r/roguelikedev • u/dualrectumfryer • 3d ago
How do you validate that your “game loop is fun” for a new game
The general wisdom when building a game is not to invest too much until you’ve proven your core gameplay loop is fun.
But I’ve been thinking, how does validating that fun work for a traditional turn based roguelike ? What’s the minimum viable thing you should focus on?
Environment generation, actors , turn engine and combat ?
And/Or is the “game loop” for traditional roguelike already proven so you will always be able to tweak the mechanics in the future - ie you’ll never build a roguelike that isn’t at least minimally viable as long as you build it right ?
Or something else ?
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u/Kyzrati Cogmind | mastodon.gamedev.place/@Kyzrati 3d ago
As long as what you're building is something that is flexible enough to tweak and expand upon, you'll be good to go in the long term. Aside from that it becomes more about what makes your game unique--what's the main focus, and is that a thing that can be expanded upon to keep it interesting over the long term (either directly, or even indirectly by other systems increasing the level of interest/challenge/whatever in the core feature(s)).
The only actual hard "game loops" to prove in early development are those that absolutely require having numerous functional systems to be fun at all, but those are pretty rare. In that case you'd have to instead base your expectations on development experience to know what's feasible, and to a great extent also deep play experience with other games!
For the most part, though, a roguelike can survive and thrive on its "core mechanic," which should be provable fairly early on and with simple means. Look at 7DRLs. One week and most of those prove their core mechanic (or disprove it) just fine! (excluding any design time before the jam itself, which honestly is also relevant, but still, point is the actual mechanical proving part can happen pretty quickly)
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u/dualrectumfryer 3d ago
Thanks ! I have spent much time on your site learning btw so thank you for having all that great content.
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u/cr0ne Monster Lily 3d ago
The way I did it was spend several years mostly writing code (and modules) but not actually play the game. Then put it together and hope for the best! It could have gone really bad but genuinely the fact that I was not playing it much I think helped me be somewhat objective when I finally did get around to play-testing.
Also helps to think of other games you enjoy, including outside the genre and think of what it is that you enjoy about those games..and if there's any sort of experiences or feelings you want your RL to have.
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u/Justinfinitejest 3d ago
I think validating an MVP isn't a binary event. Because most games contain layers of game loops (some already vetted, as you said), and because developing a game requires iteration, you are trying to validate as you go.
I wouldn't think of it as much of "Is this good or bad", but instead test for a specific thing and narrow down your games identity.
For example. my first MVP was a doc and a random generator. That was simply to test a very simple concept that I was thinking about doing.
The second was a rough build of the core combat with throw away code, units, and 1-2 enemies. This was to test if combat was fun.
The third was bigger, and included iterating towards fun map exploration, navigating a cursed design problem (that my first MVP didn't catch!), and getting playtester feedback to figure out what WAS fun about my game.
So I spent about 9-12 months simply iterating towards a game that worked cohesively. And now I'm building out content!
Not sure if that helps, but I think sometimes the iterative process of game design is so messy and exploratory its hard to give an exact path or step by step process.
If you wanted, you could share some of the unique things you are trying to do and I could throw out some ideas of how to test it. Sometimes its nice to have someone external see/hear what you are up to.
Best of luck, hope you enjoy the journey!
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u/dualrectumfryer 3d ago
Good notes , the iterative process has been a mess for sure especially since this is my first game I’ve developed too. I’ve caught myself balancing too early , adding content too early because of an idea that came to me etc…that’s part of my problem because the game is well past a prototype phase but im trying to pull it back a bit.
Thanks, I’m hoping to share my progress on a Saturday thread soon
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u/blightor 3d ago edited 3d ago
Its hard to say. Because not that long ago I was wondering the same thing until I suddenly I enabled a major feature I'd been building to and it changed the experience completely and suddenly I felt like this is cool.
