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Jester still has a lot to do in this game.

He remembers that when the development team of "Runestone Guardian" developed this game, it was not very easy, and it was not achieved overnight, because one of the characteristics of roguelike games is complexity and trouble, but in a game, this is a big taboo.

The development of Runestone Guardian went through two phases, and after the first phase was completed, they conducted a test and the results were not satisfactory.

Because the game is too complicated.

Then, the people in the development team learned from the pain, and they could almost describe their secondary research and development as tearing down and redoing it.

In fact, it's not just "Rune Guardian", many of the makers of this type of game, when making this kind of game, will draw a lot of experience, Jester has read a lot of articles or interviews in this area, so he still has a deep understanding of this type of game.

Jester sat down in his seat and pulled out a blank sheet of paper, just as he had done when he was thinking about how to design a game, he would write down everything he thought about the game, and then think about how to make Zuò based on what he had written.

Jester has used this method for many years, and he has come to the conclusion that it is very good.

He picked up his pen, scratched it on the paper, tried the feel, and then thought for a moment before starting his memories of these kinds of games.

First of all.

"Traditional roguelikes lack a definite end point, albeit with RPG elements. However, most games are just endlessly playing, or collecting a symbolic item such as the 'Amulet-of-Yendor' in the rogue, or the 'Orb-of-Zot' in DCSS, and the simple maintenance of "Dwarven Fortress", which lacks a sense of purpose, and many times the player will enter a state of fatigue in the later stages of the game. ”

And the lack of storytelling is a state of exhaustion, and it is very easy to give up the game after a series of failures. Many new games try to add a story and ending as the end point and goal of the game, providing players with motivation, like FTL also provides a large library of random events to ensure that the game always has something to play and pursue on another line. ”

Jester stopped writing here, this is the first thing he should pay attention to when designing this kind of game, he must not be able to make the characteristics or characteristics of this old-fashioned roguelike game. Lead yourself into a dead end.

Then he continued to write on the blank paper.

"Roguelikes generally have the problem of difficulty in getting started, which comes from the fact that the old roguelike games are not 'products' in the strict sense of the word - they are more like 'works' that many people are maintaining, and this 'semi-crowdsourcing' form determines that its final form is more multi-dimensional, and the complexity increases with time, and the difficulty of players to get started is also increasing, and it is difficult for new players to join the game."

"A game that doesn't welcome new players, no matter what type of game or what era of game it's in. All have no future. ”

At this point, Jester once again put Bi aside, rubbing his forehead as he began to think.

Is there any solution?

Countless thoughts flashed through his mind. He has played a lot of roguelike games before, and he compares game by game, and analyzes game by game.

There is not a lot of time to think, only about ten minutes.

Jester really had a game in mind. To be precise, it is a variant of roguelike games that comes to mind from a game, and this variant is called rogue-lite games.

This is the game that Jester thought of. It's called "rogue-legacy".

"Rogue-Legacy has been a rogue-lite game since its release, but what is a rogue-lite game? Quite simply, it means a mild roguelike. ”

"From the point of view of the way the game is presented, "rogue-legacy" adopts action-oriented and gets rid of the traditional turn-based setting, takes advantage of the high replayability of roguelike games, and with the satisfaction that action games can easily obtain, the original goal of "rogue-legacy" is to create a 2D version of "Dark-Souls", which is Black Souls."

"And for lighter users, the designer mentioned in the initial game vision such a clear goal as 'make-death-fun', which will accumulate a certain amount of money for each death, and can use the money to upgrade some of the player's attributes, the game's designer understands that this is highly controversial, but for the players he serves, this is indispensable."

Jester stopped his pen again.

What he thinks of is just some memories of this kind of game, whether it will be used in the game he wants to make zuò, that can only be unknown, his current concept of making zuò game is no longer just in this world only known plagiarism.

In fact, his main thing to do now is to come up with the general framework and direction of the game, and then the more detailed things will naturally be completed by the best game development team in the world under his command.

So, he made these games of zuò.

Compared with their contemporaries, these original developers have done a much better job of making zuò.

Then Jester stretched, and just as he stopped writing, he thought of a rogue-lite game again.

This game is called "The-Binding-of-Isaac", which is often referred to simply as "Isaac" in the mouths of fans of this type of game, and it is a game that references Zelda and the rogue system, and a large part of the design idea of "rogue-legacy".

However, unlike Rogue-Legacy, Isaac doesn't explicitly use gold as a medium like Rogue-Legacy, but instead uses a system that provides a large number of unlocks as permanent upgrades, allowing players to immerse themselves in it and try out new gameplay.

Jester remembers. The game's designer, Macmillan, talked about the role of roguelikes in this game, and specifically mentioned that a lot of randomness keeps the player playing repeatedly, when the player plays different content every time.

Then, the fun comes naturally.

As a result, many games take advantage of the persistence of roguelike randomness by combining this randomness with other elements to form new games, and many game developers see the limitations of the "Berlin definition", such as turn-based. The checkered system, etc., the new rulers generally maintained an evasive attitude towards this.

The Berlin definition was specified in 08, and "Isaac" was released about a year ago, but it was less than 3 years away from the "Berlin definition", and the roguelike may need to be redefined.

"Berlin Definition."

Jester picked up the pen again, scribbled the words on the paper, and fell into deep thought again.

There are many things in Berlin's definition, and Jester can't understand it for a while, actually. It is impossible for him to memorize the content of the Berlin definition completely, but naturally there will be people who summarize the main content of the Berlin definition, and Jester still remembers the main content of the Berlin definition very well.

Basically. These are the characteristics of six such games.

Jester picked up the pen again and began to write on the paper again.

"First of all, it's the kind of game that I've mentioned so many times before. One of the most important features is the randomness of the generation, which is crucial. It is also the most core. Each new game starts with random generation of different things such as game scenes, enemies, treasures, etc. And each adventure will be unique and unrepeatable. What's more, if the player wants to, they can even set the character they play to be randomly generated. For example, enemies, weapons, or even just a character's skin or a river in the scene. ”

After writing the first point, Jester pondered for a while, in fact, this feature is not only in this type of game, in many games, the randomness of generation is a crucial attribute.

Therefore, many senior game developers will treat the game with generative randomness as the core of the game, calling it a roguelike derivative game, and perhaps the most famous game in the future that uses randomness as a selling point is the "Diablo" series.

After a brief pause, Jester began to write about the second characteristic of Berlin's definition.

"Secondly, the progress is the one-way nature of the process."

"When a player is playing a roguelike, the only purpose of the save function is to keep track of your current game progress, and every time the save is loaded, the corresponding progress will be cleared until you make the next save. This save mechanic ensures that players can't use 's/l**' to make the game more difficult - and even in the roguelike community, manually backing up saves is despised as cheating. ”

"In fact, in the game "Rune Guardian", the designer directly ruled out the possibility of S/L**."

At this point, Jester pauses again. (A good event for pie in the sky, cool mobile phones are waiting for you!) Follow from ~ point / official account (WeChat add friends - add official account - enter dd), participate now! Everyone has a prize, now pay attention to the dd WeChat public account! (To be continued......)