I'm strongly reminded of how pen & paper games like D&D are usually soft permadeath - resurrection, stabilizing unconscious player characters - and how this base concept is so very different from the video game experience many new players know. Players don't seem to be fully aware of this core difference; and it shows: Challenges are approached like you'd approach them with the option of quickloading, resulting in often very black and white consequences i.e. a fight to the death. Players are continously surprised when NPCs act differently and DON'T fight to the death needlessly, but also don't understand the most memorable moments happen when they approach challenges differently - smart and planning ahead. To make a 'good game' hapopen is an uphill battle from my perspective as GM. The term 'failing forward' has been coined for this, where regardless of the exact outcome of a conflict you still keep stuff moving forward - like the beetle chasing you in the initial clip, and chasing you, and just pushing you forward. Death may be boring, but the way there can be so incredibly fun. Unfortunately that fun can't really exist without the threat of death at it's own end.
Well, there's also some different ways to go about it in tabletop RPGs as well, with many different gameplay styles resulting from those. Take D&D, for instance, and the differences in what exactly it takes to kill you. In really old D&D - we're talking First Edition, Basic, original wood grain box - getting to zero hit points means that you're dead. Unless you have someone capable of Raising Dead (something only available to high-level characters, and good luck if the Cleric was the one who bit it) your character isn't coming back. By the time you get to Third Edition, there's a bit of a safety net: you get incapacitated at 0hp, but you only die at -10hp. Ultimately this doesn't change much since enemies eventually do 10+ damage on every hit, but you can see the difference already. Once you get to Fourth Edition, the safety net is down to minus your full hit points. Nobody is going to one-shot you here, probably. By Fifth Edition, getting into the dying state means that you're making multiple rolls to avoid death. It's not a big mechanical difference, but it's definitely noticeable. In the original game you're very much motivated to avoid deadly fights, because if your character gets incapacitated THEY ARE DEAD FOREVER, but in later games it's more akin to the Final Fantasy videogames where characters who get knocked out in battle will be right as rain afterwards (albeit needing healing). The deadly fights, then, become a difficult challenge to overcome rather than a danger to escape. Of course, there's also broader changes that led to this - from the shift from giving XP for treasure to XP to monsters, to the removal of morale and reaction checks that meant that few fights were actually to the death, to the popular style of game moving away from the plotless dungeoncrawl towards something where the deadly fight is probably going to be against the Big Bad Boss who you need to beat to get on with the story.
Failing forward is an awesome concept which I love (see my "Accepting Failure" video) but it's not really used much in video games. If you or anyone else has played failing forward games, let me know what they are.
Also, Old School D&D has gold for experience points. 90% of your exp comes from looting treasure. Encounters aren't typically balanced, and there are wandering monsters. And your characters are statistically much weaker, with fewer abilities. So you are constantly required to avoid combat, use unfair and creative tactics to win, and to manage your time well. Flooding the dungeon with water is often a more effective tactic than swinging with your sword.
Great video. A friend of mine asked me, what I like about Roguelikes. He thought random generation to be "soulless" and perma death to be tedious. I'll show him this video the next time we meet. :)
I love cataclysm dark days ahead for this reason. When I first got into it Id spam characters into the same world to try to accomplish a single task until I realized I was wasting time. Now, I make each character do their own thing and build them differently. Sometimes I find the gear from a previous character who died forever or a wreck my past character made. Tldr Each character now has their own dreams, goals, and story but they kinda impact each other. My goal in each world is safety and survival so a town should be the result. Each world can have 20 characters die in it before I delete it and conclude the story. Either humanity dies out or it doesnt.
Thanks! But sorry, relaxing and insightful is out. The next video will feature Angry Neckbeard Gamer Wendal screaming about lootbox dlc for paid subscription erotic mobile Japanese games censored in the west
Another fantastic video. Your example of Skyrim being a permadeath game reminded me so much of "those" moments in games with interconnected mechanics and little handholding. As a kid, I always approached death in games as if I am going to die, haha.
This. I remebered when I was playing SFA3 or KOF with my bro on an arcade, and the comebacks when you are 1hp..... Or beating a final boss when you didnt expetc you will survive.
I'm a avid save scummer, but on a playthrough of Rimworld I forced myself to play the mode that doesn't allow quicksaves. This playthrough is the only one I remember, It was the mechanator start so it was just me and a robot. Sometime early on I had a random colonist join,his name was jesus. Jesus was a old man who had ok ish stats. I thought in my mind I was going to just kill him off as usually olsd people are a immediate no in rimworld. We then get raided by 2 people my main character goes down in battle. After they downed me they decided to abduct me and run, seeing as I just started this was extremely frustrating but I remembered I still had Jesus. Before they could leave the map I sent old Jesus into melee combat armed only with a knife. He kept missing and the enemy was getting closer to the edge of the map. With literal seconds of them successfully leaving the map Jesus ended up downing the enemy and saving my main colonist. I ended up losing that run later on when a different colonist died by a cave in, but after 100+ hours of rimworld this is the only story I really remember.
4:55 Hey it's me! My first ever video cameo :) Great video as usual, I think I'll bookmark it to send to people to describe the allure of permadeath for me, perfectly explained!
I come back to this channel every once in a while to rewatch the videos. I think it was this channel exactly that got me into Roguelikes such as nethack, Angband, their variants and more. Even opened the door to the wider world of ASCII games like Dwarf Fortress, Warsim and even roguelikes that now have graphics, like Cogmind and Caves of Qud. I always liked games with roleplaying elements, procedural generation and whatnot. This channel, however opened up and introduced me to what was out there. I always had wanted games like these, but never knew they existed. The open narrative, the punishment for mistakes and the many ways to at the very least strive for victory is exactly what I had been looking for in a video game. Graphics were never an issue. I learned of these because of you, my good sir. So, long comment aside, I appreciate your excellent content and should you ever upload again, I and no doubt plenty of other folks will be here for it, eager to watch and see what you've come up with!
something i hate about roguelikes is the fact that i hate spending hours making a character and thinking about getting into character since it would make it fun, but when the games limited progression of (further or deeper in area) kicks in due to most of the areas ive been in being stripped of all resources and forcing me into battles where every item and ability is useless feels unfun and always spoils the games feeling, which leads to the problem that running away is, almost every time i run it feels like a game of finding anything to save me, be it a ranged weapon or escape route, often times its just 5-10 rooms (in dungeons) where i spend my time leaving the room because there isnt anything in there, permadeath isnt what i like, i prefer games that have sparse saves or some type of feature for dying instead of being like "here is your pity points, now play more" and giving the ability to buy meaningless perks which barely effect anything or an item which goes away, upgrades for the starter item which of course goes away, i want to see the world change like my character was there rather than being a random peasant who died in some kind of mugging, i want to feel some emotions towards an area I've been, like an area i gave water and food to became a village and i spawned there as the next character, something that makes death worth it, but not by being lazy
i feel like dwarf fortress might be for you- as far as i know its all one world, and while the fortress mode is the major option there's also an adventure mode that while having permadeath allows you to really change things i haven't played it myself though, so i can't confirm (and you'll need a better cpu lmao)
Permadeath is one of the best features games can have, at least as an option. Everything is at stake, your character can get killed at any time and you have to think twice about how you deal with the next challenge.Adding procedurally generated content makes the game have a big ampount of replayability.
