My month of Rougelites

 I don't plan this stuff, it just happens

Note: As I've never heard anyone satisfyingly explain the difference between the two; I'm going to use Rougelite and Rougelike interchangeably until someone shouts at me. 'kay?

So as we lay January to rest, I look back and realise; I've been gorging out on one of my least favourite gaming subgenres. Why have I done that to myself? To what end? But first let me be clear; I have nothing inherently against the quality of rougelites, they are just so often antithetical to what I seek out of a gameplay experience that the fact I play that at all is baffling. As in, there must be something seriously screwed up about my sensibilities with the amount of them that I play. In pure subjectivity, I'm honestly really taken aback by how exceptional the genre is, quite often turning out classics and masterpieces that are must plays for genre fans, but I'm not a subjective fellow, oh no. Thus let me take you into the mindset of why I've literally been playing them almost non-stop over these last 30-odd days. Maybe to find vindication, maybe just in order to diagnose myself with whatever mental illness has stuck me in this spot.

So first of all, the rub; what is my problem with Rougelites? Ever since the first of their number that I played, which I think was Spelunky, I've realised that I feel I lose more enjoyment than I gain out of playing these sorts of games. (Does that make them my least favourite subgenre? No, I said that for effect.) My issue really comes thusly; I'm the type who likes to shove himself at a brick wall again and again until he gets through it. Obstinate, would be the perfect adjective to describe it. That means even when I'm playing an RPG and have hit an encounter that I'm starting to feel a tad under levelled for, I'll pull out every single stop I can muster to turn it into a  win, no matter the cost. Eventually that might mean resorting to simply stupid levels of resource sinking rather than just sitting back and accepting that I have lost, but if I manage to brute force it I'll be ecstatic. Thus, any genre which expects me to lose regularly in order to learn from it, is already clashing with my innate playstyle.

Then there's the restarting, oh god the restarting. The signature feature of roguelites and rougelikes, aside from their random nature, is the starting from the beginning every time you lose. I hate that. God do I hate it. Because as much as I'm used to the sting of defeat, it comes with the promise that I can learn and improve so as to win eventually. But when I'm kicked back several hours in order to start from scratch, it just demoralises the heck out of me. I recognise that this is my own fallacy and I really need to learn how to let go, but I've always been this way. I'd rather just give up than watch everything crumble to nothing, and I hate giving up already so an entire game loop built around that is just about the worst thing imaginable to a player like me. When I finally manage to get over that, maybe I'll be capable of that Iron Man Xcom playthrough which I know I have to do eventually. (Then again, maybe I can just swallow my pride and do that run on easy difficulty first... urg, that hurts to even consider.)

But then, why oh why have I kept playing them over and over throughout the years, or at the very least attempting to before driving myself loopy. I tried to give Don't Starve a go, had a good few months of Isaac, but never do I manage to ride them the distance. It's to my own detriment because even I recognise that some these games really are great. (For Isaac I actually managed to defeat the Heart once, but that's probably the furthest into a Rougelite that I've ever been) And just to be clear, it is through no conscious effort to 'better myself' which draws me to these games, I just always somehow end up playing them. As such it was only really at the last week of January when I looked back and realised that 90% of my playtime has been oddly more frustration fuelled then usual.

=

Primarily I was playing Pillars of Eternity after finishing Tyranny and loving it. (So far I think Tyranny was better but I appreciate the ways in which Pillars core gameplay systems complicates themselves) And then, by the law of surprise, I ended up with Crying Suns. Now that was a game I'd actually heard of before, but never really given a lot of attention towards. Thus it was only after I'd been through the tutorial when I realised 'crap, this game is gonna tick me off.' Yet, I will admit that what I did play of my first run through Suns, was incredibly fun. Although the way in which I did ultimately snuff it was soul-crunching, in the way that these games always, inevitably, are to me.

Crying Suns puts you in charge of a ship that's making it's way through post-apocalyptic space, (I swear that makes sense, it does) thus there's a lot of dealing with managing systems, random encounters and ship-to-ship combat; although all presented in a very easy to absorb manner. I found the game easy enough to get into, and will probably pick it up again, but it's still odd that I played it in the first place. Am I a glutton? Then there's Bad North, a basic hut defence game which complicates itself through sceanrios rather than through gameplay, and it has honestly proven to be the one of the most palatable rougelites I've ever put my hands on just because of how easy it is to get back into the swing of things. It's just vikings riding from island to island and holding back invaders, simple enough to be appealing and deep enough to keep me interested. But if there was one game of this subgenre that really turned me around to the idea of these games, without me ever realising it, it was Hades.

Hades is a game that won accolade after accolade last year, and I was absolutely late to the party. It was only coming into the new year that I got around to playing the game, and it was coming off of Bastion so I was really expecting a game more in that vein. Ultimately, Hades is mechanically similar to Bastion, but it's heart revolves around that 'try, die and repeat' formula that I usually hate, but with Hades I just find it intoxicating. I think it comes down to the cavalier charm of the game, the way that failure is brushed off and the very story of the game unfurls before you with each failed escape attempt. In many ways, getting knocked out of the race and socialising with the denizens of the underworld is your reward for braving the depths once more, and it brings me around to the whole 'repetition' affair to a degree I wouldn't have thought possible a few months back. So if I want to know why I've come around to a subgenre I hate, the answer is Supergiant Games. (They snuck in there and converted me, the rascals)

I've always been one who greatly respects the genres that I'm not exactly in love with, because most of the time I recognise it as just a situation where I'm either not smart or not flexible enough to engage properly. And given the chance, I'll always give it a go to try and get into those sorts of games, just for sheer desire of wanting to learn new things. I suck at strategy games, and yet Civilisation, Empire at War and Stellaris are some of my favourite games to... well, be bad at. Racing games elude me, but the Forza series is an undeniable masterpiece. (Even if the 'Horizon' series hides a conspiracy everyone's too scared to talk about) Fighting games... just the less said about my talent at them the better. (But my 'Killer Instinct' days really ruled!) I suppose what I'm trying to say is; even if you think you're out of your wheelhouse, maybe it's worth keeping an open mind in case you spot something new and special that you might have otherwise missed out on. Or just don't bother check the tags of the games you buy off of Steam. Might have skipped on Hades if I did.