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design process, I started to see really massive, fundamental ways that I
could change things.
The first thing to go was equipment. Roguelikes and RPGs always
have a system for you to find or buy equipment for the characters. The
problem is that this system is inherently unnecessary: it's just an exten-
sion of your level (at level 10 you get the level 10 sword, and then you
have to equip the character; at level 20 you get the level 20 sword, etc.).
Of course, if there aren't level requirements and a level 1 character can
equip a character with a level 20 sword right off the bat, then forget
about balance—it's just a big mess. Instead, I decided to render equip-
ment like swords and armor as special abilities you could get in a special
discipline skill tree. So you just take the sword skill, and bammo—you
have a sword!
Then I started thinking about the classic experience and leveling-
up systems. Most RPGs have a huge problem in that infinite grinding
is possible (and not only possible but required in many of the games).
Roguelikes put a cap on grinding through the food system, which, while
functional, has never really satisfied me. This system works by having a
food clock that is constantly counting down, and you either have to eat
or starve to death. Usually, food can only be found by moving forward
in the dungeon. There are some problems with this system: it's relies too
much on randomness to give the player food, and it only puts a soft cap
on grinding instead of preventing it.
I also started to question the idea that you get stronger as you go.
In most of these games (my own 100 Rogues included) your characters'
stats grow as the game progresses. But does this really make sense in
terms of game design? The game should be getting more difficult, so why
am I making my job a million times harder by having the player's power
change over the course of the game? If anything, in some ways all RPGs
tend to get easier as they progress because of the increasing stats. I'm
sure we can all think back to many RPG experiences that ended with our
characters simply being immortal demigods: this is the logical conclu-
sion of a system that makes your character get better as you go.
So I ditched that, too. Your characters stay at the same levels of
health and attack damage as they go through the game. Instead, they just
learn new abilities as they go and face more monsters with an increas-
ingly wide array of abilities. I also ditched the scales that monitor health
and damage throughout the game—you can do that if characters aren't
simply getting more powerful. Once I did that, it made sense to ditch
those sword and armor skills as well and swap them out for more inter-
esting abilities that expressed something similar in a way that was deeper
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