We Need More 3D Roguelikes

a lot of people from a lot of places that a lot of times have played a lot of different video games i mean the market is worldwide spanning hundreds of languages and countries and uh [Music] all right maybe that's just us but the point is all kinds of people play video games and yet you know what we all at some point have rigorously wanted to do in video games move you can't deny that at some point you've been playing some game getting in the groove and then thought hmm can i go there there's just that feeling of wanting to explore go faster go farther or in this direction silly you you can't go that way you're stuck here with me at any rate i know i have felt that movement explore hungry feeling a lot and i also know that i play roguelikes and so i know that give me more opportunity in roguelikes is the thought that i have now don't get me wrong here plenty of rogulex have gameplay that have some sort of emphasis on movement i mean just try playing the binding of isaac without dodging or hades with no dash or well just don't even try under the gunge at that point but to me this isn't enough those games are great in their own rights but regardless of the movement mechanics the fancy texts or the challenging platforming the true essence of movement and exploration is really only captured in one thing 3d something that is extremely uncommon to find in roguelikes at the moment but frozen i hear you saying what do you mean there are so many roguelikes with 3d graphics such as all of this no shut up i'm sorry i didn't mean that please stay i'm not talking about that isometric camera so it looks 3d or 2d but with 3d graphics no i mean full out omnidirectional free movement on the z-axis 3d you really can't make a substitute for that with graphics or camera angles full 3d is practically its own separate genre or well it is and for good reason with the extra challenge of creating a game with an extra dimension comes so many benefits in exploration creative mechanics volume and immersion that true 3d is truly irreplaceable and i think it's something that the roguelike genre is heavily underutilizing name any roguelike out there and there's a good chance that it's a 2d game whether that's top down side scrolling isometric camera etc that's just kind of the nature of the genre due in large part to its sandy nature 3d is hard to do especially for the indie companies or just people that usually make roguelikes so often 2d is a kind of must to realistically make a roguelike in a decent time span with limited funding however it is possible to make a 3d game as an indie dev we've seen it a lot more in games in recent years and those games have been pretty big successes velheim no man's sky sable we happy few minecraft yeah that's not recent but whatever and many more full 3d games have gone on to sweep the charts and while that is obviously partially due to the extremely unique and fun gameplay of each individual game i think a portion of their combined success is contributed to their incredible use of 3d space one of the few aspects that links all of them together good 3d game creation is a skill that takes years to master and even more time to make a game with especially for an indie studio but in the end when done right it can make a masterpiece that surpasses the limits of 2d and by golly does that not ring more true than for roguelikes if they would just be 3d following tradition roguelikes for the most part have strayed away from full 3d due to the immense task that making a 3d game brings with it years of learning needing some considerable funding for a team the tons of time that must be used the whole shebang isn't really the most feasible thing for an indie dev to do the primary force behind roguelikes but i think that there is a very very good case as to why 3d might just be one of the best platforms out there for roguelikes to utilize and while it is difficult yet the reward is and has proven in the past to be well well worth it so why should roguelike devs really go through the immense effort and time of implementing 3d into their games what's the actual benefit well 3d aside from just being awesome in general for games brings with it a value that would work perfectly in conjunction specifically with the roguelike genre content density to explain what i mean let's look at what a roguelike is roguelikes as a genre are essentially games that are meant to be replayed over and over and over again in intervals you play through run of the game learning unlocking more as you progress eventually die and then reset all the way back to the beginning of the game and rerun it again utilizing the things you unlocked and learned previously in order to maybe get farther on this run compared to your last one this process of die retry and die then repeats over and over and over again until you finally reach and defeat the final boss or objective and then over and over and over again afterwards that being said this system of replays of a short game over and over again is destined to get repetitive at a certain point considering the smaller size of the games and the often shortest playtime of their individual runs roguelikes can start to get monotonous after you've re-ran the game enough with enough being a time frame as short as several hours now of course procedural generation the core piece behind any roguelike that basically means randomizing aspects of each subsequent run like new item and enemy spawns and map layouts helps alleviate that repetitiveness by randomizing the limited content of the games on each subsequent run to give more new runs to the player with the same amount of limited content thus alleviating that feeling of repetitiveness however procedural generation has its limits as it is limited by the amount of content that the game contains that can be randomized with enough time the randomization will begin to show repeating trends you'll notice patterns and the newness of each run will decline on a steady drop i talked about this a lot in my previous video if you're interested but what does that have to do with roguelikes being 3d well 3d brings the ultimate solution to their repetitiveness denser content adding 3d to a game when done correctly opens a door to a whole new well dimension of content in the form of exploration movement mechanics and immersion 3d enables players to explore