same way. or, you know, if you're going to go play Madden online and you have a 53% win ratio, that means you're doing particularly well or League of Legends or any of these games like where it's one team wins, one team loses,
but those are also PvP
which I think might impact our understanding a bit, right? Um, I do

also like uh new guys comment that in most nonrogue games, the game over is not acknowledged and is not directly part of the game, right? It is the end of a game state rather than a midway point in the game state, right? That like when I die in enter the dungeon,
Mhm.
it is true that that run is over, but I haven't game overed. I've returned to the hub, reset my character to a base state, but I have retained meta progression currency and unlocks that have occurred as a result of me playing the game. So, the game acknowledges that I have played and lost to a point as opposed to something like um uh you know uh a puzzle game or something with a boss fight where I'd merely fight the boss and die and game over and go back, right? um
different than a PVP or headto-head

game where a 50% win loss is expected.
Um, okay. This is a really good question uh that I' I've addressed for a couple of times. Does that make Minecraft rog light because you have to go get your stuff? Kind of. I would say
isn't that more of a corpse run? kind of. And also, we have to deal with do corpse runs make a rog light? So, I would say no. And here's the reason. Because they made a rogike version of Minecraft. It was an April Fool's update. I played it. It was fascinating. It's called Craft Mine. You can look it up. It's a fully Moyang supported April Fool's Day snapshot that is a full worldbuilding speedrun having score progression version of Minecraft. And I would have agreed before I saw that version, but I saw the version that

was Moyang like, "Oh yeah, we can make we can make this a rogike here. Have fun." Right. Yeah.
But so yeah, like that or somebody just said, "Um, is EP request a rogike?" Like, no. Because when you die, you get you're not reverting to level one character.
Yeah.
The same in Minecraft. It's not like we're wiping the server and starting you over.
Unless you're playing hardcore, in which case, different conversation.
Yeah. But, and we actually have a note on here, the last one, is that Honor Mode or Iron Man, etc., turns other games into a more rogike experience,
right? But it's not fully something that we would say it it feels like it's in the same category is adding a roglike mode, right? But part of it is the and part of I think the the game feel that makes people push back against that is the time investment.
Actually, we don't really have time investment listed, do we? Well, that's a difficult entry, excuse me, proposition

because some people for some people, right, there is something about a point where a roguish game crosses a certain threshold of time where it stops feeling quite so roguish, right? that the like the live, die, repeat um cycle that really drives the gameplay engine of a rogike game is not necessarily tight and quick, but is often best when tight and quick. And then there are games like Returnal, right, which is inarguably a rogue light um and has all kinds of meta progression and all kinds of weird stuff and definitely resets you to an earlier state based on a whole bunch of things. And it's Matt's like favorite PS5 game. Uh but the runs are like three hours long
actually. Here then let's see
or like blueprints, right? a uh map

building puzzlebased exploration rog light, but the runs are like an hour, two hours, could be longer because they're not time based. You need time to figure out puzzles and also you can't save in the middle. Yeah, I think that's probably right. Uh, yes, I completely agree with Barry that um one of the gravest sins that a rogike can commit is not letting you save in the middle. Now, before anyone's like, "But then save." No, no, no, no. What I mean is suspend. What I mean is the game needs to be able to freeze

itself at a state and let me turn off my computer and leave.
Uh I don't take kindly to games that are like, "Yeah, you have to finish it right now or you'll lose it forever." Right? Because that particular arrangement of things is unique because see RNG save and quit not save and load. Yeah. So there you go. So main element number two, short duration runs. Most rogues have runs that are shorter in duration, ranging from half an hour to two hours. There are exceptions with longer runs. This is because of of main element number one, the expected game loss and replay,
right? That like every
they're not trying to design 20our games that get replayed over and over. That's kind of moves it out of rogike because you don't have that quick live die live adventure repeat.
Yeah.
And that leads into main element number three, the expected replay with

differences,
right? That you're because because you're expected to die and because the experiences are so short, you're not supposed to be exploring necessarily new parts of the game. The game is supposed to be presenting you with a different experience because your run isn't going to like It's not like, oh, I this on this life in uh Elden Ring, I'm going to run towards KID, right? It's a different experience. The game is presenting me with a different tree sentinel right out the gate instead of
allowing merely to make a different choice.
Instead of substance differences with RNG, is there a rogike that you know the expected replay is not RNG based? I'm sure there is like one weird one, but in general sense like with differences is like we've rolled a new map, new starting items, you know, new or different bosses that it can appear different order that stores and encounters things even micro, you know,

differences within that. A lot of it is the RNG setup.
Yeah, I think the RNG is like one of the key things that makes it different, right?
Mhm. that that's what makes it different than like an incremental game, right? Because like in an incremental game, you might prestige and then start over and that doesn't make it a rogike,
right? Like that that that is fundamentally different than that. Um, uh, Outer Wilds is a rogike in the weirdest way I think I'm willing to say that something could be a rogike in that it is it's just weird. It's like I I don't

