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Eric Billingsley- Scoped-down design: Making a tiny roguelike | Roguelike Celebration | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Eric Billingsley- Scoped-down design: Making a tiny roguelike
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next up we have Eric Billings leag hello
hi so you are a Indie developer based in
Ottawa Canada Phil
Canadian who's always loved making games
and started as a kid with tools like
click and play since ENT entering the
industry Eric's worked on titles like
tunic and cuphead and released his own
commercial titles spring Falls and star
twine he also helps run monthly showand
tell meetups with local group dirty
rectangles and lately he's been making
small games for the Pico 8 including the
rug like inter ruins which I believe
you're going to talk about now uh yeah
thank you for the
introduction um so hi welcome to my talk
uh uh this is a scope down design uh
making a tiny Rog
leg um so hi hello uh my name is Eric
Bingley um I release games under the
name sparse Game Dev which is kind of a
weird name I know um I've been working
in the games industry since 2009 uh
though I started making games as a kid
like Alexi mentioned uh when I first got
into the
industry um I was working in on some AAA
stuff um and I've worked on some bigger
Indie titles and I've also released a a
couple of my own commercial games um so
none of these games are Rog leges so
what what am I talking about here um
this talk is about a different game uh
called into ruins which is a rogue Lake
um and it's also going to be about how
much I love the game
brogue uh and it's also going to be
about some basic strategies for
simplifying A Game's design um and how
they can lead to interesting choices and
how I think they did in the case of this
game um some disclaimers I'm going to be
comparing my game to brogue a lot um but
I don't think my game is better than
brog and brog is a masterpiece and one
of my favorite games of all time um and
also this is mostly a design Focus talk
uh but there's going to be just a little
bit of technical stuff um mostly going
over the limitations of the p8 platform
because that had a big impact on uh what
the game became and the design of
it um so what is inter ruins what is it
um inter runes is a traditional Rog like
for the pico8 fantasy cono
um it's also my first Rog like and my
first p8 game so I was kind of diving
into the deep end a bit with this
one and the the goal of the game is to
get to depth 16 and retrieve the wings
of yendor so pretty standard roog likee
stuff um it has hex grids as you can see
from the gift there um I like hex GDs
they're cool um and it also has
isometric I I say isometric I guess it's
nearly is symetric not maybe that's not
technically right uh pixel art uh that's
animated um so from a presentation
perspective that's that's what the game
is um what is
pico8 pico8 is a fantasy console um
inspired by older 8bit systems so it's
not like a real system or device that
existed it's a program that you run and
you can load cartridges uh like virtual
cartridges that were made by people and
play games um and other other things um
it was created by Joseph white also
known as
Zep and it has everything you need built
in to make games with it so it has like
a it has a code editor and it also has a
Sprite editor and it has a tracker for
making music and sounds um and all all
of this is very cute and fun to work
with it also has uh built-in tools or bu
a built-in tool called splore which you
can use to explore things other people
have made um and like see featured games
and that kind of thing which is really
cool um it has a really nice
Community um and it has a lot of
technical restrictions that give games a
common feel so you you open up a p8 game
and it feels like a p8 game uh so what
are those
restrictions um it has a really small
resolution so everything looks really
chunky um it has a very limited Sprite
sheet as well so uh what you see to the
right that's all of the art in my
game um you can only use 16
colors um and there are four channels of
audio that you can set to different
waveforms to make sounds and
music um it also has limited memory and
CPU usage which is kind of neat because
uh it means that the games run the same
on different devices and it also means
that they can run on some pretty lowend
devices which is
cool um and there's a limit on the size
that your code can be so this is this is
like the big restriction because um if
you're talking about a Sprite sheet you
look at you look at your Sprites and you
say okay I I'm want to use dedicate a
quarter of this Sprite sheet to my
enemies and each one is 8 by eight and
it has four frames of Animation that
means I can have 16 enemies and it's
really easy to like say easy but it's
easier at least to to reason about that
and plan that out it's a lot harder to
look at your enem enemies and say I
think it's going to take this many lines
of code to implement pathing or some