That's one of the things that I loved about Spelunky. While very far from being a proper roguelike, the game offers you a multitude of creative ways to advance, and every one of them has a risk/reward. Do you want to kill the shopkeeper, or buy his stuff? Do you want to kill the giant spider? Do you want to use the mattock, or the shotgun? Do you risk saving the damsel while escaping from the ghost?
very well put! I first started playing roguelikes with ADOM in early 2000s. Ever since then, no greatly rendered AI enemy scared me more than the the red capital D.
I've been getting back into Infra Arcana and the bit about figuring out how to deal with OP enemies reminds me of the zealots in that game. They're blind, so they only go after you if you attack them first or do something that makes noise within their hearing range. They also hit like a truck and can easily stun lock and kill a low-level player, and you can see them as early as the first level of a run. IA never gives experience for combat, which further disincentivizes fighting them if you don't have to. They're kind of like early Slumberlings in Qud; in that one of them in a room with no other mobs can easily be avoided, but if you're forced to aggro one by fighting other things nearby it instantly makes your situation more dangerous. I don't really have a larger point here, I just wanted to talk about Infra Arcana because it's a dope freeware roguelike that I don't see people talk about enough.
Aside from the fact that few points in this video reminded me about Magic Realm, I guess the reason for a lack of meaningful permadeaths is fairly simple. It's bloody hard to right a story with the permadeath possibility. Thus almost nobody in the industry willing to deal with systemic game design when a linear story is far easier to produce. At best we get roguelite elements as a part of the "procedural generation" package to make use of this endless stream of items/levels/monsters. As long as the industry values a plot over systems and settings, we will grind the same dragon over and over and over again. Plain and simple.
Yes, it's easier to produce a story-driven game. Let's take a story-driven platformer for example. A linear story with few branches defines a sequence of locations for a player. Each location reveals parts of the story with various exposition methods. Player goes through the sequence and collects these chunks to comprehend the full story. Gameplay elements act as interactive fillers and challenges on the way. If player dies during a challenge, the game resets player's progress for the current location since there was no death scene in the story. Upon reaching the final location player finishes the story. In the simplest form it can be done with six locations. Player starts in the Opening, passes the Entrance, overcomes the Challenge, experiences the Trick or the Setback, faces the Nemesis and achieves a Revelation. Now let's take a narrative platformer without a plot. An absence of a story means there is no predefined sequence for a player to go through. An lack of reliable branching requires to account of all possible action on the player's part. A mysterious character with two lines of a dialogue no longer works because it's hard to predict when and how player will encounter them. What previously was a story board with additional lore now is a massive amount of documentation for every character and for every location in the world. But since this is the narrative platformes, player should experience some form of a storytelling similar to the previous example. In another words, developers have to write a story for every entity in the games and then create a system to meaningfully progress these stories according to the player behavior within the game. And if player dies, the system should have enough permutations in order to not repeat itself. So, yeah, writing one story for a player is far more easier than dealing with that nightmare.
Undertale? Kingdom Come Deliverance? Brothers a Tale of Two Sons? I guess my answers won't satisfy you. The broadness of your question depends on the exact definition of "be a game" and "a separate game entity". For me, the first one is about being able to freely express myself within the in-game limitation and experience appropriate consequences for that. That's why SOMA is a good example. I'm free to explore surroundings, but the main plot twist had been defined long before I even launched the game. The second one to me is about a fancy "ludonarrative dissonance" when a player's performance leaves no impact on a story. But that's actually the point of a story driven game. Since the story is predefined, a freedom of a player's impact on a narrative is limited to the branching. From clever manipulations in Mass Effect to an adaptive narration in 80Days, a story-driven game will oblige a player to swallow the rail of a plot. That's why any Choose-your-own-adventure games will be the finest example since there is nothing else but choices about the branching. But if "a separate game entity" implies that player should have a control (a not just a choice) over the narrative, then I can't give any examples. Because it's no longer a story-driven game. The player is the one who will write the story. Thus the game will be shipped without it.
So... Is a choice of a reply in a dialogue a ludological or a narrative activity? Because on one hand it is similar to a choice of a item to equip and also have consequences. On the other hand is has a particular place in the narrative and is mostly predefined.
Clearly there is a strict "or" based on what you've stated earlier about SOMA. If a game is based around play and allows a character to die, then there would be no universal Plot summary to write. But the Dialogue choice is the relic of the mentioned Plot summary, which makes it a narrative activity. Because a game is no longer the game by your definition and lacks a ludological aspect.
I totally agree with you. The interesting thing is that permadeath can be applied to other games other than roguelikes. For example on my mahjong game the player carry their life/time from one level to another, the level sequence isn't fixed but it has different paths, some of them branching and joining. Not all levels can be completed since the tiles are randomly placed and this makes some nearly impossible to finish on the first try. The player never knows when a level is solvable or not, so they keep trying to look for a match, but the time in the meantime pass and the life goes down. If they think that the level can't be completed or that they are stuck, they can escape and a new level (or the same with different tile order) is presented. The live/time is not replenish, so they urge to keep find couples of tiles to get some time back and this lead them to do more mistake and therefore block themselves in a way that they want to escape. I find that despite not many people play that kind of games, however some players are very fascinated about this mechanic, also considering that there is an auto-save only that is replaced every time the player win or escape a level, and they really try hard to find a solution before escaping.
Man, that's some good ass content. It's so pleasantly surprising to see MarkBrown-quality videos on original topics, especially when they are related to undeservedly forgotten roguelikes or classic games. Shout out from your russian subscribers, keep it up)
Thanks! It might grow more if I actually made videos more often. I can always make time to produce videos, but it's been hard lately to find the time to play a wide variety of games to get ideas and inspiration from.
