Proc gen & gameplay - Brian Walker

From the Roguelike Celebration: roguelike.club
The creator of Brogue will talk about emergent storytelling in roguelikes. How can each play of a procedurally generated game feel distinct and memorable to a veteran player? And how can a single player game reward both skill and creativity? Brian will discuss specific gameplay elements and game design techniques to maximize the number of unique player experiences per unit of game content. Brian grew up playing the original Rogue. He taught himself to code by developing Brogue to be the roguelike that he always wanted to play.

[@cipherpunk7409]

I could listen to Brian talk about roguelike design forever.

[@battlemode]

An exceptionally intelligent young developer. This is pure gold :)

[@BakedChocoChips]

The item based progression system reminds me a lot of the deck building games that are really popular these days, like slay the spire. Very interesting!

[@108Legacy]

What a legend

[@callunas]

I think I've just been convinced to play Brogue :)

[@battlemode]

Do it, in my opinion one of the finest game designs in existence.

[@davidpike766]

clever lad.

[@andrewduhan]

Great talk, thanks Brian for sharing (and for brogue!).

[@TaraRaeDev]

Awesome talk! Working on a character action game with procedural elements and this is really helping me focus! Thanks so much!

[@takemywordforit4128]

Got to ask Pender (Brian Walker) a few questions today! Made my night.

[@cristiancam5251]

How did you contact him?

[@takemywordforit4128]

@@cristiancam5251 i didn't. He just popped into the rougelikes discord one day inbthe brogue section and I got to ask my question.

[@lologoldstein2371]

thanks for this great talk. brogue is my favorite game. I'm confused about one point: how is a round distribution of gas euclidean? being round in that grid means diagonal movements get you out faster than straight movements. it would be euclidean if it were a square.

[@nightyonetwothree]

for me character classes kills real diversity of play in games. For example, battle brothers have no hard-coded classes while new xcom series are build on classes - resulting in battle brothers have more diversity in building your roster with different roles and some unique plays for different players. Same as POE having different characters' origins yet same talent-tree (just start at different nodes on it) have much higher diversity in progression and endgame builds than diablo2/3 which. Also lots of rpg-like game (wow/d3/d&d games for example) not only provide unique experience for different classes, but also just cut some gameplay mechanics into chunks and prevent some classes to access them - it really annoys me. So i agree with Brian a lot - let your journey build your character, his strengths, let his (yours) behaviour to determine his class.

[@Numenorean921]

I think there's a drawback to this approach in that the player can't roll a new character with a specific playstyle in mind IMO, an experienced player should be able to find the items they want for their character without complete random chance involved.

[@verlandes1]

I don't thing Brogue is that kind of game - it is in fact one of it's many strength. Sure I am always on the lookout for items that constitutes my favourite class (beastmaster), but more often than not I'll have to roll with what the seeds give me. And that's great, my most successful runs have been with builds I weren't prepared for!