Game Design Deep Dive: Roguelikes

Description

Game Design Deep Dive: Roguelikes examines the history and rise of the often-confusing roguelike genre. Despite being more than 30 years old, the roguelike genre remains a mystery to a lot of consumers and developers. Procedural generation, or having the game generate content, has been a cornerstone and point of complexity since its inception. The 2010s saw an explosion of new designs and examples, along with a debate about what a roguelike is. The genre found its way back to mainstream audiences with the award-winning Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls. Since then, roguelikes have revolutionized the way we see and design games. Author and game design critic Joshua Bycer explains the differences between the various roguelike designs and give a detailed blueprint showing what makes the best ones work. The first of its kind talking about the roguelike genre Examines the design and methodology of roguelike games and the different variations A high-level discussion and breakdown of procedural and random content generation Joshua Bycer is a game design critic with more than seven years of experience critically analyzing game design and the industry itself. In that time, through Game-Wisdom, he has interviewed hundreds of game developers and members of the industry about what it means to design video games. He is also a public speaker and presenter at schools and libraries on game design and game development. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments Author Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 The Birth of the Rogue 2.1 Early Rogues 2.2 What Is a Roguelike Like? Chapter 3 Basic Roguelike Design 3.1 Turn-Based Design 3.2 The Failure Loop 3.3 Replayable Gameplay 3.4 The Appeal of “Hardcore” Mode Chapter 4 Off-Brand Roguelikes 4.1 Toejam and Earl 4.2 Mystery Dungeon Games 4.3 Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter 4.4 Randomly Generated Games Chapter 5 Generating Content 5.1 Random Generation 5.2 Randomized Fairness 5.3 Procedural Generation 5.4 Explaining Points of Interest 5.5 Random vs. Procedural Generation? Chapter 6 Advanced Roguelike Design 6.1 Creating Variance 6.2 Categories of Content 6.3 Structuring Your Content 6.4 Supplemental Content 6.5 Randomized Balance 6.6 Persistence Systems Chapter 7 The Roguelike Rises 7.1 Spelunky 7.2 The Binding of Isaac 7.3 Dungeons of Dredmor 7.4 The Indie Boom 7.5 Deck-Building Roguelike Design 7.6 Defining a Roguelike Chapter 8 AAA Roguelikes 8.1 Demon’s Souls 8.2 “Soulslike” Design 8.3 Prey Mooncrash Chapter 9 The Roguelike Confusion 9.1 The Roguelike Debate 9.2 Roguelite vs. Roguelike 9.3 Action Roguelike 9.4 The Shades of a Rogue Chapter 10 Expert Roguelike Design 10.1 Getting the Basics Right 10.2 Proper Pacing 10.3 Open-World Roguelike Design 10.4 The Focal Points of Replayability 10.5 The Dangers of Fixed Content 10.6 Debunking “Infinite Replayability” 10.7 Balancing the Unpredictable 10.8 Progressive Difficulty 10.9 Narrative Roguelikes Conclusion Glossary Index