Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our brief series on Rogue, though admittedly if you want the full experience, cut up the two episodes into one minute pieces and randomly select fifty to eighty of those pieces and play them in random order. This week we talk about strategies, life lessons from Rogue, and of course give our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Sections played:
A few more hours (Tim) and way too many (Brett)
Issues covered: a visit by June, meeting a griffin, lack of physical damage in creatures, desirable item assessment, changing how you play by what you find, combinatorics, not knowing how many good wands there are, Brett's many strategies, traps and their impact later, the importance and pressure of food, inventory management, having to level up as you go, invisible creatures, regeneration, information is power, constraints dictating the design, treasure rooms and teleportation, the anecdote factory, whether items are weighted, iterating the design, monsters carrying items, fearing the kryptonite ring, the loot factory naming scheme, your first cursed item, life lessons learned from Rogue, resting too long, throwing potions, confusion, multiple dice games and scalability, the profound impact of constraints, someone oughta make a genre out of this, efficient for development, finding my exit strategy, simple objects creating depth, making the most of mechanics, yes and, the power of iteration, grinding as a failed strategy, always having a chance you might win, signing up for the experience, the supreme flexibility of text, comedy and the roguelike, retention and the roguelike, incorporating RPG elements, resetting a space.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Valheim, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Dark Souls, Colossal Cave Adventure, Infocom, Space Quest, King's Quest, MYST, Spelunky, Diablo, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Trek, Storyteller, Call of Cthulhu, GURPS, Shadowrun, Solitaire, Hunt the Wumpus, mysterydip, Ron Gilbert, Goat Simulator, Zach Gage, Deus Ex, Prey, Dishonored (series), Deathloop, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.
Next time:
Bonus game!
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