In a funny way, what we expect from modern video game graphics leaves little to the imagination, and therefore, little room for the theater-of-the-mind old roguelikes like Nethack demand.
Mr Wendal, I believe the time for you to play Rain World has arrived. It has everything you're talking about. I think you will find it to be a unique and memorable experience.
You know, playing FTL for this video, I realized I kinda don't like it anymore? I feel stuff always happens to me, and I have not much say in the matter. Roguelikes leave me dead knowing exactly where I screwed up, FTL leaves me dead thinking there was not much I could have done about it. There probably was, but that feeling isn't good.
@@MrWendal I saw a dude winning FTL in hardmode 62 times in a row. I've been playing it for hundreds of hours since then, because I know the skill cap is higher than I thought before. I died countless times and couldn't beat the game, while he did a 62 streak with random ships. He didn't use any exploits or hacks, I saw him playing, he attained some incredible skills in this game. His name is billy1kirby, just google it.
With permadeath, I never got past level 27 in Lode Runner. I was never "Good enough" and that was frustrating. With cheating and level selection, I played levels 28-100 and learned things I never could in the first 27. Then one lazy superbowl sunday, I played permadeath starting at level 1 and got to 100 with the skills I'd learned cheating.
It looks interesting, but I'm trying to play games I can make videos from. It would be really hard to make a visually interesting video out of a purely text based game.
the only interesting thing I can think of with the graphics is when another hacker connects to your computer and deletes one of your x-server.cfg files you get rebooted into a shell only screen, you check your logs and find his ip address connect to his address and download his x-server.cfg after you reboot the screen color and layout is totally changed and you have a very interesting feeling that makes you feel really cool after stealing a hackers computer screen layout.
Caves of Qud is one of the greatest games I've ever played. Did you make it to Golgotha? The war stories you'll have after that place... wow, I wouldn't dare spoil it.
TOME and Rimworld are fantastic games. My main problem with TOME though is that with every replay you're essentially doing the same dungeons, going through the same motions. It might be with different characters and slightly altered dungeon layouts, but the early game especially can feel like a bit of a slog. Great video man, keep up the good work.
I've put in almost 400 hours into Tome and I love it, it introduced me to roguelikes since it does not have bothersome food mechanics or does not want you to rely on consumables management. However the biggest problem I have with this game is that 90% of the time the combat is boring since once you get like 5-10 levels you never worry about non unique enemies (at least at lower difficulties) so you just rush through all enemies. Then suddenly you are facing 3 elites at once and they just insta kill you in 1 turn. It's too hard not to lose focus on the game and not to end up in situations where you are pretty much simply screwed. Bullshit enemies that one shot you at will occasionally appear and that's simply not fun. Of course you could play very carefully, but who wants to kill hundreds of popcorn mobs turn-by-turn just to make sure you don't end up in a silly situation against some one-shot stupid enemy.
Having played the ADOM and Angband... they do not usually give enough epic items to escape death. As they have a repop of monsters (and ADOM has ticking corruption eating away your life) it gets too much luck based reducing the planning to naught,
Try Nethack? There's amulet's that prevent death once, a million ways to teleport, ways to dig a hole in the floor and escape down a whole dungeon level. Oh, and magic lamps and wands of wishing that will give you whatever you type in, literally. Sure, these things may get you into even more trouble, than you were in sometimes, but hey, at least it makes for a great story.
In a way, multiplayer matches on cod s&d-like playlists can function the same way. I find rs siege matches to be engaging because of the sense that me dying is important
Waiting for a sale & for it to be ported to linux (or proton). I buy windows games only if I'm dying to play them, my interest in Div2 is high but not right up there. I have played the first game, and to be honest it didn't really grab me. The silliness of the plot didn't work for me. I've heard the second one is less silly though.
5:36 I think you're overstating the importance of reflex in action roguelikes. You don't have as many options in games like Dead Cells or Wizard of Legend as you have in more traditional roguelikes, but you also don't have the time to form particularly complex plans. As a result, the ingenuity rewarded in more traditional roguelikes turns into improvisation in an action roguelike, and while the breadth of options and turn-based gameplay of traditional roguelikes offer a lot of room for creative solutions action roguelikes force you to get creative with the few options and limited time you do have. Both types force you to think on your toes, but both do interesting things in different ways by giving you options proportional to the amount of time you have, and that's what makes action roguelikes fun. Reflex in action roguelikes is also a lot like dodging in bullet hell shmups, which you covered in another video. It looks like it's really important at first, but there's a whole layer of strategy underneath it that makes reflex much less important as you play more and more.
I would highly recommend the Skyrim mod Death Alternative. www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/45894 It increases the stakes of dieing without forcing you to make a new character. In a nutshell it makes failure just another point in a continuous narrative. A second chance to continue your story instead of the challenge in front of you.
"Who's payin' Bill to play Skyrim, at least?! Is this the ultimate level that I've been going through everyday? Even if I could tell you, I'd feeling like talking to myself, 'cause obviously..."
Time travel: When you want to reload but you don't want it to break immersion and you don't want it to be OP. 7:13 -- Indeed, Tales of Maj'Eyal (TOME) does all this in-character as Chronomancy.
I've got a dungeon crawler I'm bouncing around in my head that would feature permadeath, or at least a form of it. I still want the core game play loop to be more on the "action platformer" end of the spectrum (so, fewer abilities), but as the intended *perma* death rate is supposed to be fairly low (don't over extend, don't split the party, don't do stupid shit), I think it will still work.
I tried it once during a free weekend or something, but bounced off it. I did get into Stellaris a bit but I still prefer the much less popular Galactic Civilizations 3 - a 4X not grand strategy.
I try to become better with the save feature and only ever load if I don't see myself being able to beat the game as a whole from where I am. God knows I'm not succeeding.
Dungeon crawl stone soup. I have over 1000 runs, 2 ascensions. I have battled the Learnean Hydra six times. Lost on five of those. Learny is dangerous folks! (Mostly v0.13)
I can see the goals they were trying to hit with it, but I can also understand the public hatred of it. It's kinda trying to achieve two opposite goals. I'd have to play it more to see if it hits them or not, still haven't played past the opening three hours (want to upgrade my PC first). I dunno, I guess the main problem is without random generation replaying the same parts isn't that fun. I didn't actually get far into permadeath Skyrim either, it was fun for only about 30 mins.
Mr Wendal on games Without mods to balance Skyrim's difficulty out, I can imagine permadeath being a crappy experience. There are mods to make Skyrim feel like a great permadeath game, as well as even turning Skyrim into a roguelike. Make Skyrim what you want it to be :)
Permadeath in games where you must always win are about endurance, skill and resource management, the "Should I use the epic item" question exists. Roguelites are a perfect medium because they offer the thrill of death with the garuntee of progress and it explains their popularity. Coming up with novel solutions is great but it appeals to fans of strategy games as most true rogue games are turn based, in reality not everyone likes turn based strategy. Great video.
Thanks. My argument is that "the thrill of death" and "the guarantee of progress" are mutually exclusive. You can't have both. You don't really "die" if you make progress by doing so.
But you still restart the game and lose much of your progress, if you die at the end of Gungeon you still have to replay the entire game but some of your credits can unlock weapons. You still get the thrill of death and overarching progress, there is a reason the lites are a lot more popular.
With gungeon, you get the thrill of the fear of death but there's no action you can take with that emotion. There's no running, no planning how to escape. The core gameplay is not really affected by permadeath. It ups the stakes, which is good, but does not change the way you play. Nothing wrong with that, I love gungeon, but I love roguelikes more because they give you something do do with that emotion.
You say in the video that nothing is overpowered in action roguelike games but you die so many times BECAUSE everything is overpowered, you just have to gain enough skill or have the RNG gods give you powerful enough weapons (some games) to overcome them. Perma death and progression can work together, Rogue legacy has a massive skill tree, Don't starve has multiple characters that unlock, Darkest dungeon has a town that can be upgraded, Dead Cells has multiple buyable weapons and armor sets to unlock and these all have perma death with tense gameplay.
You're right, permadeath works in those games because it adds fear to death. But I feel it doesn't change the core gameplay. As for having permadeath and progression at the same time ... for example I feel Rogue Legacy doesn't have permadeath at all. I once made a video about that: ua-cam.com/video/iIBPrX_9HLo/v-deo.html
Rogue-likes I guess just aren't for me. It feels like a punishing waste of time when I die and lose everything. I feel like these games are made for people who want bragging rights.
You so confidentaly praise permadeath, almost like trying to say that any videogame would be better with it. But that's not true. Because behind those few "epic victories" a lot of deaths with hundreds and hundreds of hours wasted because of perma death. I am not saying that permadeath is bad I'm just saying that this feature is only benefetial for a limited genres of games and shouldnt be applied to anything. I even play Caves of Qud on a "save at village" mode and even then I feel so much frustration when I loose hours of gameplay because of some random bullshit. Tho judging by your quote "so there's never any enemy that excitently overpowered" it looks like you love to die from random bullshit.
Nice video. For me, permadeath is not so enticing. I like repetition; I like ‘solving’ a situation. Permadeath offers only one crack at the bat and so much less satisfying as a result.
Permadeath isn't neceseraly only 1 try at any given situation. That might hold true for early roguelikes, but more modern games usually allow you to make dozens or more mistakes before death finally catches up to you. I also like how you put solving in quotation marks. In the more literal sense of the word over coming an obstacle can be quite satisfying, like learning the patterns of a boss when meeting him for the 10th time. But `solving` as in breaking/trivialising is not fun for most people, it's just kind of optimal
Well, it's the same thing as a multiplayer game (or a board / card game). You only get one crack there. But I guess losing to the computer is not nearly as interesting as a human.
I think the moral of the story is about how to preserve immersion. I, too, end up with way too many Elixirs in FF games, because they're reloaded too many times; I never get to the point where an Elixir is something you want to actually use rather than hoard. Perhaps if the Elixirs could let you reload instead of heal you, reloading wouldn't be so immersion-breaking, there. There is also this question: What if you actually solved the situation with one crack at the bat? How would you feel, then?
For me, whether games should have permadeath or not depends on the type of game. If it's one you can beat in a matter of about 6, 7, 8, even 10 hours, then by all means, at least make it an option. But not for an RPG whose campaign is 30, 40, 50 hours or more.
this channel is underrated
Thanks!
I'm strongly reminded of how pen & paper games like D&D are usually soft permadeath - resurrection, stabilizing unconscious player characters - and how this base concept is so very different from the video game experience many new players know. Players don't seem to be fully aware of this core difference; and it shows: Challenges are approached like you'd approach them with the option of quickloading, resulting in often very black and white consequences i.e. a fight to the death. Players are continously surprised when NPCs act differently and DON'T fight to the death needlessly, but also don't understand the most memorable moments happen when they approach challenges differently - smart and planning ahead. To make a 'good game' hapopen is an uphill battle from my perspective as GM.
The term 'failing forward' has been coined for this, where regardless of the exact outcome of a conflict you still keep stuff moving forward - like the beetle chasing you in the initial clip, and chasing you, and just pushing you forward. Death may be boring, but the way there can be so incredibly fun. Unfortunately that fun can't really exist without the threat of death at it's own end.
Well, there's also some different ways to go about it in tabletop RPGs as well, with many different gameplay styles resulting from those. Take D&D, for instance, and the differences in what exactly it takes to kill you.
In really old D&D - we're talking First Edition, Basic, original wood grain box - getting to zero hit points means that you're dead. Unless you have someone capable of Raising Dead (something only available to high-level characters, and good luck if the Cleric was the one who bit it) your character isn't coming back.
By the time you get to Third Edition, there's a bit of a safety net: you get incapacitated at 0hp, but you only die at -10hp. Ultimately this doesn't change much since enemies eventually do 10+ damage on every hit, but you can see the difference already.
Once you get to Fourth Edition, the safety net is down to minus your full hit points. Nobody is going to one-shot you here, probably.
By Fifth Edition, getting into the dying state means that you're making multiple rolls to avoid death.
It's not a big mechanical difference, but it's definitely noticeable. In the original game you're very much motivated to avoid deadly fights, because if your character gets incapacitated THEY ARE DEAD FOREVER, but in later games it's more akin to the Final Fantasy videogames where characters who get knocked out in battle will be right as rain afterwards (albeit needing healing). The deadly fights, then, become a difficult challenge to overcome rather than a danger to escape.
Of course, there's also broader changes that led to this - from the shift from giving XP for treasure to XP to monsters, to the removal of morale and reaction checks that meant that few fights were actually to the death, to the popular style of game moving away from the plotless dungeoncrawl towards something where the deadly fight is probably going to be against the Big Bad Boss who you need to beat to get on with the story.
Failing forward is an awesome concept which I love (see my "Accepting Failure" video) but it's not really used much in video games. If you or anyone else has played failing forward games, let me know what they are.
Mr Wendal on games Pyre definitely sticks out. I certainly can't think of many games where losing the main battles also progresdes the plot.
I imagine it's also, well, pretty damn hard to include in a video game, if you also intend to make it a well-implemented mechanic.
Also, Old School D&D has gold for experience points. 90% of your exp comes from looting treasure.
Encounters aren't typically balanced, and there are wandering monsters.
And your characters are statistically much weaker, with fewer abilities.
So you are constantly required to avoid combat, use unfair and creative tactics to win, and to manage your time well.
Flooding the dungeon with water is often a more effective tactic than swinging with your sword.
Great video. A friend of mine asked me, what I like about Roguelikes. He thought random generation to be "soulless" and perma death to be tedious. I'll show him this video the next time we meet. :)
I love cataclysm dark days ahead for this reason. When I first got into it Id spam characters into the same world to try to accomplish a single task until I realized I was wasting time. Now, I make each character do their own thing and build them differently. Sometimes I find the gear from a previous character who died forever or a wreck my past character made.
Tldr Each character now has their own dreams, goals, and story but they kinda impact each other. My goal in each world is safety and survival so a town should be the result. Each world can have 20 characters die in it before I delete it and conclude the story. Either humanity dies out or it doesnt.
This channel doesn't at all get enough attention, insightful and relaxing content
Thanks! But sorry, relaxing and insightful is out. The next video will feature Angry Neckbeard Gamer Wendal screaming about lootbox dlc for paid subscription erotic mobile Japanese games censored in the west
lmao
Another fantastic video.
Your example of Skyrim being a permadeath game reminded me so much of "those" moments in games with interconnected mechanics and little handholding.
As a kid, I always approached death in games as if I am going to die, haha.
Thanks!
This.
I remebered when I was playing SFA3 or KOF with my bro on an arcade, and the comebacks when you are 1hp.....
Or beating a final boss when you didnt expetc you will survive.
I'm a avid save scummer, but on a playthrough of Rimworld I forced myself to play the mode that doesn't allow quicksaves. This playthrough is the only one I remember, It was the mechanator start so it was just me and a robot. Sometime early on I had a random colonist join,his name was jesus. Jesus was a old man who had ok ish stats. I thought in my mind I was going to just kill him off as usually olsd people are a immediate no in rimworld. We then get raided by 2 people my main character goes down in battle. After they downed me they decided to abduct me and run, seeing as I just started this was extremely frustrating but I remembered I still had Jesus. Before they could leave the map I sent old Jesus into melee combat armed only with a knife. He kept missing and the enemy was getting closer to the edge of the map. With literal seconds of them successfully leaving the map Jesus ended up downing the enemy and saving my main colonist. I ended up losing that run later on when a different colonist died by a cave in, but after 100+ hours of rimworld this is the only story I really remember.
4:55 Hey it's me! My first ever video cameo :)
Great video as usual, I think I'll bookmark it to send to people to describe the allure of permadeath for me, perfectly explained!
Thanks!
I come back to this channel every once in a while to rewatch the videos. I think it was this channel exactly that got me into Roguelikes such as nethack, Angband, their variants and more. Even opened the door to the wider world of ASCII games like Dwarf Fortress, Warsim and even roguelikes that now have graphics, like Cogmind and Caves of Qud. I always liked games with roleplaying elements, procedural generation and whatnot. This channel, however opened up and introduced me to what was out there. I always had wanted games like these, but never knew they existed. The open narrative, the punishment for mistakes and the many ways to at the very least strive for victory is exactly what I had been looking for in a video game. Graphics were never an issue. I learned of these because of you, my good sir.
So, long comment aside, I appreciate your excellent content and should you ever upload again, I and no doubt plenty of other folks will be here for it, eager to watch and see what you've come up with!
Thanks! Glad I could help you find the genre.
I'm kind of retired from youtube now, but you never know.
@@MrWendal Alright. Well enjoy your retirement and all the best to ya Mr Wendal!
Your videos are always relaxing and entertaining , thanks mate.
No worries!
something i hate about roguelikes is the fact that i hate spending hours making a character and thinking about getting into character since it would make it fun, but when the games limited progression of (further or deeper in area) kicks in due to most of the areas ive been in being stripped of all resources and forcing me into battles where every item and ability is useless feels unfun and always spoils the games feeling, which leads to the problem that running away is, almost every time i run it feels like a game of finding anything to save me, be it a ranged weapon or escape route, often times its just 5-10 rooms (in dungeons) where i spend my time leaving the room because there isnt anything in there, permadeath isnt what i like, i prefer games that have sparse saves or some type of feature for dying instead of being like "here is your pity points, now play more" and giving the ability to buy meaningless perks which barely effect anything or an item which goes away, upgrades for the starter item which of course goes away, i want to see the world change like my character was there rather than being a random peasant who died in some kind of mugging, i want to feel some emotions towards an area I've been, like an area i gave water and food to became a village and i spawned there as the next character, something that makes death worth it, but not by being lazy
i feel like dwarf fortress might be for you- as far as i know its all one world, and while the fortress mode is the major option there's also an adventure mode that while having permadeath allows you to really change things
i haven't played it myself though, so i can't confirm (and you'll need a better cpu lmao)
Permadeath is one of the best features games can have, at least as an option. Everything is at stake, your character can get killed at any time and you have to think twice about how you deal with the next challenge.Adding procedurally generated content makes the game have a big ampount of replayability.
That's one of the things that I loved about Spelunky. While very far from being a proper roguelike, the game offers you a multitude of creative ways to advance, and every one of them has a risk/reward. Do you want to kill the shopkeeper, or buy his stuff? Do you want to kill the giant spider? Do you want to use the mattock, or the shotgun? Do you risk saving the damsel while escaping from the ghost?
very well put! I first started playing roguelikes with ADOM in early 2000s. Ever since then, no greatly rendered AI enemy scared me more than the the red capital D.
I've been getting back into Infra Arcana and the bit about figuring out how to deal with OP enemies reminds me of the zealots in that game.
They're blind, so they only go after you if you attack them first or do something that makes noise within their hearing range. They also hit like a truck and can easily stun lock and kill a low-level player, and you can see them as early as the first level of a run. IA never gives experience for combat, which further disincentivizes fighting them if you don't have to. They're kind of like early Slumberlings in Qud; in that one of them in a room with no other mobs can easily be avoided, but if you're forced to aggro one by fighting other things nearby it instantly makes your situation more dangerous.
I don't really have a larger point here, I just wanted to talk about Infra Arcana because it's a dope freeware roguelike that I don't see people talk about enough.
What a great channel! Not only is the production value top tier but I also feel warmly understood
Thanks!
This is an awesome video you deserve more attention
Thanks!
Aside from the fact that few points in this video reminded me about Magic Realm, I guess the reason for a lack of meaningful permadeaths is fairly simple. It's bloody hard to right a story with the permadeath possibility. Thus almost nobody in the industry willing to deal with systemic game design when a linear story is far easier to produce. At best we get roguelite elements as a part of the "procedural generation" package to make use of this endless stream of items/levels/monsters. As long as the industry values a plot over systems and settings, we will grind the same dragon over and over and over again. Plain and simple.
Yes, it's easier to produce a story-driven game. Let's take a story-driven platformer for example. A linear story with few branches defines a sequence of locations for a player. Each location reveals parts of the story with various exposition methods. Player goes through the sequence and collects these chunks to comprehend the full story. Gameplay elements act as interactive fillers and challenges on the way. If player dies during a challenge, the game resets player's progress for the current location since there was no death scene in the story. Upon reaching the final location player finishes the story. In the simplest form it can be done with six locations. Player starts in the Opening, passes the Entrance, overcomes the Challenge, experiences the Trick or the Setback, faces the Nemesis and achieves a Revelation.
Now let's take a narrative platformer without a plot. An absence of a story means there is no predefined sequence for a player to go through. An lack of reliable branching requires to account of all possible action on the player's part. A mysterious character with two lines of a dialogue no longer works because it's hard to predict when and how player will encounter them. What previously was a story board with additional lore now is a massive amount of documentation for every character and for every location in the world. But since this is the narrative platformes, player should experience some form of a storytelling similar to the previous example. In another words, developers have to write a story for every entity in the games and then create a system to meaningfully progress these stories according to the player behavior within the game. And if player dies, the system should have enough permutations in order to not repeat itself. So, yeah, writing one story for a player is far more easier than dealing with that nightmare.
Undertale? Kingdom Come Deliverance? Brothers a Tale of Two Sons? I guess my answers won't satisfy you.
The broadness of your question depends on the exact definition of "be a game" and "a separate game entity". For me, the first one is about being able to freely express myself within the in-game limitation and experience appropriate consequences for that. That's why SOMA is a good example. I'm free to explore surroundings, but the main plot twist had been defined long before I even launched the game. The second one to me is about a fancy "ludonarrative dissonance" when a player's performance leaves no impact on a story. But that's actually the point of a story driven game. Since the story is predefined, a freedom of a player's impact on a narrative is limited to the branching. From clever manipulations in Mass Effect to an adaptive narration in 80Days, a story-driven game will oblige a player to swallow the rail of a plot. That's why any Choose-your-own-adventure games will be the finest example since there is nothing else but choices about the branching.
But if "a separate game entity" implies that player should have a control (a not just a choice) over the narrative, then I can't give any examples. Because it's no longer a story-driven game. The player is the one who will write the story. Thus the game will be shipped without it.
So... Is a choice of a reply in a dialogue a ludological or a narrative activity? Because on one hand it is similar to a choice of a item to equip and also have consequences. On the other hand is has a particular place in the narrative and is mostly predefined.
Clearly there is a strict "or" based on what you've stated earlier about SOMA. If a game is based around play and allows a character to die, then there would be no universal Plot summary to write. But the Dialogue choice is the relic of the mentioned Plot summary, which makes it a narrative activity. Because a game is no longer the game by your definition and lacks a ludological aspect.
Man I'm sick of concerns about storytelling getting in the way of a game that would otherwise be great
I totally agree with you. The interesting thing is that permadeath can be applied to other games other than roguelikes.
For example on my mahjong game the player carry their life/time from one level to another, the level sequence isn't fixed but it has different paths, some of them branching and joining. Not all levels can be completed since the tiles are randomly placed and this makes some nearly impossible to finish on the first try.
The player never knows when a level is solvable or not, so they keep trying to look for a match, but the time in the meantime pass and the life goes down. If they think that the level can't be completed or that they are stuck, they can escape and a new level (or the same with different tile order) is presented. The live/time is not replenish, so they urge to keep find couples of tiles to get some time back and this lead them to do more mistake and therefore block themselves in a way that they want to escape.
I find that despite not many people play that kind of games, however some players are very fascinated about this mechanic, also considering that there is an auto-save only that is replaced every time the player win or escape a level, and they really try hard to find a solution before escaping.
Man, that's some good ass content. It's so pleasantly surprising to see MarkBrown-quality videos on original topics, especially when they are related to undeservedly forgotten roguelikes or classic games. Shout out from your russian subscribers, keep it up)
Thanks!
This is one of the best videos about the subject that i've come across. Hope your channel grows mate.
Thanks! It might grow more if I actually made videos more often. I can always make time to produce videos, but it's been hard lately to find the time to play a wide variety of games to get ideas and inspiration from.
Excellent points, I agree entirely.
In a funny way, what we expect from modern video game graphics leaves little to the imagination, and therefore, little room for the theater-of-the-mind old roguelikes like Nethack demand.
Permadeath is what makes Cataclysm DDA: Adventures in dying from toilet water a fun experience
Mr Wendal, I believe the time for you to play Rain World has arrived.
It has everything you're talking about. I think you will find it to be a unique and memorable experience.
Would have played it already if it was on linux. Waiting for a sale or something, I guess.
@@MrWendal you van play it with lutris ;) Linux is never a problem
This video didn't make me reinstall FTL.
Nope.
Not at all.
You know, playing FTL for this video, I realized I kinda don't like it anymore? I feel stuff always happens to me, and I have not much say in the matter. Roguelikes leave me dead knowing exactly where I screwed up, FTL leaves me dead thinking there was not much I could have done about it. There probably was, but that feeling isn't good.
@@MrWendal I saw a dude winning FTL in hardmode 62 times in a row. I've been playing it for hundreds of hours since then, because I know the skill cap is higher than I thought before. I died countless times and couldn't beat the game, while he did a 62 streak with random ships. He didn't use any exploits or hacks, I saw him playing, he attained some incredible skills in this game. His name is billy1kirby, just google it.
@@MrWendal git gud
Jokes aside, great videos
@@Guts_Brando Thanks
What an amazing video! Always wondered why did I like roguelikes so much, and this explains clearly why.
Thanks!
With permadeath, I never got past level 27 in Lode Runner. I was never "Good enough" and that was frustrating.
With cheating and level selection, I played levels 28-100 and learned things I never could in the first 27.