an alter denser world from the 2d counterparts one with previously impossible fun movement mechanics exploration and maneuvering opportunities looking at some of the more well-known 3d titles a huge part of the fun of them is just exploring the space they exist in complemented by the unique mechanics they have to diverse it that is at least partially why open world games are being praised so well and thriving their open 3d base provides that essential depth to create the highly praised worlds they have sure these great 3d open world games have themes and gameplay that exists in the 3d space that is the center point of the game themselves but that 3d space that they have is the basis of those themes in gameplay 3d is a sort of canvas for games to paint their gameplay onto adding an enriching content base for a gorgeous adventure this is what i think roguelike should take advantage of to solve the inevitable repetitive feeling that can come from their repetitive nature utilizing full open 3d with unique gameplay and mechanics specialized to the roguelike itself can unlock the floodgates for content opportunity that would otherwise be impossible in 2d not only extending the lifetime of the roguelike but also allowing devs to creatively implement procedural generation in a 3d space in their own way and style i mean look at risk of rain 2 for example a game that amazingly utilizes 3d space with its own unique elements to create a masterpiece that can be played for hours with creative mechanics volume and immersion that extra layer of 3d and risk of rain too enables it to contain a lot of content that would be impossible in 2d the game has tons of fun and unique survivors that utilize movement in their kids like loader and huntress and mercenary end loader there are also all kinds of fun secrets to find in each environment each one with such a layer of depth that they can be explored for hours via the fun movement mechanics of each survivor like loader's grapple or foid beans teleports and don't even get me started on the items and enemies there's tons of items specifically related to movement and enemies that fly dash and zap all around the map providing an extensive challenge with using the 3d space in-game to dodge find and eliminate them and of course pretty much everything i just said and more has some sort of procedural generation applied to it on every run there's a new chosen environment from a random pool on each stage all the items you encounter are randomly spawned in to create all kinds of random builds to push the limits of traveling to 3d space the enemies are randomly placed anywhere on each crevice of the map so beautiful this massive culmination of randomizable 3d oriented content means that every single run of risk of rain 2 is such a wildly fun and unique one each with new enemy layouts to scout out and destroy using the open space provided items to grab to help traverse the 3d space and tons of survivors should choose from to tackle the 3d challenge i have spent days on this game and i still discover fun movement tricks and explore hidden secrets and push the limits of how fast and far i can travel in one loader grapple swing now granted the success of risk of rain 1 the predecessor to risk of rain 2 which is 2d proves that a lot of the fun of risk of rain 2 comes from the actual uniqueness of risk of rain itself as risk of rain 1 is very fun as well however i placed risk of rain 2 a fun tier above its original in large part just because of that amazing 3d space it comes with that works in conjunction with procedural generation and that risk of rain charm to create a never ending tidal wave of fun and i think that it's very plausible for another talented indie game dev to do the same thing i mean there are hardly any full 3d roguelikes out there as of recording risk of rain 2 gunfire reborn muck and returnal are the only four that i know of myself and while there may be a bit more out there that i'm forgetting i would dare say that there's not very many if any more at all than that so the creative opportunity to work with 3d in a roguelike is almost limitless right now and the competition is very minimal along with that having a 3d game makes so many opportunities for dense unique content which in the world of roguelikes is an incredibly valuable tool to extend the longevity and just general funness over all of the games yeah it's hard but by golly i think it would have potential and i also will definitely if i have the time boo college take a look at and probably make a video about any 3d rogues i find so like three people will be guaranteed to see it looking back at everything maybe i am overhyping the real value of 3d for roguelikes but then again my gosh wouldn't it just be so cool if we had like a big giant open world structure kind of thing in a roguelike i mean obviously there's bumps to work around like making it loop and making sure each individual run isn't massively long but one returnal while it isn't like the most on the line roguelike is pretty big and it worked out all right and two even if it was just attempted like just people tried to do it even if it wasn't perfect that would be so awesome to see just because of the rarity of full 3d roguelikes i mean again i only know of four risk of rain 2 gunfire reborn muck and returnal and they were all really great games in my opinion and i feel like other games could potentially build on those game's successes and refine the use of 3d and roguelikes potentially taking it a step farther than previously seen before now is that a bit too much to ask of indie devs maybe but i've seen the dedication and commitment any devs put into their titles and they certainly haven't strayed away from 3d in other genres so i know that it's possible it's just a matter of whether or not it happens and i just really hope it happens but what do you think about 3d and roguelikes is it really underutilized should it be done more or at all please let me know in the comments and you know what i'm so excited for 3d now that i'm going to be 3d myself [Music] close enough [Music] [Music] you

Channel: TheFrosif

Views: 13,000

Keywords: roguelike, roguelite, 3D, risk of rain 2, hades, the binding of isaac, tboi, ror2, enter the gungeon, gunfire reborn, muck, returnal, roguelikes, roguelites

Id: qHfIP-7sWjg

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 12 2022