How to Fail at Making a RogueLike
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- Currently one of the most popular genres! As well as one of the most popular genre to fail at!
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Twitter: / theartindi
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Instructions unclear, accidentally developed Hades
Sorry, , but just stick to it man, it happens to the best of us, sometimes we make a Noita, and sometimes you can turn out a Spelunky, but just keep trying and I'm sure you can make something no one will care about eventually.
hell of a game.
@@vizthexis… is that a pun?
@@nobleninja94 yes.
Finishing Hades is a great wake up call. "Oh wow, the credits keep going and going and going"
Sea of stars as well.
I know that the "how to fail" gimmick is often used jokingly, but it is often more useful to look at what failed rather than what succeeded to avoid a Survivor bias
Looking at what does well is super great, but looking at what does poorly is often just as helpful. :)
i like survivors, you mean, like vampire survivors? that shit is GREAT. Or you mean, other time of survivors and i don't get it?
@@viniciusschadeck4992 Survivor bias is when people focus only on what succeeds and overlook what does not, sometimes resulting of a false conclusion of how the results came to be.
@@Artindi i totally are thought about other stuff LOL
@@viniciusschadeck4992its useful to consider the chance of survivors bias.
A lot of successful games having thing X doesnt mean that thing X is necessarily the key to success, it could be that a whole lot of really bad games have it too, and its not necessarily good or bad
or potentially it could even be actively bad, but the good things the successful ones outweighed it
Don't forget to throw in the possibility of RNG completely destroying any hope of continuing a run! Gotta keep the good players on their toes, by negating all skill with a luck wall!
Ah, the Binding of Isaac approach.
@@ethanhayes7038 I was more thinking of traditional rogue likes, like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup or Tales of Maj'Eyal, where sometimes you can just get a bad hand, and have a couple very strong enemies spawn too early and destroy you.
(mostly an issue with DCSS, because TOME4 has counterplay to bad RNG, and potential revives, but it's still present)
Ah yes darkest dungeon approach (though the RNG can also work in your favor when your dudes survives multiple death door check back to back)
Reaching the end of the game the player comes across a wall that rolls a 1D100000 dice. which requires the dice to land on the highest number. Furthermore to reach the end of the game takes a very very long time. Each run taking 1000 areas to teach the end of the game to even have a single roll to try and get past the wall. And if the roll fails it's right back to the start of the game again, with zero upgrades and not keeping any items from privious runs.
... That could actually be a good game if done right.
Great way to fail: Introduce RNG elements arbitrarily but also inconsistently, in parts of the game that rely on core game mechanics, and put little or no thought in how the RNGs are generated. Random.Range is more than good enough for these functions. That way, the game will feel hard no matter your skill level!
Thank you for reminding me to reexamine every single one of my game design decisions in excruciating detail
Oh, happy to help. :)
i think its time to make a frustrating roguelike with items that dont tie into eachother, and requires extreme reflexes in an arena with no random generation
Exactly! That's what I'm talking about!
Actually if you do it right it could be fun, come to think of it. :)
Maybe if it wasn't defined as a roguelike, I think maybe it could be good
Ah yes, an arcade game! XD
That basically already exist, it's called Hotline Miami
@@FloatingOerit's more strategy than reflexes
I would love to see how to fail at making a boomer shooter or doom clone. This is honestly a great way to learn though at what mistakes you shouldn’t make!
There are so many categories I want make a how to fail video for. One day I'll have the time. :)
Oh that one's easy. Prodeus
I like how you both roasted and validated the roguelike community here.
One of my greatest achievements. ;)
guys with the berlin interpretation tattooed on their backs sobbing tears of joy as their decade-long passion project gets its third download
Meanwhile a roguelite first person shooter called Rogue 2 gets half a billion dollars in sales its opening week
A lot of roguelikes and games in general nowadays just don't know how to make enemies fair or proper player scaling. They just throw bullshit at you and then when you die the response is "lolmao you're just mad you died skill issue"
And roguelites are like, lol, keep grinding and you'll beat it eventually!
