Balancing randomness in action roguelike game design
Hannula, Rama (2025)
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025051411808
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025051411808
Tiivistelmä
Action roguelike is a popular genre in the growing indie game market. They rely heavily on randomness in their core game design and are defined by features such as procedurally generated environments and randomized enemy and item layouts.
Randomness creates uncertainty in gameplay and can affect the player experience in many ways, depending on various of factors. These often revolve around the feeling of challenge, player agency, and fairness, which due to the unpredictable nature of randomness, can be difficult for the developer to balance.
The objective of this study was to understand how randomness affects the gameplay experience in the action roguelike genre, and how game designers balance randomness to create more fair and enjoyable experiences for the players. The design choices of many popular action roguelike games were examined from the perspective of their effect on game balance. In addition to popular action roguelikes, the author’s own action roguelike game Ants Took My Eyeball was looked into.
The findings suggest that having more randomness adds variety and improves replayability, which are both important aspects of the action roguelike genre. Having more randomness can also affect the experience negatively by making it unpredictable and unfair, but this can be countered to some extend by giving the player more agency and freedom of choice.
Randomness creates uncertainty in gameplay and can affect the player experience in many ways, depending on various of factors. These often revolve around the feeling of challenge, player agency, and fairness, which due to the unpredictable nature of randomness, can be difficult for the developer to balance.
The objective of this study was to understand how randomness affects the gameplay experience in the action roguelike genre, and how game designers balance randomness to create more fair and enjoyable experiences for the players. The design choices of many popular action roguelike games were examined from the perspective of their effect on game balance. In addition to popular action roguelikes, the author’s own action roguelike game Ants Took My Eyeball was looked into.
The findings suggest that having more randomness adds variety and improves replayability, which are both important aspects of the action roguelike genre. Having more randomness can also affect the experience negatively by making it unpredictable and unfair, but this can be countered to some extend by giving the player more agency and freedom of choice.