Author Topic: Death in Roguelikes  (Read 29004 times)

Vanguard

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Re: Death in Roguelikes
« Reply #15 on: February 09, 2010, 07:53:36 AM »
Yes, because you are on level 1 and it's a rat.

Trivial enemies are boring.  I think it's better when every opponent has at least some chance to stand up to you.

Anyway, if you're flat out playing the game wrong it'll probably win no matter how easy it is to kill normally.  Making your game intuitive and easy to get into is good, but sometimes if you're making something original, there's just no way around needing instructions/a tutorial or expecting to die really quickly at first.

corremn

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Re: Death in Roguelikes
« Reply #16 on: February 09, 2010, 11:15:37 PM »
My point exactly.  And if you are making a short game, say 10 levels, then dying on the first level would not be that unexpected anyway.

corremn's Roguelikes. To admit defeat is to blaspheme against the Emperor.  Warhammer 40000 the Roguelike

jaydg

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Re: Death in Roguelikes
« Reply #17 on: February 15, 2010, 09:31:32 PM »
I recently played through Castle of the Winds and enjoyed that very much. This game offers the opportunity to save and load the game at any time. So when I made a silly mistake, I just reloaded and continued from there.

That made winning the game very easy. And it really did not feel like a roguelike anymore, although CotW has everything that makes a roguelike game. And the funniest part of all: after having finished it once, the motivation to replay it is gone, despite the fact that every level will look different and every item has to be identified again.

On the other hand, dying in CotW is very boring; actually there is only one way -  being killed by a powerful monster. It's very predictable and would be frustrating to replay everything just because you ran out of healing potions.  So I guess there have to be lots of interesting ways to die as an reward for the endless effort to replay the game over and over again.

Rich Saada, the autor of CotW explains his choice to allow loading the game on gamasutra.

Sithun

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Re: Death in Roguelikes
« Reply #18 on: March 16, 2010, 08:08:00 AM »
Being a big fan of ADOM, being 'O'ffered by enemies by standing on their altar is always a beautifull way to die. :)