other system that your game needs so um
the the code size thing is is tricky
it's it's kind of like solving a puzzle
as you make your game um I found that
like halfway through development anytime
I wanted to add something new I had to
go in and rework what I already had in
order to make it fit uh which can be
frustrating but it's also satisfying and
uh the upside to all these restrictions
are that the games are really small and
uh one cool thing about p8 is the games
can be encoded into the low entropy bits
of an image of the cartridge uh
so this picture here of the cartridge is
the game pcoa can open up that image and
run it um which is neat that's not quite
true my game is actually two cartridges
but it's the same
idea um I wanted to mention some other
games before I get going with the talk
uh pork like by Christian mayeski
and Cur curse of the Lich King by Johan
Pates uh so these are both Rogue leges
for the Pico 8 uh they also have kind of
a simplified design and they're
excellent games um and these are kind of
the two games I looked at and was like
okay I think what I'm trying to do is
possible on the p8 um and pork like
Christian actually has a entire YouTube
series that's a tutorial on how to make
this game so if you want to get into uh
roik development on the p8 that's a
really great place to start
uh so check that out um I also wanted to
mention Pixel Dungeon uh by OLG doia
which is uh another Rog like that is
based heavily on brogue um so a lot of
people uh who play my game will say this
is a lot like Pixel Dungeon and I think
that's because they both have kind of a
common ancestor but Pixel Dungeon uh
it's on PC and mobile it has cool pixel
art it's also a very excellent
game um and then of course uh brogue
Rogue is was the biggest influence uh
for me on this project created by Brian
Walker who has actually done a couple
different talks at this conference
before um I'll have links to those at
the end of the
talk um and so what is it that that
makes brog
special uh so brog is sort of a modern
reimagining of the original Rogue you
can see it has kind of like these single
screen dungeons like the original Rogue
did uh there's no classes so um it has
this really cool system system where uh
you the way you you build your
characters you kind of find random
equipment and then you also find these
Scrolls of Enchantment and when you when
you use those you apply them to one of
your pieces of equipment and power it up
so it's like as you're going you pick
which pieces of equipment you want to
want to keep and you choose which ones
to invest uh this resource into and you
build your character that way and uh
that's really flexible it's like you're
building a class as you go and it also
means that there's like a lot of variety
from to run and how it plays out which
is cool um it also has a lot of
different unique monster abilities um so
there's not that many monsters in the
game but uh they all have something kind
of special about them which is which is
neat because it's it means that uh
there's a lot of variety but also that
there's not as much to learn like once
you've played the game enough times you
you sort of you're familiar with the
different monsters and you know what to
expect for the most part which is cool
um it also has a lot of trans Arcy so it
tells you a lot about what the monsters
can do what your equipment can do what
the stats are and all that and so you
don't need to look it up and then
external Source or anything like
that um and then it also has this
concept of machine rooms which is I
think core to brogue but not something I
even attempted to put into my game uh
because it I knew it would just would
take too much code um but the machine
rooms are basically uh puzzles that are
integrated into the dungeon levels and
when you solve them it opens up a room
and uh there's in the room there's a
bunch of different pieces of equipment
but you're only allowed to take one of
them so this is another way that the
game kind of gives you flexibility in
designing your character
builds it also has like really organic
feeling and pretty level generation like
I this cave system on the right looks
really cool with this big open pit and
the water um and it has a lot of
interactions with the environment so
things can catch on fire there's gases
that can kind of spread out um and
there's traps um so all of this makes
for really Dynamic gameplay and like a
lot of tactics which is a lot of fun
like positioning is really important and
kind of looking at what's around you and
and uh choosing a course of action based on
on
that and I think it's just a generally a
beautiful well-designed game um so it
was natural for me uh making my first
Rog like with no experience making
something in the genre to kind of look
to my favorite game in the genre for
inspiration and I sort so I sort of like
used this game as sort of a reference
point when I was making my game um but I
also wanted to do something unique I
didn't want to just make Rogue again so