even want to bring up Outer Wilds because then the comments are going to turn into like an Outer Wilds thing. Um it's a great game. It's real weird. It's probably a rogike. Um yeah,
yes, you can finish Outer Wilds on the first run if you know what you're doing. Yes. Any any given loop of Outer Wilds can be the winning run with no setup if you know what you're doing. And indeed, it's one of the reasons I recommend if if anything I've said, if if this conversation and you're watching this later or you're watching this now and you're like, "Wow, Outer Wild sounds really interesting. I'm going to go look something up about it." I urge you not to and instead go play Outer Wilds. Like, for real and for true, it is a game about discovering things. And if you look up to understand why we're talking about it, you will ruin the joy of discovering it on its own merit. So just go with this. Don't look up

anything about Outer Wilds. Just go play it.
I am adjusting based on a chat suggestion. My half an hour down to
like 20 minutes.
I would say 10 minutes.
Yeah. Uh Ever Classic of buying Outer Rods is a rogike. Does that mean Major's Mask is a rogike? Yes. Next question. I'm just going to start fighting people. It's going to be great. Um, yeah, if you
That's an interesting question.
Well, okay. So, I think this is where we bring up the the list, right? So, so Jeff sent me this list and it was top eight rogue likes of all time
by picked by a writer cheekily saying, "Of course, this is the obvious and only list and it's the best one."
Right. Right. Right. Right. fully acknowledging that, you know,
and and it had a lot of good stuff on

it. It had, you know, uh Spire and Hades and Bolatro and like, you know, the usual suspects. And number one on the list was Tetris. And it meets it meets the main element two and three and I guess main element one even though the runs are independent, right?
You're expected to hit the loss condition repeatedly. It's short duration runs, expected replay with heavy RNG differences.
Yeah, by the way, I love I love the difference here, by the way. Um, so we have this comment from YouTube. Tetris is definitely a rogike, followed immediately by this comment from Twitch. Tetris is not a rogike. Perfect. We've hit exactly the point that I hoped we

would, which is I don't know and I feel some kind of way about it, right? Uh I would push back against this. There is absolutely scaling difficulty curve in Tetris. Um both in starting available difficulties and final difficulty, the speed gets ridiculous. That's why rolling was invented. If you've never seen uh roll tapping, it is wild what people have come up with. Um because if you were playing Tetris on the original hardware, one of the limitations was humans ability to push buttons fast enough to move pieces. So what they came up with was holding the buttons down in the front and rolling their fingers on the back of the controller to push the controller into their fingers faster than they could push their fingers into the controller. Absolutely bonkers. Complete aside. Absolutely bonkers. The difficulty does get higher to the extent that people have had to play the game differently. It's funny. I feel like Tetris may be technically correct on a lot of things,

but isn't in spirit.
Yes. I feel like that's sort of the Yes. I just wanted to introduce that like idea into chat as we're talking about this because again
one of the problems that we've run into this a lot and I've run into running Rogue Review is classifying roguish games is difficult because to some extent we are expecting that people will honestly self-classify the intention of the game.
Mhm.
Right. And so it is kind of a question of is this game a rogike or does this game have rogike elements? We'll ask the developers if they meant it to, right? And then we can evaluate.
This also shows how this core of elements has existed in the game space.

Yes.
For a really long time, but started getting grouped together into forming kind of an actual genrelike appeal.
Yeah. This is a good one. Uh, I like Chris's idea. Tet Tetris is too RNG heavy. You have minimal choices, right? And Paul says uh that you're missing the ability to configure abilities or weapons, which is usually a part of that. I think that's fair, right? I think that that is a potential um a thing that's missing, right? That like you are lacking player agency in controlling like how things work. Uh, and the bull says there is no player scaling with the exception of skill. Correct. One of the differentiations is that there is a class of rogike like what I will call a um like there's a no meta progression rogike where there is no incremental advantage

for the player except for skill and knowledge. that there is nothing you can do to improve your start state past how well you understand the rules and constraints of the game
and maybe that is more what makes it an arcade game than a rogike. So what was the point then? Okay, say that again because that feels like then it's part of the definition of what makes a rogue.
Uh is that rogue likes there's a category of rogue likes that have no ability to improve your start state beyond player knowledge.
Mhm.
That nothing else you can do. You can't start with a better sword. You can't start with better armor. You can't start with a companion. You can't start with extra food. You just start the game and what you know about the game is all that you get to improve the chances that you

will win the next run.
So actually that would get to point number three then which we were about to talk about which is expected replay with heavy RNG differences different starting elements that rely heavily on RNG such as for example the I should even put initial load out.
Yeah. Um uh small clarification great question. Uh, doesn't Tetris keep repeating the same bag of blocks? Uh, now it does. Now it does. Didn't used to. Didn't used to. That was a problem. That's why it does now. Uh, good question. Um, and yes, that is a good point that that that does limit the amount of RNG that you can have as does hold pieces, but that's also a player skill expression thing. Um,
so main element three after so short duration runs is the expected replay with heavy RNG differences including the initial loadout, map layout and locations and rewards and treasures gained during gameplay. Um, and that the RNG is often seedbased

but not always.
Yeah. And seedbased basically means if you somehow quit and bit went back in, you'd continue to get the same set of roles versus say a game like Balders's Gate where if you revert to save and go back into like a ski a persu a conversation with skill challenges like persuasion and deception and intimidation, each set of roles will be different each time, even if you revert back to the same save.
Yep. Yeah. And again, most but not all rogues run with that, but you could easily have a nonseed-based one and it would still be rogue be the be a roy game.
Um, okay. And then there there is another uh thing that I think saves us on the Tetris question and I think dog birds got it.
There's a definable endstage victory condition.
Oo. So Tetris only has a victory

condition by virtue in most ca in in the purest sense of Tetris not Tetris attack connect.
You're right. It's not endless.
Correct. Like in the purest form of Tetris OG. The only limitation is a technical one, not a designed ending. Right. Much like many other games with a kill screen, Pac-Man comes to mind. Um right. Does is that part of it right that we are driving towards a predefined planned ending rather than a um rather than a uh a sort of coincidental conclusion that happens because the game crashes. And by the way, this is a good way to do this. If you're ever wondering like to if you're ever trying to do like classifications or wondering what is and

is not within the bounds of an object of study, you can limit test it. Right? This is a good way to to discover whether a definition or a group of things that you're trying to discuss is complete is you throw what is distinctly an edge case, right? It might be in, it might be out. Tetris in this example. And you dis you figure out whether that feels correct for what you're talking about, right? Is Tetris a rogue? Like most people have an instinctive answer. Lots of people instinctively say yes. Lots of people instinctively say no, right? And so when we we need to come up with um um the boundary in the direction of Tetris of the things that we are talking about and decide whether Tetris is inside or outside, right? And so this is a way to do that in conversation and in the exploration of something like this.
Uh
well, it's small blind, big blind, and then what's the third one called?
Blind.
Boss blind.

And then it has eight anties. And that is a winning
blind. Eat the beat the eighth boss blind. Um example monster train to beat the titans. Just throwing a couple examples in because that is a actually that who brought that up? I need to write the name next to that. Um for which bit. Um, and and by the way, so when we uh originally that was dog bird that brought up that ros have to have uh an ending dogird 514. Um I I so I do want to I want to bring this up as just a clarification. um when we're talking about this, some of these are none of them are prescriptive, but lots of them are observational, right? So like we're

not including seeds as a criteria. We're mentioning that seeds exist because part of this is an introduction to a lot of these concepts, right? So we want to include the idea of seated randomness um as a thing that gets brought up when we're explaining these games. We're not saying it needs to have it. for observing that many games in this category do have it.
Yeah, these are element common elements of the game. And therefore, if you're telling somebody, hey, if you go play a rogike, most rogue likes you play are going to have these things in common.
You know that
not all of them, but a lot of them. Yeah,
you're going to lose a lot. It's going to be shorter runs, but you're going to be expected to replay, and it's going to be random starts and differences each time. Yeah. And hey, you can actually finish the run. There's a designated ending. Like these are things that if you were describing most of them, people are like, "Oh, okay. I understand that these are elements I will expect to encounter."
Yeah.
For any grouping of these games I play.
Yep.

And that brings us down into the the big
Yeah.
Like is the what what is the difference between like and like
Can you keep going with that for 10 or 20 seconds?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um,
yep. Most rog lights do have scaling dragon. That's correct. So, the the real question is, and then this is this is the question I want to ask everybody in chat. Be honest with yourselves and with me. Does this actually matter for people who've never played a roguish game? Cuz the more we say that it doesn't, and I don't actually think that it does, right? I think a bunch of us get super invested in this because we really like rogish games, right? I think that we can mention that those terms come up and that they generally approximately like

like they just kind of approximate like vague experiences that are coupled with those words, right? But I I think that it's not actually Yeah. It's not actually like hugely important. It's definitely not enough time to Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um
All right.
So, and see Bull, this is this is where I disagree with with yours, right? Like like is a strict definition and light I disagree. See, I think that both of them are now concepts that have applied to a variety of things, right? Like one of them is the the only difference remains meta progression. And that is in fact the definition I've used for multiple years now on Rogue Review, right? Is does it have meta progression? Is the hard and fast light versus like super easy very easy to work with definition? um