And mobile games are like, lol, pay $1.99 for a boost and you'll beat it!
And AAA games are like, lol, turn the game to casual story mode!
“Just add a dash mechanic and call it good” God this is so incredibly, painfully accurate. Seems like every dang game nowadays has a dash and it feels like something the devs thought was a “must have” rather than it actually complementing gameplay and movement mechanics
the part i love about this series is that by simply thinking about what he says in reverse it becomes a tutorial on how to make a GOOD GAME. thats right. this is actually a tutorial on how to SUCCEED in making games!
This is the funniest series of videos on gamedev. Actually If we take pointers from it to what not to do then we could actually make good games. It is very educational if looked from the correct prespective
yeah, hopefully pointing out the dumb things we do sometimes will help us recognize them before we do them. :)
I love videos about hot to fail. It's really funny, but also informative :D I really want to see more videos like this and would be good to see about tower defense games :)
That might be good, I'll have to learn more about what actually makes a TD game good first though. But eventually I'm sure I'll make an episode on that.
@@Artindi I'm very appreciate that
Agreed, they are a pain in the ass to write, but they are easily worth the pain.
I like the creative way you're using to show how a decent game should feel like
This one is especially interesting to me because of how well-regarded FTL: Faster Than Light is yet it does over half of the things listed in this video (I myself have 1500 hours in it), especially if you compare the base game to it's largest overhaul mod "Multiverse" which mostly attempts to patch up most of the "failures" of the base game (including some that aren't even mentioned in this video, such as losses that are out of the player's control or having the game end in the same place always), yet there are some people who are like "no we don't like this we want more similar to vanilla FTL."
FTL also succeeds at a lot of these though. Items, upgrades and crew members do combine in different ways that allow for different approaches and some enemies interact directly with these different attack approaches in meaningful ways.
A run where you focus on boarding enemy ships, might give you trouble when you cross paths with an automated ship, unless you're boarding with lanius crew, in which case it's basically a free win. Some ships are really weak against drones, while others might have a lot of ways to fend off your drones.
The main issue is that there are a few weapons that are clearly better than the rest. (Looking at you, Flak Cannon Mk I)
@@bobthebox2993 The #1 thing FTL fails at (from this video) is the "impossibly high skill ceiling" part and generally needing to pour dozens of attempts in to memorize a lot of the events. I didn't say that FTL failed at everything here though, it's obviously a good game but it just surprises me that it succeeded despite these very glaring problems. Some people are just masochists though.
@@bobthebox2993
Burst Laser Mk II.
I just love how your videos are slowly pushing me towards the BEST way of failing - towards never trying =) You make it sound so hard and hopeless, that giving up seems more and more of an option rather than an excuse! /j
Don't give up, game dev is hard, but seeing the ways others have failed can actually help you avoid the same pitfalls, that's all this series is about really. :)
Lol great video. I'm actually working on a Roguelike and this is helpful, makes me realize some things you mention in the video that I wasn't aware I was doing like doing certain things because that's how other roguelikes do it, basically trying to fit my game into the genre instead of making it the way I want as you said.
Same here, except i am at the planning phase and i was leading the game towards a bad direction.
Don't let a genre define what a game should be. Some of my favorite games are the ones that blur genres together to make something weird and interesting.
I love the art man, keep it up!
That first point is so good... and I think that's something I started as such a victim of... Trying to pick a genre first... now I understand, games are just games, genres are just catergories we put them in to define them, but you can take aspects of many genres in one game and still have it work.
You earned my sub with this. Keep up the good work !
Haha! That's excellent. Particularly laughed at wasting time arguing about definitions.
guilty.... :/ Glad you enjoyed!
SO glad I stumbled upon your channel, Artindi - LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!
I'm so glad you stumbled into my channel as well! Hopefully I keep making great content for you! :D
@@Artindi I'm sure that you will, I will be here watching your back catalogue so long!
very nice! hope to see deckbuilding games to this series
short, Informating and funny! just what I needed. thanks👍
The very first one helped me the most. Thank you. But I did actually want a rogue like because it’s the hardest. The combinations my dude…
Thought this channel had way more subscribers than it does, great work! It's like terrible writing advice but game dev!