and I I knew that because I was working
on the p8 and also because I wanted to
finish this game in a reasonable amount
of time I would need to simplify my
design quite a quite a
bit so how how do you do that how do you
um so you're thinking of adding another
system to your
game uh ask yourself do I really need
the system uh even if it's like a given
for the genre that you're working in ask
the question maybe especially if it is
because uh I think there's a lot of
things where we just kind of assume that
we need them we don't even think about
it uh we say this is this type of game
it means it needs this and we don't
examine the question and maybe you do
but it maybe you do need it maybe you
don't and it's nice to at least think
about those questions maybe they'll lead
you something lead you somewhere
interesting um ask yourself does this
add to the game and even if it does add
to the game is it worth the time
developing it and this is a real
question like we have limited time maybe
you don't want to spend uh two years
working on your Rogue like you have to
pick and choose which systems you put
in uh ask yourself even if it would add
something would it take away something
as well like would it distract from the
El elements that are the core of your
game is this part of the core of your
game or not and if it's not maybe you
don't need it and maybe it's taking away
attention from where you really want the
focus of the game to
be and would not having this give your
game something unique would it add
something different to your environments
or have add some kind of unique gameplay
thing that you haven't seen before or
just you know uh add some something
maybe it's a piece of World building
that comes out of this all things to
think about um and when not having this
thing like think through if you didn't
have this element would that lead you to
make other decisions in terms of design
that are interesting maybe it would lead
you to make some compromises that you're
not happy with but maybe it would open
up some new possibilities that you
wouldn't have thought of if you hadn't
like taken this line of of
Investigation uh so here's some examples
from inter ruins uh the first one is uh
my game doesn't have doors in it
uh doors are really hard they affect
lots of different systems like they
affect your they affect field of view
they affect enemy Ai and pathing you
have to think about like if I throw this
item at the door what happens it's just
really there's all these edge cases
um and if I was trying to make a
simplified design I didn't want to have
to deal with those so I decided to just
not have doors um my levels are pretty
small anyway and I thought maybe having
doors there would just make them feel
even more claustrophobic so this kind of
opens things
up um it kind of makes for more a
dynamic gameplay because it means that
sort of enemies can spot you from other
rooms uh you can be engaged in combat
and it'll kind of spill over from room
to room so it kind of uh it kind of
makes each floor of the dungeon feel
sort of like one big arena which is kind
of what I was going
for um and also it fits well
aesthetically with with the look of the
game because I'm going for these really
old crumbled uh dungeons
uh where like the walls are crumbling
and there's holes everywhere and the
only thing remaining is stuff made of
stone like the uh the bricks and the
statues that haven't rotted away so I
think that worked well for atmosphere as
well um here's another example character
levels uh brog actually already did this
um so when brog launched it did have a
character level system you would get XP
as you kill monsters and you would get
stronger and then and part way or at a
certain point it was removed from the
game which I don't think you see that
too often like a patch just like
stripping out a system from a game and
and making it stronger so so what does
removing levels do um for your game well
you you do lose a bit of that feeling of
your character like growing in power as
you kill monsters that's kind of a
compromise there um but in in the case
of of uh of in our case anyway uh we
already have like
another another way to progress your
character which is uh in my game they're
the orbs of power it's the equivalent of
the Scrolls of Enchantment and brogue
and so uh if we remove the character
leveling it just puts more focus on this
progression mechanic we already have uh
so it makes those decisions for what you
power up even more meaningful and it
also means that there's more variation
uh between the builds because they don't
all scale in this common way
uh it also puts more focus on stealth
play and allows you to run away from Monsters
Monsters
um so if you're in combat and it's
getting particularly nasty maybe you can
run away and jump down a pit or
something um because the player isn't
thinking about you know I I really don't
want to engage in this encounter but if
I don't I I'll miss out on XP and I'll
be behind because they don't have to
