Roguelikes, Persistency, and Progression

Hey everyone! You might be thinking “wait, haven’t I already seen this video?” and the answer is - sort of! I wasn’t happy with the original version of this video, and found myself agreeing with some of the more negative comments that I received.

Ultimately, while GMTK will always and inevitably involve my personal opinion, the original version of this video leaned too heavily into that and made it seem like my preferences were “correct”, and everyone else’s was “incorrect”. That’s not true, and so I’ve tried to make the video more balanced and evenhanded - by looking at the advantages and disadvantages of both including and not including persistent upgrades.

I also felt like the original video had comments that seemed to be in favour of things I’ve vehemently fought against on Game Maker’s Toolkit! That being inaccessibility / gatekeeping and restrictive genre definitions. So I’ve reworded those.

Anyway, I’m sure some people will be just as negative about me changing the video - but I think this was the right move for me and the channel. GMTK is a tricky beast because it balances opinion and education and, sometimes, I’m just going to get that completely wrong.

In the interest of transparency, can find the original video here - https://youtu.be/eXEQ8VBqXBY

Cheers. Mark

on paper I think I would like roguelites better, but there's something about roguelikes that fascinated me. I love knowing that the only way to progress is to get good

I like both tbh. Roguelites done well can offer a feeling of prolonged progression, while roguelikes offer a purely skill/luck based runs that can lead to really fun gameplay moments.

People play games to have fun, not to prove their skill in some game is good. Aside from a very small group of people that equates that to fun, most people will want the easy dopamine.

Roguelikes are the real get good games. Love it. Spelunky 2 my GOAT

I am going to start saying traroguelike

I remember when discovering Dead cells the first Time i bought the random first weapon i was sad because i thought i could never return back to original one, i thought i have definitvely made the game easier

Of course it’s not the case i found how to access the original

I really like the idea of using the progression system of a roguelite to finish it at least once, and then i can try playing it like a rogue like without any progression, i think all rogue lites should incorporate some kind of choice so You can make the game harder when You feel it became too easy

Approaching this practically, whichever one holds the largest market sales is the preferred version regardless of drawbacks. I wonder if SteamDB or something has enough information to pin point this 🤔

I always like how slay the spire does it with their Ascensions. Each time you win a run, you unlock an Ascension, which is an optional debuff that makes the game harder. Beat that level and unlock another Ascension, another stacking debuff. It provides an optional high difficulty for good players, is completely unnecessary for most players to have fun or feel accomplished, and a sense of mastery when you clear higher and higher levels all the way to ascension 20

5:14 The worst of both worlds. I don't get the sense that the run wasn't meaningless when I die from this, but it does make beating the game less satisfying. Even if it's supposed to be the same difficulty, the nature of the challenge changes when you unlock stuff.

To be fair, I've never beaten a game that works like this, maybe it would grow on me.

Both .. except enter the gungeon.. I finally start to get better and more skilled with the games enemies and the devs punish u by increasing the speed of everything when it's already pretty hard? No thx.. I can't even make to the end.. stopped playing..."dynamic difficulty" terrible design...

So any and every game is a rogue like, no wonder why I haven't be able to figure out what the fuck it meant til now

I’m making a game that has a kind of Cold War esk difficulty scaling. You will increase in power, but eventually so will the enemies. You have to keep getting more powerful before they do.

Honestly, I love Roguelikes & Roguelites both a ton! I've played far too much of Isaac: Repentance and I also love roguelites like 20 minutes till dawn and really enjoy those. Something that sometimes I notice people not bring up is that roguelikes don't need random level generation, instead just needing some form of system to make each new run feel fresh and unique. This could be something as simple random enemies. Games like Vampire Survivors or 20 Minutes Till Dawn barely have "randomly generated levels", but the upgrades, items, and ways you encounter enemies in each run makes it feel fresh and fun!

i love roguelites.

I am making a rougelite and I am thinking of adding a “true mode” which will disable all permanent upgrades except for unlocked weapons

At least from what people play/pay for, there seems to be a firm split:
- action = rogueLITE + meta-progression
- strategy / turn-based = rogueLIKE (+ horizontal unlocks)

You should check out Idylls of the Lunar Maria

4:40 i think it's safe to say it is both at the same time, once you grinded your character to max level i'm pretty sure your skill levels go up to.