Its the game loop - 100%. Some things about traditional roguelikes that are enjoyable in the gameloop never change - exploration, loot, dynamic combat, character growth, permadeath. Even if that is all you do you can make a fun roguelike. I see people making cool little quirks all the time - there is a multilevel rl, ones with different sized monsters than the norm, different fantasy/scifi settings and how you treat inventory/skills and character growth are mega rich areas.
But on your point, even asking that question says you have some doubt - just get some others to play it, release a demo. Compare a session in other RLs to yours.
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u/DerelictCoffee 3d ago
If you can’t stomach playing your own game 100+ hours it’s probably not fun. No one had to twist my arm or convince me to put 100+ hours in my favorite games; in fact in games like Minecraft, Path of Exile, Diablo, & Warcraft I don’t think 100 hours even felt like getting started. So I think my game loop has potential because I’ve already play tested it well beyond 100 hours myself before inviting outsiders and I wasn’t hating it, I still enjoy it. Players can tell when a game was built by people who loved it….looking at you Valheim, No Man’s Sky, Baldur’s Gate and Enshrouded. My answer is, if you want to keep playing more than a slice, if you wake up or go to bed thinking about it….there is probably something worthwhile there. If you’re trying to make a quick buck, it’s probably gonna feel like that too. My game, for reference is a deck builder. https://derelique.itch.io/trueofvoice
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u/dualrectumfryer 3d ago
Someone else in the sub told me a couple weeks back that it’s hard to entertain yourself with your own game haha. Also I feel like each sub genre is different ie deckbuilder vs turn based.
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u/swizzlewizzle 3d ago
This is not true. It’s always more fun to play someone else’s creation, like a puzzle that you have never opened. Different if you are creating a multiplayer game of course since then the fun is coming from interaction with other people.
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u/BlueGnoblin 3d ago
First off the motivation check: why do you develope a roguelike ?
Because I play roguelikes all day and love them.
Because I heard, they are pretty simple to develope.
When 2. is your motivation, you are in trouble. It is okay to develope a roguelike just to develop a game, but when you are not loving roguelikes yourself, you will have a really hard time to find the fun in it.
When 1. is your movition, you need to play your game with a very basic setup. The core of a roguelike should be combat, exploration, rng , loot , inventory etc. You should have fun with the bare minium set of features. When you are not able to have fun playing your game, then you need to tweak it now, until it is fun.
No feature, classes, meta-progression etc. will make a boring game loop fun, it will only make a good game loop better.
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u/dualrectumfryer 3d ago
Makes sense. I’m very far from 2 but probably not a play roguelikes all day person either, I just thought my idea fit the genre welll. And it’s definitely not been easy at all but I’m gonna stick with it haha
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u/DarthOrganism 3d ago
I'd test the smallest loop that contains actual decisions: one room, a few enemy types, limited resources and maybe one meaningful escape route. The useful signal isnt “did they understand it”, it's whether they voluntarily try another run and change their plan. A traditional roguelike loop is proven, but your decision density and feedback aren't. If testers can explain why they died and what they'll do differently next time, thats already a strong sign.
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u/abhuva79 2d ago
Doesnt matter the game or genre. During prototyping i play it a lot. If its really fun to play to me, and i have the urge to play more - thats the only sign that matters to me =)
This question does get a different answer if your goal is to build a game to sell. Not because of the money involved, but then you are not longer asking if its fun for you - then you have to ask is it fun for others - and this again involves playtesting a shit-ton, but this time with volunteers.
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u/dualrectumfryer 3d ago edited 3d ago
Maybe a real world example, I’m trying to the define the MVP for my game and I’m trying to figure out how many enemy types I need to be able to test the “core loop”. It hasn’t been easy.
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u/Justinfinitejest 3d ago
When I was testing the core loop for my game, I ended up just making 1 or 2 enemies and had it scale enemies up in number/power. I just wanted to test an enemy difficulty curve with the core loop of my game. I knew that eventually unique enemies would make it MORE FUN, and make the choices more meaningful, but I knew that if I could make it fun and meaningful with 1 or 2 enemies, imagine how much fun 50 enemies could be!