make that decision it means that they
have way more options it means that more
builds are viable um and I think that's
a good thing for the
game it also means that uh I can kind of
keep using my enemies longer from the
early game I can take those early game
enemies and plop them on later levels
and there's still a challenge for the
player which is really helpful in my
case because I can only have like 14
enemies um so maybe if I can use goblins
on the lower depths but just maybe have
bigger groups of goblins um that's a win it's
good uh What are some other ways that we
designs uh so so you're thinking of
adding not one but two different systems
to your
game uh ask yourself can one of these
systems do the job of the other
one and if it can would that be easier
to implement would it be easier for
players to understand um this often is
true if if if there are already familiar
with something and they see it again in
a different context they can make that
connection of how it should work um
would would this open up new gameplay
gameplay possibilities um and if they
can't quite be combined with the way
they're currently designed can you
change a little bit what your goals are
or just kind of massage the way one of
them Works to make it mostly cover the
basis of what the other one does think
about like if you did that what would
the consequences of that be um and maybe
that will maybe that won't work out but
it's good to examine that and maybe it
will also lead you to some some
different things and maybe it will
affect a lot of things in your
design uh so here's a really basic
example uh these ones I'm going to be
kind of comparing to Bogue a bit so uh
Bogue has both well like a lot of bro
leges it has both potions and Scrolls uh
potions are things that you can either
drink and they have an effect on you or
you can throw them and they have an
effect on the environment or on what
whatever you threw it at um and scrolls
are a thing that you can read them and
they have a magical effect and then once
you read them they're they're they're
like a one use item um so if you think
about it like drinking a potion and
using a scroll is very similar action so
I decided to combine these two concepts
together into something I called
orbs so um all orbs can be used or
thrown so if you look at the the
animation on the right there you can see
um the player finds a black orb and
throws it and it turns out it's an orb
of fire and it sets the enemy and the
environment on fire um if you were to
use that instead then the player would
burst into flames and fire would spread
around them um but what does it actually
mean to use an orb like diagetic I think
this is kind of an aside I just think
it's it's an interesting question I
initially wanted the verb to be to eat I
thought it'd be funny if you were if you
were eating the orbs um but when when I
thought about it a bit it didn't really
make sense that you would like consume
something and then it would power up a
piece of equipment or identify something
so I I decided to scrap that and just
like leave it up to the imagination of
the player so what you're actually doing
I I'm not really sure maybe it depends
on which orb I don't know it doesn't
really matter um and so the other thing
about combining these two categories is
uh because we have very few items like I
I think I only have orbs in total in the
game um because I'm restricted in the
number of Sprites and the number of
behaviors I can have coded in um
combining these two categories makes the
identification game more interesting
because now we have eight differently
colored things and we have to try them
out and it takes longer to figure out
which ones are which because if we had I
think if we had like two categories with
four each it would be a lot easier to
narrow that down maybe that's less
interesting um this is another example
here of an orb where so there's an orb
of data which normally you would use to
uh identify your equipment but if I
throw it at this Goblin we can see that
the goblin is named Fluffy and you can
stats uh another example is staves and
Wands so in brog brog has both of these
Concepts that staves are basically like
adding a spell to your character you get
it and then you it charges back over
time and you can use it to cast spells
and you can power it up with your
orbs um and then wands are more like you
you get them and they have a limited
charge they don't they don't recharge
and once they're out of charges you
would normally throw them away you can
power them up to get back some charges
but nor they're not usually like a core
part of your character
build um so I decided to combine these
two concepts together into staves but
but different um so the staves in my
game don't recharge on their own uh they
don't recharge over time um but you can
still charge them up with the orbs so if
you use an orb on it it will fully
recharge and also gain a charge and you
can also charge them with specialized
equipment that you find um there's an