Only as I was making the first episode did I realize the similarities, hopefully I got my own spin on it though, while of course taking inspiration! :D
On point, direct, and helpful. With this advice, I can surely fail.
Hello, I'm Brazilian, and I liked your video style, and I'll follow more content like this, thank you very much for making me laugh!
Happy you enjoyed it! :D
Honestly, alot of the issues you laid out I actually like 😂
I remember one time I made a small roguelike game and the way items worked was similiar to risk of rain, you could get multiple of the same item and your items could activate other items and at some point in the game you would get so absurdly op that your items activated constantly until your target was dead
oooh that sounds fun is it on the internet
i cant break up the long empty hallways without making more long empty hallways
Love to see more faces in this space. Great content!
Thanks!
But you never saw my face..... did ya. ;)
I'm planning to start my game development career about after a week from now, so thank you !
Welp, I was literally about to do half of what was in this video. Thanks
It would be fun to see how to fail at triple A developement, as an executive
I wonder if Cult of the Lamb has done any of these yet
this is an amazing series
This is an amazing comment
2:37
Return of the dashing gentleman.
This playlist (How to fail at...) saved my night after a boring and tiring day of programming stuffs that I don't even know if they're going to work properly!
Happy I could help, and best of luck with your programs. :)
Although im not making a rogue like. I found tech trees as a concept as a good beginner friendly way to manage difficulty and balance. The tricky bit though You'll have to figure out the overall pacing of your game. Then you place more difficult enemies based on where you believe the players made progress unlocking the tech tree. You then play test and iterate by adjusting the weapon damage upgrades on the tech tree and difficulty of the enemy until you reach the right equilibrium for your game.
I love how the music adapts to the script lol
Half of this video feels like a love letter aimed directly at Cultist Simulator I swear
The “empty room with no random generation” is becoming weirdly common these days for some reason
Other than that, great video. I’m starting work on a roguelike myself and this inspired me to rethink some design decisions
What a well put together video!
What a well put together comment!
did you just describe the development cycle of risk of rain 2
this helped me so much with my rogue like!
I'm sorry. ;)
I'am creating a rogue like for about 8 months now
I have no much content, but i only make it on free time, at least i have random generate maps using seed base algorithm, each time for default get a timestamp, them turn it into a seed value and generate about 4 different values, each value i use for something, and actually i use only some portions of each value for specific stuff. Main value generate a raw 2D map, second one i use to generate rivers, the third i use to spawn random paths along the map, the last one is used to generate interesting places.
My game has low AI for now, they just can do simple and complex move, simple sample is run to the target, mostly the player, complex one is like, prepar slam attack, moving backwards from the target, always aimming to the target, when reach a minimum distance, start slam running the target, with no real control of direction, just run straight for certain amount of time, then back to others behaviours as straight go to target. Also, randonly jump aiming target, and repeat it random times as a slime bursting little jumps all other to hit target, but with high inaccurrate aim and have a breath time then back going afterwards the target. My itens for now are kinda normal, i mean, i have only 7 controlable itens for now, sword club, spear, also bow, chakram and throwable hammer, the last one is a default attack fist attack item. They all can be use for the player as well humans enemies. I want to make more fun itens like fire stuff poison stuff and soo on, but i'am working on enemies IA to properly use human itens when the enemy is human, soo far, almost done, need test item cost to use working well on enemies and drop the enemies invetory on death. Then i have to finish my demo boss, that will be a mini boss on version 1.0. The deadline of my game first demo is now end of year, but maybe i not handle it in the schedule. Soo, i hope keep on date, even not making some quality of life improvements, i have done all art by myself, but because of it, is a really low quality graphics for now. And sound is even worst, because is literally me speaking for now. But if i finish my boss, i hope make some extra itens, ooohhhh by the way, my game has others itens as armours like stuff, you know, boots, helmets armor itself, and they had properties as well, also has levelup and you can levelup some stuff on each match, this all is working and just need add more content in the future. It is fun? I don't know, but a friend of mine take a old version and play more than a hour straight, he was trying to beat my placeholder boss and actually did it over a hour and half after, using just my initial itens, that was insane because i did a single entity with 1000 health and itens make 1-5 damage on that point, but the entity regens 1 healthpoint each second, soo i used that to test attacks and him just get hitting the boss until kill it LOL
This man just roasted the fuck out of the entire concept of Geometry Dash
Can I have the Artindi power up please?