Then one lazy superbowl sunday, I played permadeath starting at level 1 and got to 100 with the skills I'd learned cheating.
hi mr wendal, have you ever played hacknet, i got it on steam recently for 2 dollars and thought if you had a review on it it would be interesting
It looks interesting, but I'm trying to play games I can make videos from. It would be really hard to make a visually interesting video out of a purely text based game.
the only interesting thing I can think of with the graphics is when another hacker connects to your computer and deletes one of your x-server.cfg files you get rebooted into a shell only screen, you check your logs and find his ip address connect to his address and download his x-server.cfg after you reboot the screen color and layout is totally changed and you have a very interesting feeling that makes you feel really cool after stealing a hackers computer screen layout.
u make such great points. thank u
I've watched a few of your vids, and you've earned another subscriber!
Your content is great!
Thanks!
Caves of Qud is one of the greatest games I've ever played.
Did you make it to Golgotha? The war stories you'll have after that place... wow, I wouldn't dare spoil it.
Great video and insights!
Thanks!
This is the second video of yours ive watched (first is the NETHACK one cause im a fan of that game) and now Im subbing. This is just too good.
Thanks!
Really amazing Video! :)
TOME and Rimworld are fantastic games. My main problem with TOME though is that with every replay you're essentially doing the same dungeons, going through the same motions. It might be with different characters and slightly altered dungeon layouts, but the early game especially can feel like a bit of a slog. Great video man, keep up the good work.
Thanks! Yeah I have the same problem with Tome, but I still like it.
I've put in almost 400 hours into Tome and I love it, it introduced me to roguelikes since it does not have bothersome food mechanics or does not want you to rely on consumables management. However the biggest problem I have with this game is that 90% of the time the combat is boring since once you get like 5-10 levels you never worry about non unique enemies (at least at lower difficulties) so you just rush through all enemies. Then suddenly you are facing 3 elites at once and they just insta kill you in 1 turn. It's too hard not to lose focus on the game and not to end up in situations where you are pretty much simply screwed. Bullshit enemies that one shot you at will occasionally appear and that's simply not fun. Of course you could play very carefully, but who wants to kill hundreds of popcorn mobs turn-by-turn just to make sure you don't end up in a silly situation against some one-shot stupid enemy.
Having played the ADOM and Angband... they do not usually give enough epic items to escape death. As they have a repop of monsters (and ADOM has ticking corruption eating away your life) it gets too much luck based reducing the planning to naught,
Try Nethack? There's amulet's that prevent death once, a million ways to teleport, ways to dig a hole in the floor and escape down a whole dungeon level. Oh, and magic lamps and wands of wishing that will give you whatever you type in, literally. Sure, these things may get you into even more trouble, than you were in sometimes, but hey, at least it makes for a great story.
In a way, multiplayer matches on cod s&d-like playlists can function the same way. I find rs siege matches to be engaging because of the sense that me dying is important
I saw your video and forgot who you were.
I watched your video and remembered why I subbed.
Thanks! I forgot who I was too, but I found this holocube recording of myself and got it all sorted.
Always love your videos
Thanks!
great vid mate
Thanks!
Great video, have shared it around!
Thanks!
Wendal, I'm wondering if you've played Divinity: Original Sin 2 and your opinions on it?
Waiting for a sale & for it to be ported to linux (or proton). I buy windows games only if I'm dying to play them, my interest in Div2 is high but not right up there. I have played the first game, and to be honest it didn't really grab me. The silliness of the plot didn't work for me. I've heard the second one is less silly though.
You should try Barony, it has a lot of moments like these.
5:36 I think you're overstating the importance of reflex in action roguelikes. You don't have as many options in games like Dead Cells or Wizard of Legend as you have in more traditional roguelikes, but you also don't have the time to form particularly complex plans.
As a result, the ingenuity rewarded in more traditional roguelikes turns into improvisation in an action roguelike, and while the breadth of options and turn-based gameplay of traditional roguelikes offer a lot of room for creative solutions action roguelikes force you to get creative with the few options and limited time you do have. Both types force you to think on your toes, but both do interesting things in different ways by giving you options proportional to the amount of time you have, and that's what makes action roguelikes fun.
Reflex in action roguelikes is also a lot like dodging in bullet hell shmups, which you covered in another video. It looks like it's really important at first, but there's a whole layer of strategy underneath it that makes reflex much less important as you play more and more.
Thank you for your videos!
No worries!
I would highly recommend the Skyrim mod Death Alternative. www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/45894
It increases the stakes of dieing without forcing you to make a new character. In a nutshell it makes failure just another point in a continuous narrative. A second chance to continue your story instead of the challenge in front of you.
I'll check it out if I ever have another proper playthrough of skyrim.
"Who's payin' Bill to play Skyrim, at least?! Is this the ultimate level that I've been going through everyday? Even if I could tell you, I'd feeling like talking to myself, 'cause obviously..."
Time travel: When you want to reload but you don't want it to break immersion and you don't want it to be OP. 7:13 -- Indeed, Tales of Maj'Eyal (TOME) does all this in-character as Chronomancy.
1:07 what is this game i want to know
Heat Signature or Xcom. Games are written in the top right of the video
5:46 game?
Dead Cells, all games listed in top right corner of the video.
I've got a dungeon crawler I'm bouncing around in my head that would feature permadeath, or at least a form of it. I still want the core game play loop to be more on the "action platformer" end of the spectrum (so, fewer abilities), but as the intended *perma* death rate is supposed to be fairly low (don't over extend, don't split the party, don't do stupid shit), I think it will still work.
Good luck!
True. Great video :D
Thanks!
have you ever tried dwarf fortress? in adventure mode, i never survived more then 30 minutes: D
I have never lasted more than 30 minutes trying to get into DF before I give up. Tried it many times. Sorry, that game is impenetrable.
Your mention of ironman mode really makes me want to see you make a CK2 video, have you played that game or similar grand strategies?
I tried it once during a free weekend or something, but bounced off it. I did get into Stellaris a bit but I still prefer the much less popular Galactic Civilizations 3 - a 4X not grand strategy.
For me it's the opposite, I love CK2 but I can't get into Stellaris.
I try to become better with the save feature and only ever load if I don't see myself being able to beat the game as a whole from where I am.
God knows I'm not succeeding.
Playing Zelda BOTW I constantly have te flee from enemies stronger them me
Bit the bullet, Bought Caves of Qud, already have 29 hours in it since I bought it two days ago. Thanks for suggestion!
No probs!
I made a korean caption for this video but i don't know how to contact you. How should I send it?