is uh so and and we I see a couple of people bringing this up um a lot. Uh our are our hardcore runs a roguish mode maybe, but we brought we bring those up um up here, right? We have we have some amount of allowance for honor mode, iron man, hardcore, steel soul, whatever that like share many common factors, but it really depends on the game that those are a part of whether or not it really feels that way, right? But they are their own thing with their own contrivances and uh language. I'm going to actually let's see turn other games to rogue likes but without main element number two because one of the things we're calling out for main element two is it's a short game.
Yeah. Right.
So turning put putting Boulders Gate into Honor Mode
Yeah.
makes it doesn't turn change it from the

fact that it's a 50our game
Yep.
or maybe a 30-hour game on fast play.
Yeah. Um, uh, next great question. Um, I think we should You can absolutely have a skill-based rogike. You can absolutely have a skill-based rogike. 100%. Um, Isaac and yeah, Isaac and Gungeon are both great examples of pure skill, right? There is no mandatory damage in either Isaac or um,
Gungeon. I can't speak to Hades. I don't remember. I don't think there is. Um, but most action rogue likes absolutely have the ability to be high skill ceiling with perfect play possible and be a rogike.
Mhm.
Yeah.
So, for example, Tetris wouldn't be disqualified from that,
right? It's disqualified for Tetris is a skill-based game.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Like dungeon and other things.
Yeah. Okay. So, I think one of the

things we talked about while you were gone, Jeeoff, is I think that, and I kind of agree with this, um, Chad kind of came to this conclusion with me that we are too inside baseball on the rogike versus Rogue Light distinction, and we need to come up with a short, punchy, definitional thing that explains it because those words are going to come up when people look into these games. But it does not need to go deep in the weeds. that
I think it really is that we say we could argue this a while but the main main difference is meta progression which is on one of them over the runs you get can some your character unlocks or gets more or gets more powerful in some ways on their starting state.
Yep.
Which is the light where in likes they do not.
Yep. And we can we can you know form that into some kind of in likes the only way to improve your starting state is to understand the nature of the game better. Yeah. Can you start stronger?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Because we we tried to do a whole bunch of like corner cases because we were like doing inside baseball and like does it turn into something different? Does it have gameplay meta progression like characters or whatever? And I think we were just too in the weeds, right?
No, I I think it's worth exploring those to see if we get to the base thing of can you start stronger.
Yeah. And that that answers it for
I would say north of 95%
of cases, right? And there are probably some cases where like, you know, but like blueprints pretty inarguably a rogue light, right? like it's it's very hard to be like, "Ah, yes, no, that's not heavy meta progression elements that influence the game." Your room pools uh changes, your starting uh resource state changes. I'll do this without um and you can advance certain mechanics over the course of

several days. All of those things are light, right? I do like point C on this which is you know it is kind of fun to say but that does mean for certain games once you unlock everything
right that they play
the game effectively stops having the meta progression
and goes from a light to a like. Yeah, because you are playing it as a like, right? You're not playing it with future meta progression in mind like you might with a light, right? So like in lights, one of the gameplay differences, the experiential differences that I experience anyway, is that um we have a rule uh never sacrifice permanent progression for temporary glory, which is a fun way of saying if you have a choice between unlocking something for the next run and doing something cool this run, take the smart option and unlock the thing for the next run. But once that's not an option, there's not a gameplay difference for most players in each thing, right?
But I guess we could also argue even

against our own definition on that because by the virtue of unlocking something, will if you've been playing the game for two months and have unlocked everything. So you're now playing it like a like
and I'm starting that day, you and I are having different experiences.
Mh. So it you are starting more powerful than I am.
Yeah. But and in this Yes. And also
less importantly, but I'm also starting more powerful in the rog like sense because I've played two months and have two months of experience with understanding the systems under my belt.
Right. So, like even if it were a like the time would we'd have to like concoct some weird corner case where like I was handed a finished file and you weren't or something.

And then we got to common elements which were things that we said we see a lot of these but we didn't think that these were main elements
right these are things that like
but not
yeah the these are like you may encounter and this is sort of like the the wildlife guide to rogue lights right
when in this climb you may discover things which possess some of the following elements. Here's how to deal with them in your travels, right? That kind of thing.
Actually, Will, before we do that, would you say that for main elements one through four, games are pretty much required to have these. I'm gonna say yes only because that's absolutely going to make the entire comment section for this video into people trying to be like, well, this is

a rogike and it doesn't have point number whatever.
So, like, you know, main rule is something we expect to be true 98% of the time.
Yeah. Um, does the unlocking more relics? Uh, yes, that's a rogue light. We did have a caveat to say in there that width does not make it um Yeah, but you have a really hard time arguing that demon form, ghost form, and echo form, which are all unlocks in Spire, don't dramatically increase the available power level of the run, guys. Like, it's not
right. You're gonna have a really hard time convincing me that the card pool is just as powerful with or without demon form in it.
Like you might not see it, but the average power level
break,
right? Yeah. Or limit break or or