Really loving these series, they will be the first place I would visit IF I wanted to make good games.
The SFX and art style is looking good as well!
haha, yeah, I was running out of ideas for icons there. :) And thanks! :D
0:20 fighting games, which require years to make and balance even at lower levels of polish:...
This is true! A fighting game for sure takes some incredible amounts of balancing, and I suppose any Moba would too, especially if different options are provided for playable characters or units. Great point! :D
Funnily enough the roguelike I've put the most time into, the wild dark, actually checks a good few of your failure points, with large amounts of repetition, but consodering the game makes you have to start from scratch and survive long enough to even consider tackling the bosses to get critical tools required to challenger even harder environments and bosses to eventually be able to tackle one of the 4 endings or even harder reincarnation.
It's a roguelike that a successful run will take you at least a couple irl weeks if you have a life.
The game is somewhat forgiving, but it is very easy to make compound mistakes leading to numerous early deaths, once you get past a certain point that becomes less of an issue, although the later areas are still particularly dangerous.
Good video. Amazing art too.
I love unlocking items that are worse than what already is in the itempool at the start, that sure values the playertime.
Next I want my random item synergies dependent on the order I get them. Get component B first? Haha missed out on that run, try another. So fun and engaging.
I can't believe you just wrote a tutorial for Wizard of Legend!
Great video!
The "try to fail a little less next time" strategy is exactly how I've been playing rogue fable 3 but i don't think that's intended ;-;
You mean that's not how you're supposed to play roguelikes?
this is how Neon Abyss was made
to be fair, one of the most well know roguelikes is risk of rain are those levels are technically random
Playing roguelike games is a subtle sign of masochistic tendencies.
shiiiiiiit you got me there with "I'll just start with smth easy, like a roguelike!" too late now tho 😅
this whole video feels like a love letter to noita
Seems like the Neon Abyss devs based their entire design philosophy on this video
ahhh the sarcasm is amazing here lol +1 sub
Ya think? jk, thanks mate. :)
oh no, its the perfect description of the "the game with the long name"
Make sure your weapon and item descriptions are just flavor text so the player has to open a wiki every time they find something new to make basic informed decisions.
Make sure there is no reliable way to heal damage. After all, taking damage in a highly random game is ALWAYS the player's fault.
Make sure the weapons the player finds vary dramatically in power, and balance enemy health against the strongest weapons the player will almost never have.
Make sure NPCs that might help or even provide tradeoffs are randomly absent from 90% of runs.
If there's a way to skip the early game, make sure unlocking it is more difficult than beating the game normally, or make it a secret the player will never find.
So basically "Hotline Miami"? Reflex/precision based combat, super hard, static levels, weapon veriety is mostly just cosmetic, few enemy types, and camera tilting back and forth with shifting colors to get that nausia feeling. Great game though 👍
My rouglike game for graduation work is the most imposible. Not because one of the every possible enemy might want to turn his collider off and become mr. Invincible or smth....
Dude. Person who made these. I haven't commented on youtube for eons, but I'm watching your videos after them being randomly generated to me (sorry) and, as a guy who dreams of making games in general, and a traditional roguelike especially, your videos are basically you punching me in the balls repeatedly by describing my escapades in game making in perfect detail. My seasoned dev friend tried to tell me about it but I'm apparently not one to listen unless the punching of the balls is part of the equation. Thank you, I promise to try and change my ways. I will mention your videos as a defining moment in my future post-success interviews 😉(No, really, that line hit close to home). I will now go make brick breaker.