Wow cool!
kinsmangames at google's mail service dot com
Just send a hello email first, i will contact you with details.
Do you do gungeon lore on a second channel or something I recognise your voice
No, sorry, I only have the one channel.
Mr Wendal on games oh okay I wonder why I recognise your voice then....
Dungeon crawl stone soup. I have over 1000 runs, 2 ascensions. I have battled the Learnean Hydra six times. Lost on five of those. Learny is dangerous folks! (Mostly v0.13)
What game is the one showing at 5:40?
Dead Cells
Thanks fam
Dead Cells, games are printed in the top right corner of the video.
Thanks man. didn't notice that.
1:06 yo i was just playing that
also nethack is the best roguelike
I wish i knew ware i could find these games
game names are printed in the top right corner of the video.
Would recommend you put the title of each game on the bottom in bigger letters. Other than that great video as alway!
Thanks! Bottom is needed for people who read subtitles, so I chose the top right. But yeah it seems a lot of people missed them up there.
What's the game on the DS at the end?
Nethack DS, a fantastic port. It's how I learned Nethack and still the only platform I've really played it on. You'll need a homebrew cart to run it.
Perma-death games are pretty fun, pretty challenging, though its not a genre for everyone obviously
I know this videos is like 2 years old but have you tried barony?
No I haven't. Should I?
@@MrWendal totally. I do think u will like it. maybe its a content to make a video
that game from first few second what was that ?
Flashback? Skyrim?
Every gamer should be forced to watch this video
What do you think about the save system in Kingdome Come: Deliverance?
I can see the goals they were trying to hit with it, but I can also understand the public hatred of it. It's kinda trying to achieve two opposite goals. I'd have to play it more to see if it hits them or not, still haven't played past the opening three hours (want to upgrade my PC first).
I dunno, I guess the main problem is without random generation replaying the same parts isn't that fun. I didn't actually get far into permadeath Skyrim either, it was fun for only about 30 mins.
Mr Wendal on games
Without mods to balance Skyrim's difficulty out, I can imagine permadeath being a crappy experience. There are mods to make Skyrim feel like a great permadeath game, as well as even turning Skyrim into a roguelike. Make Skyrim what you want it to be :)
who is this character that you are using on your avatar?
Conrad from Flashback the Quest for Identity
Yes.
you need more subs
I'd have more subs if I made more videos. I would I make more videos if I had more subs?
yeah there's real roguelikes and then there's "roguelikes"
I'm a simple man. I see Mr. Wendal on games uploading a new video, I click upvote then click play.
Permadeath in games where you must always win are about endurance, skill and resource management, the "Should I use the epic item" question exists. Roguelites are a perfect medium because they offer the thrill of death with the garuntee of progress and it explains their popularity. Coming up with novel solutions is great but it appeals to fans of strategy games as most true rogue games are turn based, in reality not everyone likes turn based strategy. Great video.
Thanks. My argument is that "the thrill of death" and "the guarantee of progress" are mutually exclusive. You can't have both. You don't really "die" if you make progress by doing so.
But you still restart the game and lose much of your progress, if you die at the end of Gungeon you still have to replay the entire game but some of your credits can unlock weapons. You still get the thrill of death and overarching progress, there is a reason the lites are a lot more popular.
With gungeon, you get the thrill of the fear of death but there's no action you can take with that emotion. There's no running, no planning how to escape. The core gameplay is not really affected by permadeath.
It ups the stakes, which is good, but does not change the way you play. Nothing wrong with that, I love gungeon, but I love roguelikes more because they give you something do do with that emotion.
You say in the video that nothing is overpowered in action roguelike games but you die so many times BECAUSE everything is overpowered, you just have to gain enough skill or have the RNG gods give you powerful enough weapons (some games) to overcome them.
Perma death and progression can work together, Rogue legacy has a massive skill tree, Don't starve has multiple characters that unlock, Darkest dungeon has a town that can be upgraded, Dead Cells has multiple buyable weapons and armor sets to unlock and these all have perma death with tense gameplay.
You're right, permadeath works in those games because it adds fear to death. But I feel it doesn't change the core gameplay. As for having permadeath and progression at the same time ... for example I feel Rogue Legacy doesn't have permadeath at all. I once made a video about that: ua-cam.com/video/iIBPrX_9HLo/v-deo.html
I am a fan of dying. Likes for you
Rogue-likes I guess just aren't for me. It feels like a punishing waste of time when I die and lose everything. I feel like these games are made for people who want bragging rights.
You so confidentaly praise permadeath, almost like trying to say that any videogame would be better with it. But that's not true. Because behind those few "epic victories" a lot of deaths with hundreds and hundreds of hours wasted because of perma death. I am not saying that permadeath is bad I'm just saying that this feature is only benefetial for a limited genres of games and shouldnt be applied to anything. I even play Caves of Qud on a "save at village" mode and even then I feel so much frustration when I loose hours of gameplay because of some random bullshit. Tho judging by your quote "so there's never any enemy that excitently overpowered" it looks like you love to die from random bullshit.
100% agree with you, it's not true that any video game would be better with it, which is why I never said that
Undertale, "Hold my spaghetti."
Undertale has nothing to do with the topic of the video
Nice video. For me, permadeath is not so enticing. I like repetition; I like ‘solving’ a situation. Permadeath offers only one crack at the bat and so much less satisfying as a result.
Permadeath isn't neceseraly only 1 try at any given situation. That might hold true for early roguelikes, but more modern games usually allow you to make dozens or more mistakes before death finally catches up to you.
I also like how you put solving in quotation marks. In the more literal sense of the word over coming an obstacle can be quite satisfying, like learning the patterns of a boss when meeting him for the 10th time. But `solving` as in breaking/trivialising is not fun for most people, it's just kind of optimal
Well, it's the same thing as a multiplayer game (or a board / card game). You only get one crack there. But I guess losing to the computer is not nearly as interesting as a human.
I think the moral of the story is about how to preserve immersion. I, too, end up with way too many Elixirs in FF games, because they're reloaded too many times; I never get to the point where an Elixir is something you want to actually use rather than hoard. Perhaps if the Elixirs could let you reload instead of heal you, reloading wouldn't be so immersion-breaking, there.
There is also this question: What if you actually solved the situation with one crack at the bat? How would you feel, then?
DPtheOG success on the first try is great. Success is the goal, after all.
For me, whether games should have permadeath or not depends on the type of game. If it's one you can beat in a matter of about 6, 7, 8, even 10 hours, then by all means, at least make it an option.
But not for an RPG whose campaign is 30, 40, 50 hours or more.
I agree