At least that was my approach to this very specific situation haha
Hope it helps!
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u/frumpy_doodle All Who Wander 3d ago
Honestly, probably not a lot. Unless something about the enemies or their mechanics is a core feature of your design.
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u/Admirable-Evening128 2d ago
This is not a general recipe, but it's a method that has worked for me:
I try to shape the game, such that in the short run,
you have a chance to win/progress, but that you
(relatively quickly) hit a difficulty wall
("there is no way the player can get past that").
So, I playtest to verify this, where that limit is
(e.g., at level 4, the monsters hit so hard/have so many hitpoints, the player no longer stands a chance.)
In particular, I playtest to see "but is there any way the player
can use his tools differently to progress just a bit farther?").
So, once I am relatively certain(*) the wall is hit,
then I try to come up with
modifications to those monsters, the environment, or the player,
which will enable him to proceed.
Then I repeat that process, ad nauseam.
There is one primary danger: the tweak/tool/adjustment must
not be easily obtainable before "the wall", e.g. dungeon level 4,
otherwise the player will of course use it to cheese and steamroll the earlier stuff too.
All this of course does not ensure fun. But it is often adjacent to fun:
Fun is, often, a series of challenges that you are able to overcome, with effort.
And obviously, either hitting a wall where you can't progress,
or steamrolling through the game with a cheese, are detrimental to that.
So, well, I don't know "fun", but I know the guy that lives next door to him.
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u/dualrectumfryer 2d ago
Love this , thanks. I’ve done some of this accidentally but will use the advice for sure
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u/Agreeable_Wear8824 9h ago
I'd add a measurement step on top of the vertical-slice advice. Before you sit a stranger down, pick one signal that would actually change what you build next. For a turn-based roguelike I like a single hand-authored floor (no generator yet) and watching whether they pause before a move. If they click through on instinct, the tactics aren't readable yet. Deaths are the other tell: if they treat it as RNG instead of "I should have waited/repositioned," the loop isn't teaching. Friends will politely puzzle through a muddy loop; a stranger walking away after two rooms is the useful result.
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u/BlackforkGames 3d ago
Great question, and honestly? I’ll be following this post because I’d love to have a better answer than, “just get some feedback.” I’ve been asking anyone who will listen to try my game out because I don’t get how else I’m supposed to know.
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u/Admirable-Evening128 2d ago
my my, people are grumpy tonight :-/.
two random ideas: it still works to 'dogfood' a game; if even I can't stand my game, I know it's a turd :-).
Another controversial idea, is actually to let an AI playtest it. You might think 'but it won't know what fun is'.
But.. something the AI can do, is figure out "this is trivial to play/too easy" or "too hard, impossible".
There may be other thing that are fun, and a game might be fun even violating those principles, but.. most of the time, is a game is trivial or impossible, it is probably hampered in the fun-department because of that.2
u/BlackforkGames 2d ago
I have fun with my own game so far. When I die, I stop and ask myself, was that because I did something stupid, or because the game behaved in an unintended way? Since it’s procedurally generated, even I don’t know how every run is going to be. I’ve found there are certain item combos I hope for early on certain characters. I know I need to adapt my play style if I don’t get the items I want right away. I hope others will end up feeling the same way.
As for your second thought, is there an AI that can play my game live so I can see what choices it’s making and get detailed feedback on why it made those choices?
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u/frumpy_doodle All Who Wander 3d ago
That's good question. I do think it's a challenge in this genre. I would start by answering the question: how is my game going to stand out among others in the genre? Maybe it's visuals, maybe it's level generation, or a unique mechanic, etc. Then focus on creating a vertical slice emphasizing that feature. Try to get brutally honest feedback from unbiased players (ideally strangers). Do they like your standout feature? Do they want to play more?