amulet of wisdom and a cloak of wisdom
and if you have those then when you go
down a level in the dungeon it recharges your
your
staves um so what what this does is um
it means that depending on your build
you would use these items really
differently so if you're playing like a
melee build you would uh probably just
use all the charges and then throw it
away and if you were playing a magic
build you would be willing to invest uh
those orbs of power into the staves and
keep recharging them and if you happen
to find the equipment that lets you
recharge them as you go then maybe you
could have a bunch of different staves
that all recharge at once um and get a
powerful build that way um so there's a
lot of different options um that come
from just this one category of item
which I think is really cool
um and now here's a more like system
based one so uh again in brog there's
both light and stealth so uh
there's on your dungeon levels there's
uh areas that are brightly illuminated
there's areas that have like patches of
darkness and as you go down the dungeon
it gets gradually darker and darker and
there's also a stealth system where you
have a stealth range and uh enemies that
are within that stealth range have a
chance the spot you each turn um but
it's a little bit hard to reason about
what that stealth range is as you move
around the dungeon because it's it's
calculated based on uh the the how how
much light is in the tiing which is not
always easy to tell and also based on
the Last Action you took so there's like
a there's a thing you can turn on that
adds an overlay um which shows you this
steth range which helps a little bit but
I wanted to go in a different direction
with this so I asked the question like
what if light and stealth are the same
um instead of having a separate stealth
range what if I just use light to
determine visibility um so this means
the enemy is see in almost the same way
the player does um so I think that's a
little easier to reason about um if
you're if you're standing in the light
then they have a chance to spot you um
and um that also means they can kind of
see you from across the map which is a little
little
interesting um and it also affected sort
of the way that I design my stealth
system because well now instead of
having an item like a cloak of stealth
that makes it harder for enemies to spot
you I have items which allow you to see
further into the darkness um so what
this does is it uh first of all gives
you more map awareness in general but
the big thing it does is it allows you
to play more effectively in the dark um
so now you can uh like instead of using
the items that give you light you can
not use those you can stay in the dark
more often and play stealthy that way
you can throw items at torches to knock
them over so you don't have to go into
the light and you can sneak by enemies
there's all these different options that open
open
up um and I think uh the result of this
maybe is that uh stealth is a little bit
overpowered in the game um but the
interesting thing is you can tweak this
really easily just by having more things
cast light um like you could have an
enemy that carries a torch around um and
I have it so that uh when you cast
certain or use certain staves it
eliminates your character for your turn
and enemies can spot you and that kind
of thing so um it's really dependent on
on the light and that that makes it I
think pretty Dynamic and and intuitive
for the player as well
um and this is the big one so
um so stairs and holes this might seem
kind of silly um but uh this was like a
big thing for the game um so again in
brogue there's
a so it has stairs like a normal Rog
like you can go to the stairs and go
down to the lower level and that's the
normal way that you get around the
dungeon and progress um but it also has
these big open chasms that you can
choose to to jump down if you want um
and brog these these hurt you quite a
lot um and so you normally only do it
when you're desperate um but I wanted to
ask the question what if this was the
only way to progress like do we need stairs
stairs
um and and this was a really big deal um so
so
uh this led to like all of these
different cascading design decisions um
so if we don't have stairs and you have
to jump down these pits I didn't want
you to always be hurting the player
anytime they're going down a level that
felt really mean so I added an item
called the orb of gravity um when you
use the orb of gravity it gives you a
slowfall uh status which ticks down and
as long as you have that running you can
safely descend without hurting
yourself um so if you think about it
what that really does it it acts like a
like the H like the hunger meter uh in
another rug like it's sort of a
replacement for the Hunger meter because
it adds this pressure to keep going um
you have to make progress you have to
get down the hole before it runs out and
you have to find more of these things so
that you don't end up hurting
yourself so I think that's really
