One More Level, Yet Another Broughlike Game

This article is also available on GitHub.

Main Features of One More Level

A Roguelike game is a video game that plays like Rogue. It is not a well defined term but the type has three features that interest me most:

• Turn-based action: PC and NPCs act in turns. The game freezes without player’s input, which grants you enough time to think.
• Permanent death: The game ends when PC dies. You cannot reload a previous save to avoid failure.
• Random generation: The game generates a different dungoen every time you start a new run. If handled properly, it offers endless replayability.

A Broughlike game is a Roguelike game that plays like Brogue. This sub type adds more features and limitations to its predecessor. Again, I would list some of them that I find most intriguing:

• The map is small.
• You cannot move diagonally. Only orthogonal movement is allowed.
• Numbers in the game are usually small integers.
  • As a derived result, such a game focuses more on using mechanics to solve puzzles, rather than numerical progression.

One More Level is a Broughlike game made by me with Godot engine. It has one additional feature.

• Every run takes no more than three minutes.

Why Design Yet Another Broughlike Game

Why create a coffeebreak Broughlike game? The short answer is – It is the game that I’d like to play. The long answer has two parts.

Firstly, I want to lessen the frustration from permanent death. One approach, as many Roguelites do, is to grant meta progressions. You can transfer some resources to the next run after death. I do not like this idea as it requires players to invest time into game for a better experience. Another approach, as in One More Level, is to reduce game time. The game is still somewhat challenging. You can beat it in three minutes, or lose it in one minute.

Secondly, I am heavily inpired by HyperRogue and I’d like to play another game that is composed of vastly different and interesting puzzles. Every time you start One More Level, it generates a themed dungeon with unique goals and mechanisms. Frog is one of them. You need to hit frogs and their princess with a spear to remove the curse.

More specifically, a themed dungeon is built with three blocks: goals, obstacles and player inputs. Press arrow keys to move around and Space key to wait if such inputs are allowed by game mechanisms. I also borrow the idea from DCSS to embed help document into the game. Press Esc to read a manual which explains every necessary information of the current dungeon. At present, there are three types of goals: to kill a specific enemy, to reach a destination and to to collect enough resources. Obstacles come from three ways: enemies, terrain and a countdown timer. Enemies and terrain vary from dungeon to dungeon, but the countdown mechanism is universal. There is a timer at the top right corner of game screen. Every action takes one or more turns. You lose the game when running out of time. Sometimes there is a way to restore turns. The combination of three building blocks generates dungeon puzzles which follow a similar pattern on the surface, but requires different tactics to beat under the hood.

As of now (Feb, 2021), the latest version is 0.2.1. Previous releases have passed three generations.

• 0.0.X: The first series contains two dungeons. It paves the way for future development.
• 0.1.X: Dungeons in this series evolve from this question. What if pressing arrow keys cannot move PC as desired?
• 0.2.X: This series tries to answer another question. How many attacking methods are there other than bumping into an adjacent target?

One More Level is far from completed and there are more rabbits in the hat. Stay tuned.