Readability and Designing for Attributable Failure: A Heuristic Framework and its application to Commercial Action-Roguelites: Case Study of Hades

Abstract

This thesis proposes a heuristic framework for readability and fairness in action-roguelites: practical rules that developers can apply to ensure legible hazards, fast fail-to-retry loops, and perceived fairness. Building on theory (failure attribution, flow, and learning-through-patterns), the study operationalizes readability with explicit thresholds for five items: telegraph window ( ≥ 500 ms), bullet-to-background contrast (≥ 3:1), HUD/VFX occlusion (≤ 10% of sampled frames), death-to-control latency (“friction seconds”, ≤ 5 s), and first-death attribution (player can state the cause in one sentence). A 0–2 scoring rubric and a compact protocol (clips, frame counts, sampled frames, timed restarts) support consistent evaluation.

We apply the checklist to a commercial action-roguelite called Hades, producing one-pagers (table + annotated frame + notes) and a game matrix. Across the sample, we observe recurrent failure modes: contrast clashes in dark biomes, telegraph windows collapsed by overlapping events, and celebratory VFX or damage numbers masking hazards; and effective patterns such as consistent telegraphs, palette discipline, UI/VFX layering that avoids occlusion, and near-instant restarts.

The contribution is threefold: (1) a printable checklist with definitions and thresholds; (2) a replicable protocol for evidence captures and scoring; and (3) comparative observations that translate into actionable guidance for developers seeking evidence-backed readability improvements.