reaper,
right? Or like
Yeah.
So like, yes, the the pool gets wider, but it also gets stronger with the addition of those cards.
Yeah. Okay. Common elements.
Yep. These are things which are common but not but but which are less universal.
Um ascensions of some kind. We we might come up with a better term than ascensions, right? But like some kind of
actually here we go or as increasing difficult um multiple increased difficulty. Um
this is why we had trouble with it last time. We were like, I can't think of a way to put it and it's just an ascension, right?
Um,
uh,
hold on. I'm going to I'm going to spy nerd out while we're thinking about this. Yes, three mana is a lot to play. However, comma but consider offering

havoc. Um, birdface, not uh, not birdace turn. There's another one that makes one free. Mummified hand, right? The the hand. There are all kinds of like three is a lot, but it's not as much as you might think it is in the context of what it does for you, right? Just bottle it. Play it on turn one, take a hit, and then you're fine, right? Exact.
Especially if you have Reaper in your deck.
Yes, especially if you have Reaper in your deck, then you don't care. Uh Twitch raiders, welcome on in. Hello. Hi, friendos. Welcome on in. We're discussing rogue likes today here on Design Club. We're we're going through and Jeff and I are working on an episode of Extra Credits. This is sort of our our outline notes. We're talking about things which are common to rogue likes. So, right now, we're trying to come up with a better word for the ascension system than ascensions because that doesn't quite cover it, right? It's what what is it in Monster Train? It's like contract level.
No, it's Shoot, I play this all the time. Um D

yeah I mean there it's it is a scaling not a scaling it is a difficulty level that you are allowed to choose once you have beaten the previous one
they're usually more than like easy normal medium. It's hey there's 15 in here and 20 in here and this one has 25 like
lots
uh prestige or covenants covenants is the one that it is and yes uh Johansson just like the pact of punishment in Hades that is correct exactly that um although I will also say that the pact of punishment is unique and does an excellent job of displaying um one of um that studio's best u unique mechanics which is the choose your own difficulty system. Every single one of their games has it. It's just really well done in the Pact of Punishment because it uniquely works well with Hades.
Um.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, but yeah. Oh, so for raiders coming in, we basically discussed the four main

elements that we think pretty much 98% of rogue games will have, and now we're getting to the common elements that most have, but you could easily run a rogue without them. It would just like this isn't critical where the others were critical critical.
Yeah.
But again, you almost never see a rogue without ascension.
Correct.
Levels.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And we're not saying that it's it's um unique to rogues either, right? That it is we're saying that the other things are what makes a rogue. These things these common elements are things which commonly occur in roguish games
in a particular way, but aren't necessarily unique to that. And because part of the goal of this is like if Will and I were going to grab Matt in here and Matt's never played a rogue game, which he has, but we're pretending he hasn't. We're going to say, "Here, here's things that are going to help you understand the style of game you're playing. Here's the ones they're pretty much all going to have, and here's the ones that most are going to have. This falls into the most."

Yeah.
Cool. So,
yeah,
they get harder as you solve them, but you get to opt into that. You could theoretically stay at nonh hard forever.
Correct. Yeah. And there are plenty of people,
you'll never get the ending. There are plenty of people who just want to play on a zero and that's fine, right?
Um, okay.
Number two or number B.
Number B. I like number B. Okay. Deep player game knowledge is essential for continued success. So, this is sort of one of the weird defining features and I I don't know that we've really hit the way on like that the
on the explanation for this. Let me let me try and do it this way. Okay. Mhm.
In most single player, and I'm going to stress single player games here,
you play the primary way that you get better at the game is by playing the game, right? You play the game to improve on the game. I would say in the majority of single player games, that is the one of the primary paths to

improvement. One of the other primary paths to improvement that is weirdly unique to rogish games is study the game. which is really weird, right? Compared to other games that don't have that element at all, right? If you um if you um if you want to get better at spire, the answer isn't necessarily to play more Spire because it may be difficult for you to see why you are failing, right? You need to study the systems of the game and know what all of the events are and know what all of the um uh enemy attack patterns are, right? Because that's what takes uh runic dome from being an oh god I can't possibly take that. What do you mean I can't play the game without intense to yolo runic dome? I know what everything does. It's not a problem, right? Okay, cool. I can count to six. Great. This is the

hyperbeam turn. Problem solved, right? Like these are all things that like you're muting
often involves a notepad or other things then as well as a wiki page open next to you to keep going but
right and that's very common of like an older school style of RPG that is that does come from something that is very like the original rogue right or like that has all of these um crunchy weird little knobbybly bits that you need to understand.
Yeah.
Funny. Well, I just realized Runic Dome is a much better choice when you're playing on your PC than on your tablet
because you're playing on your
Yeah. You're not sitting there with a second screen that's a spreadsheet open.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, I added a part three to this um or there we go. Especially important because the main element three, the expected replay with heavy RNG differences.
Yeah. So the knowledge is essential because unlike playing through say Halo

