Feedback Loops in Rogue Legacy
Rogue Legacy is a roguelike platformer with RPG elements. It was created by Cellar Door Games, and released in 2013. The combat primarily consists of swinging a sword, but players are also given the use of magic spells. In order to complete the game, players must explore an ever-changing fortress, and defeat the five bosses that await them inside. The game is primarily emergent, with unlockable skill trees, various equipment and enchantments, randomly generated characters, branching level design, and a fortress that changes its layout every time you enter it. But progression mechanics can also be seen in how you have to defeat five specific bosses to win the game. However, what truly makes this game unique is that any time a player’s character dies, their material resources and stats are inherited by a new character. This results in one of the more interesting economies I’ve experienced in a game.
Like most RPGs, characters have the usual health and mana bars, which can be restored by finding food and potions in the fortress. There are even special items that can be used by the character who finds them, adding different effects for the rest of that run. However, the more interesting aspects of this game’s economy are tied to the gold, blacksmith blueprints, and magic runes found in the fortress. Together, these can be used to improve stats and unlock new skills, classes, NPCs, weapons, armor, and enchantments. Gold can even be used to prevent the layout of the fortress from changing on your next run. But players are encouraged to spend as much gold as they can, as the cost of entering the fortress again is half of their money.
Here's how I imagine the devs answered some opening questions before developing the game:
1. What is the problem statement?
How do we make death interesting and meaningful in a roguelike?
2. How many players will there be?
It will be a single-player game.
3. What is the object of the game for each player? What are their short-term goals?
Players will work towards becoming stronger so that they can defeat the bosses.
4. Do players work together or alone? Who is their adversary?
Players will work alone to overcome the monsters and various traps present within the fortress.
5. Do you have any key rules in mind?
Players won’t be able to leave the fortress once they have entered it. The only way they’ll be able to purchase new upgrades is if they die.
6. What resources do the players manage?
The player will manage their health and mana levels. Additionally, they will find gold and spend it on weapons, armor, enchantments, and other upgrades.
7. What do players do? What decisions do they face?
Players will explore the fortress, fight monsters, and look for treasure. They will have to decide what characters, upgrades, paths will best help them accomplish these feats.
8. What information is public, hidden to particular players, or hidden to all players?
Players stats and abilities will be public information. However, the layout of the fortress will be hidden from the player upon entering.
9. What hinders players? What are the trade-offs?
Monsters and traps will hinder the players. Players will have to choose whether to take these on for more gold, or stay safe and avoid them.
10. How does the game end? Are there winning conditions?
The game will “end” once the player has found and defeated all 5 bosses. This is cumulative, and does not need to be done in the same life. Once the game has been beaten, the player will be given the option to continue in a harder “new game +” mode.
11. Explain a turn or two (or equivalent time period) of the game.
The player chooses a new character, purchases upgrades, enters the fortress, and searches for bosses or treasure until they either die or beat the final boss. If they die, the cycle starts over again from the beginning.
Here are some examples of player choice in the game:
1. What choices does the player make during the game? Which ones are the most important? Why? Should there be any added to the game or taken out?
Each time a player enters the fortress, they must choose one of the new randomly generated characters. Once inside, the difficult combat opens up many risk/reward style decisions. And if/when players die, they get to choose how to spend the money they worked so hard to earn. Honestly, I feel as though all three of these are equally important. The random characters add variety to each play session, but the choice prevents the result from feeling unfair. The risk/reward elements offer up many unique moment-to-moment decisions that keep players on their toes. And spending gold to upgrade characters ensures that the player always feels a sense of progression. All three of these come together to create engaging emergent gameplay. The game wouldn’t be nearly as fun with any of these removed, and adding any other choices would likely break the perfect balance that these three sets of choices have.
2. What are the differences in decisions a good player makes versus a bad player?
What’s great about this game is that there is no real “bad” decision. A lot of the decisions are built around personal preference and experimentation. And if the player’s character dies, they are still rewarded for all their hard work with money to spend on upgrades. But with that being said, players that rush at enemies without observing their surroundings are likely to die more often.
3. Is there a dominant strategy that is clear when a good player makes certain choices? Or are there a number of ‘best’ strategies a player could follow for the game? What are those?
Again, most of this boils down to preference. All classes are balanced with positives and negatives, and all upgrades players buy are equally useful. What works well varies from player to player. However, there are upgrades that increase how much gold you collect, which can help players get upgrades faster. This doesn’t break the overall balance of the game’s economy, but is likely optimal to buy early on.
4. What about at various levels? (For example, should the easier ones have a dominant strategy to build up the player’s confidence? Then later on take that element away.)
What’s interesting is that this game game does the complete opposite of this. It’s tough from the outset, which teaches players that it’s ok to die in this game. Death isn’t punished like other games, because it allows the player to become stronger. Then, when approaching new levels, the difficulty jumps up again, encouraging the player to practice a bit more and continue upgrading their character.
5. How does the game communicate to the player that a decision they have made is good or bad? What happens?
If a player were to take damage in this game, their character grunts, gets knocked back, and becomes invulnerable for a couple seconds. The knockback helps to separate the player from what hurt them, and the invulnerability gives them a brief moment to analyze why they were injured.
6. Does the economy of the game tie into these decisions good or bad? How?
The economy of the game ties into these decisions very well. Health is present to allow players to make mistakes. Mana ensures that players don’t overly rely on their magic, forcing them to practice positioning and using their sword. And gold allows players to improve the areas they feel weakest at.
7. Based on your above answers, is the game balanced? Is the game well designed? What would you do to improve it?
I feel as though this game is very balanced and well designed. Even in death, the player is almost always making progress. Additionally, because the layout of the fortress changes when re-entering it, death never feels like a setback. You’re always exploring new territory. There is nothing in this game’s economy that I feel needs improvement. If anything, I would say that the only improvement this game could use is in the movement and combat. While still very solid, it could use some additional polish. But other than that, this game is very well made.
And here are some other various questions about the game:
1) Provide the determinability types in the game. Explain each one.
Random
Randomly generated characters
Randomly generated layout
Strategy
Strategically spending money on specific upgrades
Planning out how to overcome enemies and obstacles
Choosing to fight or avoid enemies
Player Skill
Fighting is challenging and skill based
Certain bonus rooms require skills in other areas
2) Does the game have randomness or emergence? Which one and how do you know?
Both!
Randomness
Random characters to choose from
Random castle layout
Emergence
Upgrade tree that allows the player to choose what they want to upgrade
Choose different equip-able items with unique stats and attributes
Choose different enchantments for each piece of equipment
Choose general directions to get to unique areas. The Forest is always to the right, The Tower always above, and The Darkness is always below.
Choose whether to go for gold and loot, or to fight bosses.
3) Are the feedback loops positive or negative? How do you know that these are positive or negative? Describe how they affect the game when they happen.
The most prominent feedback loop is Charon taking half of your gold as payment to re-enter the castle. This is a negative feedback loop. The more gold a player has when re-entering the castle, the more they lose. Likewise, they lose less by entering the castle with less gold. This enforces players to spend what money they have as soon as they get it, making it very difficult to save up for the more powerful upgrades and equipment. This ensures that players must get better at playing the game to earn those high tier rewards, because they can’t survive the harder areas with better upgrades alone.
Feedback Loops:
