Valuable lessons to be learned from video games. Today: Rogue-lites.
TL;DR (Too long, didn’t read)
- A lot is to be learned from the rogue-lite (or roguelike) genre of games
- Lesson 1. You will have to try a lot of times until you get the hang of the game. Beating it will require you to keep going when you fail. Stay persistent, don’t be afraid of failure, neither in a game or in life. You can achieve your goals with persistence and strategy.
- Lesson 2. Rogue-lites will constantly put you in new, challenging situations. No run will be the same. As in life, you will have to figure out how to make the best of your current situation. Experiment, keep an open mind. What is a challenge today will be a walk in the park tomorrow.
- Lesson 3. Not everything will be revealed to you from the get-go. Knowledge will prove invaluable to overcoming difficulties. Learn, read, and again, experiment. The internet is full of guidelines, talks, and material, many of which are available for free. Don’t be afraid to try something new and make use of the abundance of information that is available.
Before we start. Throughout the article, you will find lots of footnotes⁹⁹. You don’t have to read them necessarily. They provide additional comments, references or thoughts. Unfortunately, Medium does not allow to link the directly, so you will have to scroll a little. Sorry for that.
Rogue-lite Games? Come again?
In 1980, there was this game, Rogue. Basically, you would fight your way through randomly generated levels. If you die, that’s it. Game over. All progress lost. If you manage to survive long enough, you collect all sorts of equipment that makes you stronger, healthier, more versatile, etc. etc. Finally, you are strong enough to find the Amulet of Yendor at the depth of the dungeon. Of course, I totally had to look all of that up¹. I’m too young for ASCII-based games. However, Rogue piled up a gigantic legacy. Many games have since picked up the recipe of Rogue: Fighting through many randomly generated levels, including role-playing elements (collect stuff, gradually growing your character stronger as you progress), and permadeath (permanent death. Simple).
Now, there’s an ongoing discussion in the game community about the exact definition of rogue-likes or rogue-lites. I’ll spare you the details. For the sake of the article, let’s settle on the following distinction. Rogue-like: Die and lose everything, your next try (called a run in game jargon) will be like a fresh start. Rogue-lite: Some sort of progress is preserved². Now it might be time to tie this intro to the topic of life lessons. I was wondering whether life (real-life) would classify as a rogue-like or a rouge-lite. In favor of rogue-like, death does seem pretty permanent in terms of resetting “game” progress. Whatever equipment you may have acquired (for the sake of argument, imaging all kinds of armor, wizard hats, books, potions, and the stuff you usually carry around with you when heading for work) will probably be gone when you start a new run. Also, I’ll stop that line of thinking right here to prevent getting into any religious or philosophical discussions. On the other hand, in favor of life being more of a rogue-lite, death (usually. hopefully!) won’t remove every trace of your existence. You might pass on your gold to relatives or friends, leave a legacy, and so on. Hence, some sort of progress is preserved. Life lesson: games are inspired by real-life. Case closed.
In the end, I wound argue that the classification of life depends on your perspective. Do you look at your own life, do you consider your impact on others, and so on. With this article, I try to reflect on rogue-lites with a change in perspective. There are lessons to be learned from the experiences made when playing rogue-lites. I believe that these lessons can be valuable for anyone, regardless of being a gamer or not. And who knows, maybe somebody gets inspired to try one of the games mentioned in this article. Anyway, I enjoy the idea of viewing games as more than a hobby that kills time. As a researcher, I certainly will also reference the evidence for the positive impact that gaming can have on, e.g., learning or understanding³. In any case, drafting this particular article provides me with a great justification for procrastinating in between arguments: Doing some more research 🎮.
The first lesson that rogue-lites teach you
Welcome back! So I was playing some Hades right now, a rogue-lite⁴ dungeon crawler (more gamer jargon. This pretty much means multiple levels that are created randomly for every run. Your job is to fight your way, or crawl your way through). Unexpectedly enough, the lesson I learned today was that it is quite a challenge to take a screenshot of a situation that underlines your argument while playing the game seriously. This is an excellent time to let you in on a not-so-secret secret of (most) rogue-lites⁵: Things get hectic. Very hectic. Since these types of games mostly involve fighting, hectic refers to a lot of stuff going on that you need to keep track of. We are talking enemies, attack, traps, bottomless pits, items, status effects, to mention just a few. Now imagine while you are slashing and dashing your way through, keeping track of the story you wanted to tell in that Medium article you’re writing. And then hitting the screenshot button at the right time. More importantly, remembering which button you are using for taking screenshots.
So what are we seeing here? I’m the red thing in the center (playing as Zagreus, son of Hades, the king of the underworld). Everything else pretty much is hostile, from the guy swinging at me with a giant toothpick (top left?), to the shied bearer preparing to strike (center, below me), to the chariots charging in (from the right). Oh, did I mention the traps? The purple arrows should be dodged (top right), and the statues with spear and shield (top left) poke at you when you get to close, too. And to be fair, on a hectic scale, this example would rank 5/10, if I had to judge.
What do we make of this? I’ve played Hades for about a total of 10 hours now. Those 10 hours saw me dying numerous times at the hand of numerous foes (or traps). But slowly but surely, I made progress. I learned the movements and attack patterns of enemies and how to combine the equipment I find along the way to make me stronger. Also, with every run, I collected materials that I could use to permanently make my character stronger. Here lies one of the essential aspects of playing rogue-lites. You will die / lose / fail. Probably repeatedly. At first. The game will throw challenges at you that you are not ready for. In rogue-lites, it usually does not take much to end your run, perish your character, send you back to the start.
Consequently, it will be important to get the hang of things: your movements, your enemies, your choices during the run. Every enemy you will encounter will have one or multiple movement or attack patterns. Once you’ve seen these often enough, you will know how to dodge. You will learn to look for the visual hints that the game provides for you to react in time. You will dodge. You will feel like Neo in Matrix. Until you get hit, die, and start again. But the game encourages failure. Before you died, you got further than ever before. You saw new enemies, new floors, new traps, new equipment. You learn (more to that later). And on top of that, you collect some sort of currency that you can spend between runs to improve your character (darkness in case of Hades). These permanent improvements pile up to assist you and motivate you to keep trying.
Fall seven times. Stand up eight.
I think there’s a lesson to be learned here. Certainly, we could dive deeper into how rogue-lites utilize game elements to keep you motivated and keep you playing. How you are nudged by little chunks of success. But how about the following take-away: Failure is not the end. Rogue-lites do a great job of keeping you positive about having to start over. You lose your stuff, but you gain experience. This mantra of not giving up, of accepting failure as a chance to learn and improve, is well taught by rouge-lites. The lesson itself certainly isn’t new. In fact, I had a hard time picking a quote from the long list of sayings regarding failure. I chose “Fall seven times. Stand up eight.”, which apparently is a Japanese proverb. I also enjoy Walt Disney’s saying, “Everyone falls down. Getting back up is how you learn how to walk.⁷”. However, I’m also aware of the saying “action speaks louder than 1.000 words”. Getting taught a lesson from a book, a movie, a quote even, might be different from making an experience yourself. Games may allow you to make such experiences in a risk-free environment. You have nothing to lose if you give up (well, maybe the money you spend on the game). But if you stand up, if you pull through, you may be rewarded. For me, this reward is the sense of achievement once I beat that boss that busted me 20 times. Or to get to the next level. Unlock that new fancy weapon. Beat the game, eventually. These achievements remind me of the benefits to be gained by trying. Over and over. Until you get good enough⁸.
Lesson 1. Don’t be afraid of failure. Reflect on what you learned on the way. Try again. With each try, you have the chance to learn, train, and grow. You can achieve your goals with persistence and strategy.
Disclaimer. In the process of laying out my thoughts on the subject, I believe there is more to discuss regarding failure. Certainly, limitations apply to the mantra with regards to the risks involved in failure. That’s why I include the term strategy in the lesson. Timing might be important, along the lines of “fail early fail cheap”. Regardless, the take away here is that rogue-lites can teach us to see the bright side of failures and get ready for the next run!
Make the best of what you get
Like life itself, rogue-lites are designed with change in mind. Every run you attempt will be a little different (except for seeded runs, but that’s a different story). That’s because levels are generated randomly (procedural¹⁰ if you want to use the computing term). But levels are not the only thing that’s random. A list of other things that commonly are random: Enemy spawns (more gaming jargon: the enemies that you have to face in an encounter. Use it in a sentence: A few bullet kins just spawned, I just died because this run had stupidly hard spawns), equipment spawns, boss spawns. You see, much changes between different runs. In Enter the Gungeon⁹, probably my most favorite rogue-lite at the moment, you select a character at the start of the run, and that’s it. Unless you activate any of the special challenges, you start your run with default equipment and go from there. Consequently, you cannot predict how your run will go. Maybe the items (a more common term for equipment in gaming I’d say) you get in this particular run are great. Perhaps they are just the ones you used before and liked. Perhaps they are crazy strong. Perhaps all the passive items you get on top are great¹¹. Perhaps you get great synergies. Such runs can make you feel very powerful. Synergies between the stuff you get during a run give you a significant power-boost. Those can make your game feel completely different. For example, there is an item in Enter the Gungeon that stops time almost completely, unless you move. An entire different experience, I tell you.
But again, much like in life, not every run will be the same. Let’s for a second consider each day as a run. Some days, you get up on the right foot. Breakfast is delicious, the weather is good (whatever good means for you in particular), life is fun and butterflies and cheesecake. The next day, everything is dark and grey, you can’t seem to finish anything, and that Medium article takes you forever. Runs work the same way. Sometimes you get just the items you need, the synergies you want, and you beat the boss. And the next one. And the one after that. But most often, your run (and your day, too, most likely) will be something in between. As a wise man once said, “only a sith deals in absolutes”¹². There rarely is either black or white, we are usually faced with some sort of grey that we have to figure out for ourselves. In a run, you would usually talk of making a run work. This is one of the challenges of rogue-lites. Whatever challenges you face, whatever items you get, whatever enemies or bosses spawn, the gamer will try to make it work. If they do, they will have overcome all challenges despite (allegedly) bad luck with this particular run.
It is what it is. It comes as it comes. Everything in life has always gone well.
This holds another lesson. Rogue-lites can teach us that your abilities allow you to overcome challenges. In life, you usually do not know what hand you are dealt with. Also, usually, you cannot change what you’ve been dealt with. Sure, you can restart a run, forfeiting. However, restarting a day in your life would be quite hard (some may call it, taking a day off?). But in the grand scheme of things, and the grand scheme of this arguments, it’s not about days, but about life lessons (but I’m getting off-track here). Anyway, you make do with what you have. There is a great saying in Cologne, Germany, on how do handle challenges: “It is what it is. It comes as it comes. Everything in life has always gone well.”¹³ That the approach that is also required for doing well in rogue-lites. You work with what you’ve been provided with. With time and experience, you get better at making the best of any situation.
Throughout a run, you will be faced with many decisions that determine how your run will turn out. In Enter the Gungeon, there are certain restrictions on what you can do. Keys are required to open chests (for items) or doors (for chests?). Shells, the game’s main currency, are required to buy new items. Supply is limited, so you better chose wisely. Also, the game doesn’t force you to clear (game jargon time: defeat, beat, …) all enemies on a floor, you only need to find and clear the boss to advance to the next floor. The more you are faced with particular choices and their outcomes, the more you are capable of reacting well in every situation.
Lesson 2. You will find yourself in situations that are new, that are scary. You can not always influence what challenges await you and what comes along your way. Keep an open mind. Stay curious. Experiment. What is a challenge today will be a walk in the park tomorrow. Accept the challenge.
The value of knowledge
At this point, I have to admit that the article is already longer than I expected it to be. But stick with me, there’s only one more aspect that I want to talk about, and the third lesson links quite well to lesson 1 & 2. So far, we have talked about experience, mostly in terms of gaining experience as you face off against new and old enemies. But in most rogue-lites, there is also experience to be gained in terms of game knowledge. Usually, rogue-lites do not provide length explanations on items or mechanics. At best, you will get a quick tutorial on basic movement (e.g., the dodge roll in Enter the Gungeon). However, as you progress in the game, you will be faced with items that you have never seen before. The game will make you pick it up or leave it. You have no idea what the item does. So you go with it. Usually, you will get a short sentence, a description of some sort. Usually, the description is not helpful. So you have to figure its effect out on the go. Sometimes, your run will end before you even get the chance to figure out what your items do.
In short, you lack knowledge. Without knowledge of what specific items do, it will be hard to make choices. So as you play, your knowledge about your item choices will grow. Eventually, you will figure out that most rogue-lites have secrets as well. Secret rooms, for example, that will only reveal themselves to the attentive ones. Or secret bosses. Or secret items. Lots to do actually. The more you know, the deeper you will get, unlock more content, and progress further. If you read this article up to this point, you have already learned many things about rogue-lites. Your knowledge has grown. If you were to download and start a rogue-lite later today, chances are you have a better chance of progressing fast than a complete beginner. Still, it will take some time to acquire the knowledge you need to beat the game.
At this point, the lessons we have learned throughout this medium-sized article (pun not indented¹⁴) all come together. To recap, you learn as you go, and get better with every run. With persistence, your knowledge grows, which prepares you for the next challenge. You need to be curious and experiment to grow your knowledge to a point where you are ready to beat the final boss. And most certainly, any modern rogue-lite will keep you challenged even after that final boss has been bested.
“Standing on the shoulders of giants.”
So what is the final lesson to learn here? While rogue-lites expect you to learn everything the hard way (quite literally so), life actually gives you a hand. Let’s say you are stuck at that game you are playing, say UnderMine¹⁵. You have no idea what you stuff does. So you Google. There are already many other players that have pooled their knowledge in a Wiki of some sort, and help you get started. The internet provides an incredible source of knowledge, tutorials, hints, tips, tricks, and cats. Rogue-lites (any game actually) and life are alike with regards to the value of knowledge. The more you know, the better prepared you are. The more versatile you are. And the easier it gets to learn even more. In research, you will often hear the saying “standing on the shoulders of giants”. It means that you have the incredible opportunity to learn from what others have done. You don’t have to start from scratch. Pretty much anything you want to learn can be found on the internet. What to learn programming? Find yourself a free course, find something on YouTube, read a Medium article, etc.¹⁶ For many people, it’s easier than ever to get access to free knowledge.
Lesson 3. Knowledge can help you a great deal to overcome difficulties. Learn, read, and again, experiment. The internet is full of guidelines, talks, and material, many of which are available for free. Don’t be afraid to try something new and make use of the abundance of information that is available. It can only help you with knowing how to tackle your next run or your next day.
Disclaimer. Especially regarding the internet, there is a significant problem with the authenticity of information (fake news and such). That’s a whole different topic. Smart people are writing up books worth of research papers on that particular topic, discussing how to best rate sources, or automatically identify lies. For now, I’d suggest that to shield yourself from falling for the likes of lies, fake news, and false information, don’t rely on only one source. If a fact seems unbelievable, try to verify this information through another source.
Thank you for reading! If you want to chat about something related to this article, email me at tim@casualsunday.de
Footnotes
¹ Of course, Wikipedia. If you want to go more scientific about it, try this Book. I love how you can find scientific endeavors for pretty much any topic on Google Scholar.
² Thanks @StarfighterProx on Reddit for the clarification.
³ See this literature review published in Computers & Education. For those who, like me, think about violent video games and aggression, here is a recent article published in nature(!) that evaluates the long-term effects of playing violent video games. Spoiler: The authors present strong evidence against the negative effects of playing these games in adults.
⁴ The developers actually say its a rogue-like, but for the sake of clarity, let’s stick with the term rogue-lite for this and the following games to be mentioned.
⁵ That I play at least. There might be others. Slay the Spire is a rogue-lite right? Does it also get hectic? Any experiences?
⁶ You can check the game out here. It’s pretty fun and full of polished content, despite being (only) in early access.
⁷ I found these and more quotes on this site.
⁸ Also, I enjoy how my progress and experience from one game translates to other rogue-lites. I know the overall mechanics, I recognize patterns faster, I beat the game with less tries every time I start a new game. Great stuff.
⁹ One of my favorites: Enter the Gungeon. A gunfight dungeon crawler, set in an incredibly fun and coherent universe themed around guns (such as the Shotgun Full of Love, a Teapot, a guitar that fires notes, or exploding bananas. It’s fun). Quite hard to beat but a great introduction to rogue-lites with lots of unlocks, lovely storytelling, and sweet pixel art. Oh, it also has a catchy soundtrack.
¹⁰ Procedural generation is pretty cool. You couple some human-generated assets, like walls, trees, tiles, with computer-generated randomness. Basically, you set specific rules, and the computer builds a world (or whatever you need to be built), following these rules. Procedural generation is great for the replayability of games, as everything is (kind of) new in every run. Also, its a nice playground for artificial intelligence, both for creating games and playing them.
¹¹ Passive as in, improve your character without you having to do something. For example: Read 20% faster, which helps you to finish this article. Or in gaming terms: Deal 20% more dmg (damage).
¹² Obi-wan Kenobi, Star Wars, 2005. May the fourth be with you.
¹³ §1–3 of the Cologne Basic Law. Not official, just local culture stuff.
¹⁴ Okay, maybe a little.
¹⁵ Last chance for me to introduce another game. This time, UnderMine. UnderMine identifies as an action-adventure roguelike. Maybe this article should be called Life Lessons from Roguelikes. Well… Anyway, UnderMine also features great pixel art, and an exciting system involving buffs and debuffs that you collect during your run. Also, adorable little things that steal coins.
¹⁶ I learned that etc. is short for end-of-thinking-capacity. That’s true.