where like yeah this fight coming up is going to have you know three of these and two of these sitting here
right?
That's just not a thing you're going to bump into in a rogue light because of the RN. Oh and they're going to drop a sniper rifle and X ammo.
Right. But but my al my other point is I could learn all of that in Halo or I could simply click heads faster.
Yeah.
Right. and that that there is like some amount of like don't get hit forehead that happens in some other games that like is true of some roguish games but like is less of a is less of an overwhelmingly driving factor than hey you need to know how to go to the sewers and to the old king's thing and how to do all of this stuff in order to get the optimal path in dungeon.
Well, this is point two. These games are crafted with encountering strategies, etc. that allow a player or community

with knowledge to perform better.
Yeah,
actually better based on that knowledge.
Yep. I think that's definitely true. Uh, could you one run Rogue with just that knowledge? Yes. In fact, knowing this kind of thing is usually what is key to one running most games.
For instance, there is an achievement in blueprints for day oneing um uh room 46. You must deeply know and get lucky, but you must know and understand how to get to room 46. What and how each of the elements that gets you to room 46 generates in order to get that achievement, right, as an example, right? That is all meta knowledge.

Yeah, it's super wild. It's it's I I looked at it and went, "No, I'm good. I don't got that time. I'm good." I also don't like blueprints that much. I think it's got a lot of really great charm to it, but I think it has a long way to go in some areas. But that's just me.
I added a new one, Will, based on a player, based on a chat comment.
Y
player agency in scaling through item inventory, um, etc. Selection.
Yeah. So, uh, I think this is that's also E.
E is different. He was the
the choose from X
pick from three.
Yeah,
actually the choose one of X I guess because what I was thinking actually is D and E might become subsections of this.
Yeah, I think that's true.
Like we might just take these and go boop.
Yeah, I think that's correct. Yeah.

Yeah. And of course, by the way, this all only matters conceptually for when we're writing the script. This doesn't actually mean anything for the final script other than this is how we're thinking about it when we're writing.
Um, Chris, I would agree that knowledge does not guarantee victory, but lack of knowledge almost certainly guarantees defeat. The knowledge is a prerequisite to victory, not a guarantee of victory.
That I think it would not be a rogue game if it was a guarantee of victory. I agree with that as well that the RNG would not be would not be a significant enough portion of the gameplay experience to call it a roguish game if you could just do it every time. Now, okay. And that's where Okay, great. Excellent. Awesome. That's where Outer Wilds comes in, by the way. That's one of the weird things is that Outer Wilds is annoyingly deterministic about 95% of the game. just so we're all on the same page because the entire game Jeff if you've never played this Outer Wilds is

a game in which oh how do I do this spoilers there is an entire solar system which from a specific point in the game onward is engaged in a full solar systemwide physics simulation based on a determined start point and the entire thing is deterministic. and it repeats. It is a wild engineering triumph of video game programming by the way. But like that is one of the weird things that makes it hard to talk about outer wilds in this.
Um does and just curious does that then mean that a lot of the gameplay involves moving things with physics that can therefore not to be funny alters the trajectory of how your game plays? No, it involves understanding why and how things will be where when.
Okay,
if that makes sense. You can't do a lot to change it. You can make very small

changes to some things, right? But, uh, you need to understand why things are going to be the way they are at what point in the game.
Uh, and then be at a certain place at a certain time for magic to happen. Uh, and that's one of the reasons it's hard to talk about in the guise of likes because it's so very consistently intentionally deterministic.
Gotcha.
Um,
I will do my obligatory thing of when somebody mentions CloudFare, Cloudflare mentioning that I knew its founder in college and used to eat dinner with him because he was
loosely adjacent to the sci-fi and fantasy guild that I was the president of at the time.
Yeah. the the we're bringing up lava lamps as a as a source of RNG in chat in case uh people aren't watching.
Um
freaking cool and and and yes, this is such a cryptic description. Uhhuh. That's correct.
Again, see my earlier points about Outer Wilds being the number one game that I

recommend that you know nothing about and play it. It wasn't at the end a game that was deeply for me, but I can respect it as being an amazing game that I recommend that people play without spoiling. Um,
how long is it?
That's a really great question, Jeff.
Okay,
that's a really great question. It really depends. It depends on how quickly you discover what information in what order. Um, it could be as little as like a couple hours. It could be like 40 hours. It really depends on how well you manage to brain muscle through some things.
Okay. Well, I was just curious on where I should add that to my queue of
Yeah.
games to play.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. So, I agree that we should have this whole section on player a player agency and scaling that like this arrive that what happens is something most but not all have builds or um archetypes or like allowing you to work

towards a theoretical plan for power, right? in some way that you get to choose that. It's not just it's not the same as like, oh, I just randomly got this piece of gear and that like you're not just consistently rolling on random tables.
Mhm.
For what gear you get. You have some amount of agency of control over the direction that your power takes or what that looks like. Oh, actually, um, noble set choices.
Um, oh, great question. Rogike board games, uh, board games tend to call them legacy games, right? Like in a lot of ways, the things that share the most commonality with rogue with rogue light games in board games is uh legacy games like um Boom