Great!
"old man yells at clouds"
Not sure what ya mean....
SHEEEEEESH, thats is a such underrated video
i am doing rouge like game ... this video helped
Commenting for the algorithm cause this is good
I'm trying to make a 2d rougelike/lite game, but damn that hit hard. I never thought of random dungeon generation and the balance.
This was pretty dang funny
Vampire survivors is called a RougeLike by the devs. But it doesnt have much weapon sinergy, everything just destroys in a different way. And there is no random generation, most of the maps just loop. Heck the enemies arent even random. And the upgrades you can get, are mostly just small stat boosts.
They failed at being a RougeLike, but succeeded in being a Bullet Heaven.
yeah, and they've pretty much succeeded at creating a new genre being called "survivors like" spawning a bunch of copy cat's and even legit games based of that game play loop.
@@Artindi I personaly dont like "Survivor Like" as that name feels a little to much like survival (a very different genre) for my liking, also it sounds little too much like the game is inspired by Surviverio, which is a cheep copy of Vampire Survivors.
@@Swagpion I relate to that, I don't really like it either, but they didn't ask me when the world decided it was a thing. :/
Side note: it's "SurvivorS like". with an S at the end, but yeah, still sounds too close to a plan old survival if one isn't paying attention.
Boost, you did well! :D
Do immersive sim next for an even better definition debate
Good video! Thanks!!!
happy to help!
Hilarious video, did you have a specific roguelike in mind, or is this really common?
No particular game, just a lot of little things that you notice as cliché or otherwise stick out as common mistakes, particularly among indie developers.
I feel like this just described returnal
Noice! Can we get some excellent examples? I need to ensure I am doing everything right...in making a failure!
most of the examples I could give are from small indie developers, and I feel like calling out particular games would be a bit mean.
Reflexes *whoop*
This is underrated, can you do sandbox next
That's a good idea. I for sure plan on making more of these. Just need the time to do it. :)
It's gotten to the point for me that seeing the roguelike tag on steam is a red flag. So many of them have great mechanics and would be excellent as other genres like metroidvanias or action platformers, but are held back by a sea of messiness because of procedural generation, RNG, weird items and design choices, insane difficulty for no reason, etc.
My favourite one is roguelike deckbuilder because they’re always clearly inspired by Slay the Spire except they end up just making it again but literally almost always worse (except for visuals, but almost anyone could make better visuals than spire lmao)
very good sense of humor
What are you talking about? I was being completely serious.
[Insert Self-Esteem Boosting Comment]
I really enjoy this series. Always funny.
Actually had some time to pop in and watch the premiere.
I need to get back into game dev so I can start failing too! 😄
Glad you could make it! Even if you don't do a lot, game dev is always a great hobby, even if you fail. :)
I feel like this was a personal attack on me
I feel like youre describing Time Wasters but that game does have enough of its own stuff going on to be decent itself lol. We need more instructions on how to fail properly.
Tiny Rogues (rightfully) called out
lmao this is awesome :)
I know this is a year late, but I wanted to boost your self esteem: This was a good video!
Boosted! Thanks! :D
Good Video!!!
Instructions unclear, now I stand trial for torture.
Well you are basically describing spelunky 2 and that was quite successful so i guess the takeaway is that its best to just make a game bug free And aestetically pleasing and have an established franchise and famous CZcamsrs who play your game
Una vez pense en hacer un rogelike e inmediatamente pense en todas las dificultades de hacer uno bueno que mencionas aqui xddd
Also this is excellent
Instructions unclear, mistakenly made a successful Roguelike
You had one job... one job! ;)
Nice.
Playing quite a bit of those I notice another trend that makes for great “worst” rugelite: shty meta progression that adds 0 depth aside from flat stat changes combined with locking any progress behind area/bosses.
15 min run and you died to first boss despite killing 1000 enemies? Yikes, not even one meta currency to progress
i don't know if my comment will boost your self esteem. The only commenting skill I worked on was reflexes.
Nice video and it looks like you got a bunch of other nice videos too.