interesting it's not super obvious that
it does that but I think it does um the
other thing about this is it means now
you can't go back up um sounds simple
but it has a lot of effects on on the gameplay
gameplay
um it affects uh the way that I designed
the items it affects Inventory
management because now you can't just
leave something behind and return to it
later you have to decide what items you
want to bring with you before you jump down
down
um so certain items like uh like uh the
the wisdom cloak I mentioned earlier um
and also I did this for basically all of
the passive effects in the game they
don't just happen over time they only
happen uh when you jump down and I
wouldn't be able to do this if you could
go back up again because then you could
just go up and down and keep activating the
the
item um so the big thing that this does
is it means that uh because it only
activates when you go down there's no
incentive to just wait around for your
stuff to recharge um you always have to
make progress in order for things to
happen uh which I think really uh
strengthened uh the design of the game
and the way these items
worked it also affects level generation
because now we we need to have these
holes on every floor and we know that
the player is always going to be on the
lookout for them
um and so it kind of affects the
Aesthetics of the levels it also um I'm
actually generating the next depth
differently depending on which hole you
jump down we don't need to get into that
too much but it's sort of interesting
um just to make it feel more like a cohesive
cohesive
dungeon um and it also got integrated
into uh the story of the game so the
game opens up with uh the player looking
into this uh open Chasm this cave and
feeling like a call from it and feeling
like they they need to go down and
explore um and it also the the item
you're looking for uh the wings of
yendor is a method of Escape because
it's you don't have a way to go up
otherwise um so cutting stairs from the
game really for me I made this decision
early on and it really defined what the
game became um it would be a completely
different game if I had stairs in it and
I think it's really interesting that
just cutting one feature can can lead
you to all these different places um and
and affect like the design so much and
even not just like the gameplay but the
themes uh and
everything um so so what are some
takeaways uh did I learn from from this
um like I said cutting or combining
features often leads you to unexpected
places uh having fewer things forces you
to really tune the systems you have and
think about how they interact together
so when we're designing a Rog like you
always want to have different
interacting systems um that's what leads
to sort of the unexpect unexpected
Behavior but if you have like a thousand
different things in your game you're
probably not going to be thinking
about all of the combinations right so
you'll end up having some things that
feel more separate from each other I
think uh having fewer things forces you
to really think about this and what you
end up with generally is a more kind of
focused and cohesive design in the
end um and having fewer things can make
games easier to learn and understand for
players maybe this is obvious I don't
know um but restrictions can also be
inspiring and fun to work with I had a
lot of fun uh learning how to use p8 and
games for it and there's a lot of other
kind of projects that have similar
restrictions so if you want to play
around with these things I would
recommend it it's it's really fun um and
it leads you to uh to things you might
not have thought of
otherwise um and simpler games are
easier and faster to make so you can
move on with your life uh like I said we
have we have limited time um maybe you
don't want to spend tons of time working
on your Rog like maybe you want to get
to another project maybe you just want
to have more free time and spend less
time on this game um if you make your
game simpler it will be faster to make
probably and uh simple games are
beautiful uh this is this is a
subjective thing obviously but I think
if you can kind of achieve that that Rog
likee magic of having interacting
systems which cause like unexpected
things to happen and put you in
situations you didn't realize were
possible um if you can do that with
fewer elements it's just all the more
striking I
think um so that that's all I've got uh
here are some links you can follow me on
Maston or visit my website um I did a
write up on the level generation in the
game and also how I kind of crammed it
into a p8 cartridge um so you can check
that out on the Lexa forums uh you
should go play brog if you haven't it's
a really excellent game um and you
should check out uh Brian's talks at
previous Road like
celebrations um and try out p8
thanks that was wonderful Eric and it's
also it's very uh kind of you to be
telling people to go play broke I think
also go play Eric's cam like it's
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