Haven or uh Boom Punk. Yes, that's exactly what I said, Lurker. Leggy C games. That's Uhhuh. Yep. Absolutely. That it's that and nothing else. Correct. Uh, no. D and D is not rogike. Would Betrayal at House on the Hill be a rogike board game from what I remember of Betrayal? Yes, I would say yes.
Right. You have all of the different factors that lead to the different haunts which have different rules that govern different outcomes
and knowing about them does let you plan some strategy like the deep player knowledge is there.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um okay,
go look at three for a moment. Let's see

on the choose one of X. I'm just adding the let's see noble set of choices example a card pool that players can learn and plan around but do the RNG elements of item procurement strategy um is adaptive. Yes, I think that's true, right? Like the number of times you're in catalyst waiting room, right? And have to pivot out of being in catalyst waiting room because you don't have any more time to be in catalyst waiting room or you're going to lose as an example.
And it's also like a common part of that inspire is you might be offered like floor one catalyst, but you have no poison,
right? Do you take catalyst and sandbag a dead card? Yeah, in hopes of encountering poison.
That's a very different proposition before and after Ascender's Bane, by the way. One curse doable, two curses less doable.

Um, oh, that's right. Dead does have a rog light board game. Dead's a good rog light. I just don't like it. God, this is I have played so many games that there's an entire category of games that I think are good games that I don't like. And Dead Cells is like very very prominent in that group.
Um, think it's a great game. Think it's got a lot going for it. I don't like it, but that's fine.
Man, I'm looking at this and now that's making me think this would be a fun campaign. Can you play D and D as a rogue like? Yeah,
you could set up a game of D and D or a campaign to be run as that, but normal D and D is not.
Yeah,
like you could adapt it. We have a whole bunch of smaller ones that I think came up through chat or other things or just our ideas that we didn't really flesh out.

Yeah. Um I like the idea. I like talking about that the expect like you that we are going to reach ludicrously powerful, right? Like
that that is an expected part of the game play in most games that you are just like
the power level at the end of the run and the power level at the beginning of the run are almost incomprehensibly in the same spectrum,
right? That like by the end of the run you have turned into an avatar of death who walks into any encounter and lets 10,000 nuclear explosions fly. At the beginning you have a rock and those are the same video game 40 minutes apart and that's what makes rogues great I guess right like
that is one of the things that makes them fun is there is a active power fantasy getting fulfilled along the way
yeah that that the the short loop power fantasy allows you to reach that point far quicker than many other genres or other groupings of games right

Like you have to spend like 500 hours in Final Fantasy 14 before you can punch God in the face. I don't want to. I don't have 500 hours. I got like a lunch break. I need to punch God in the face now. Jeff, now
um
what were we thinking with F, the meta progression currency?
One of the common things is that there are two currencies. One that's inside the run and one that's outside the run in lots of lights. Lots of lights style their meta progression as shops. So, while that's not true of um uh Spire and Train, it is true of Gungeon, right? That like not only do you pick up currency that you use in the game, but you pick up Galaxy bucks, which you use outside of the game.
Oh, that's right. Hades has some of that, doesn't it?
Hades also has some of that in a variety of fashions, right? That you use it to acquire currency or to spend outside the game to gain additional meta progression rather than being inside the run. Um, and that's a common facet trope. It's

obviously not required, but it is a thing that comes up when people are like, I have this currency and I don't know how to use it in the run. That's why
um, Hades 2 has like 10 meta currencies. See, I this is why I'm not excited to play Hades 2. Am I like the only person who's like looking at everything that people are saying about Hades 2 and going I mean I'm glad but like later not now I don't know maybe it's just me. Um
yeah maybe you'll hit a week where you're like now is my time.
It's true. It will always be there. Um, the nodebased mapping structure is like a common like the tiles, right? The the idea of tiles in a generated map is a pretty common thing in games that generate unique maps each time, right? Mhm.
Um, so you can recognize a a room, a

tile, uh, an element that shows up frequently as like an as a part of that, which is kind of weird, right? The closest thing outside of Roblox that I can think of would be like the way that villages generate in Minecraft, right? or the way that the um uh structures generate where you can have like those weird overlapping bits because the structure is trying to generate in a particular way and the terrain and the structure are in a priority fight that kind of thing.
Um
were there any other comments will from previous ones like I we're kind of we've got kind of the end of this document.
Yep. of things we should be chatting about because this was a good like going through and fleshing out.
Yeah, give me one second. Why can I not? That's interesting. That's not where I want my mouse to be.

