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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

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

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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