Go mouse.
Mouse is being silly. Hold please. [Music] Nothing else that I think really comes up. Yeah, I don't think there was anything else in particular that like I wanted to address. Like we got to I think most of it. Um most of the stuff that I thought was like holding out uh as or standing out as being like things that we just missed the mark on. A lot of it was in the light light discussion. Um and and whether or not that was really needed or how much of it was needed. And I think I

I think I like where we ended up with like just being like, "Hey, these are descriptive terms that apply to some amount of these. If you run into them, here's generally what the difference means, but your mileage may vary."
By the way, on the one that had Tetris as the number one, they kind of had four big criteria.
Mhm. Their number four, which I thought was actually kind of interesting, was objectively great music with the description under it is you play these for so long that you need music which is objectively great, not in your face, but can be listened to for hundreds of hours. I just thought that that like it showed a certain amount of editor bias.
I thought it was very cute editor bias.
Yeah, jokes's on them. I turned the music off and put on synth wave. It's fine. Um yeah. Um oh that's another that I don't know how much how broad this is. Paul's question

is do all rogue have things that directly challenge some builds more than others? And I think that's a really interesting concept but I don't know that it's I would not say that it's common enough to like wrangle in here because it is difficult to explain succinctly, right? Because like I get what you're meaning, right? Like don't play shibs into time eater except now you can probably play shivs into time meter if you know what you're doing. Don't worry about it, right? Um or you know don't shoot don't go with fire into the pyromancer or don't go with a spell heavy build into the um into the final boss that penishes spells or whatever, right? But that is not like we understand
like game knowledge,
right? We understand what that means, but I don't know that there's a way to like succinctly get it in without getting off track. I think it's important and I think that it's good, but I don't
I feel like we cover that. Hold on. Um,

let's see. Where is Go up to B for a second, Will?
Going up to Bravo. There you go. Deep game knowledge is essential for continued success. You know, don't bring fired into the pyromancer. You know that basically
ships are are hard against time eater unless you've done like
Yeah,
building a shift.
It's funny. Um
I heard Jorbs like chatting with chat once when I was watching one of his videos when they were looking at um rewards from finishing the first the boss on level one and he's like, "Let's see, Phil Stone." No, because birds exist. Like that was his line.
Yeah.
Philip that you know add one energy but every opponent gets plus one strength.
Correct.
One of the first things you can encounter on level two are birds which attack six times for one point of damage a piece.
Right.
If you pick that stone up, the three of

them are each attacking for six times at two damage a piece.
And you're going from something you might be able to get enough block for to something you absolutely can't. Right. Unless you unless you have specific tools that are designed to deal with it, like a bottled piercing whale or whatever. Um, don't bottle piercing whale. It's not a great idea. There are better things to bottle. There are also worse things to bottle. Anyway, not the point. Um, but yeah. So, like that kind of game.
It was just an interesting statement like no because X exists explicitly goes to the deep deep game knowledge of why he was choosing one thing over another based on a thing you knew he was going to encounter.
Yeah.
Possibly as the very next encounter. Yeah, I think that's true.
And it was just it was it was a fun lot it was a fun throwaway line he used, but I as a designer I really appreciated it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Four red mages. Yeah. Um Yeah. I think I'm I'm kind of happy with where this is. I think we've got like the makings of something

like a good script here. There this is obviously very far from the script. So, in case anyone's unfamiliar with how this works,
Jeff and I workshopped this out and then we're going to take it away and you're not going to see it for like
a year.
A We're not kidding. A year by the time like we have space in the pipeline for an episode that Jeff and I are just like working on. So, we're going to take it away. We're going to workshop the the stuff. This will probably be the last one we do here on this. Um there may be more on other topics if you have other uh subg genres.
These are just fun discussions, too. And I it's really fun because we have a lot of people on who watch these shows and chat about it who are also very interested and knowledgeable about it. It's makes it fun to talk about.
Yeah. Um if you have other games, we did one on Mobas, we're doing we just did one on Rogish games. If you have another group of games that you'd like to see, um leave it in a comment below. I'll probably put a pin comment there as soon as I can put a pin comment which will be in a bit. Um

by the way, Will, what did you think of the thumbnail today? I I got super creative on this. Like I was trying some masking skills I don't usually try.
Yeah. Uh yeah. Uh
I'm a little I think it looks freaking cool, but I'm also a little worried that when small it looks like soup.
I mean all thumbnails when small enough look like soup.
Pixel sandwich.
Delicious. Yeah, that's true. Uh next week we will be back with a different thing. I don't know what next week's topic is going to be, but we'll let you know as soon as we do. Uh, please join us Monday as well, both here on YouTube and here on Twitch for uh, the return of Breakfast. Matt and I will be back. We're going to have a lot to talk about. There's been an awful lot of gaming news uh, in the in in the news sphere recently. Um, so please join us for all of that. I think then that is everything for today, which means that all that is left is for Jeff. Say bye to the people.
Bye to the people. Thanks everybody. Have a good rest of your day.
See y'all.

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