Month: September 2025

Roguelikes and Randomizers

Finding myself with less time to play games these days, I tend to hop into ones I can pick up and put down relatively easy. Roguelikes are a genre that scratch this quick itch. Although lately, I’ve been hooked on the randomizer mod for Kingdom Hearts 2 and noticed is that randomizer runs can work on this same design. Both roguelikes and randomizers involve playing through familiar areas with different builds and tools for a given challenge

Roguelikes

The roguelikes genre has seen a boom over the last few years, driven by Indies like Spelunky and Binding of Isaac in the early twenty-teens. Their origin goes back to the namesake, Rogue. A procedurally generated adventure game created in 1980, its core gameplay elements still used in the genre today.

The gameplay loop of a roguelike involves a single life or session in which failure results in a permanent loss of any progression made. Though some ‘roguelites” include an overall progression on top of the single run gameplay. Throughout this single life, players gain loot, levels or other power ups to take on harder challenges

Ravenswatch is a fairy tale inspired roguelike that can be played with up to a group of four. The game was a big hit with my group of friends, many of which are also fans of the Supergiant’s latest release Hades II and the poker roguelike Balatro. The on-the-fly nature of build crafting paired with solid moment to moment gameplay offers an excellent experience, and it’s even better with friends.

Handling Hardcore

What about games in which perma-death or a single run isn’t part of the core design? Could introducing the thrill of risk offer a new experience for longtime players.

MMOs typically rely on a general build up of levels and gear so that more challenging content can be explored. To lose progress is almost antithetical to the progression driven gameplay that a MMO thrives on.

Before the OSRS bug bit me, I was a long time on and off World of Warcraft player. I first started playing in middle school and it was my first real MMO experience. With years of playing on and off, it was with the release of the Hardcore game mode that from a few years ago that brought me back for what is now the last time.

Hardcore mode was the kind of shake up that WoW’s Classic player base needed to breath some like into the now more-or-less mastered game. Dying and losing it all after months of playing with hundreds of hours on the line gave each encounter real stakes. It could be an epic battle during a raid or as simple as not respecting fall damage. Death was always around the corner.

Hardcore modes are nothing new. Blizzard Entertainment’s own Diablo series had a hardcore mode as far back as the second entry. Permadeath was the fundamental way of playing early videogames both in the arcade and at home. More recently, Hollow Knight offered Steel Soul mode and Baldur’s Gate 3 included Honor Mode.

Even in MMOs, Old School Runescape introduced it’s hardcore Ironman mode back in 2016 as an addition to it’s other Ironman challenge modes. I think OSRS’s handling of perma-death modes is one I prefer. Once a hardcore Ironman dies, their current level, boss kills and other stats are locked into the high scores, but the character is still playable with all gear, levels, etc. but simply as a normal Ironman.

Mods and Self Made Challenges

Sometimes games don’t offer built in challenges like perma-death modes, but this hasn’t stopped gamers from making their own fun in unofficial ways.

Speed running has existed since as long as games have. Records and high scores are all targets for any kind of game. This approach to a game is almost like a roguelike or hardcore experience. Countless runs are cut short after a mistake cost too much time, and ending the run is the best course of action. Even in success, that progress is reset the next time the timer starts.

Beyond speed running, fans and players of a wide range of game have experimented with both challenge runs within games’ exiting rules and beyond them. The explosion of randomizer mods in the last decade is a subject I can possibly do a thorough deep dive on. I’ve recently had the joy of setting up the Kingdom Hearts 2 randomizer, and it is an absolute blast.

Randomizers are modifications to the game that take a game’s typical rewards and shuffles them throughout the entirety of the experience. For example, in The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, the Fairy Bow is found in a specific chest in the Forest Temple, typically the fourth dungeon a player would enter on a normal playthrough. A randomizer might place the bow in a chest in the starting area of the game. Different games have a different range of settings and options, all of which take the original gameplay experience and shake it up enough that even veteran players may have a difficult time.

The Kingdom Hearts 2 randomizer has been a fun way to change up a play through from the typical start to finish. Having different abilities, items and options for taking on a given boss forces me to get better at understanding how all the elements of the game come together. This with only a few runs of randomizing the bosses themselves, which has it’s own challenges and comedy to the mix – who would have thought Barbosa from Pirates of the Caribbean could become the leader of the Organization!

Returning to the hardcore concept and the Zelda series, recent game mode added to The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask and Ocarina of Time randomizers brings the permadeath risk to the games. A new “gloom mode” which permanently removes Link’s hearts after every hit. This combines another set of community challenge runs of “no hit” or one-hit KO runs into the randomizer directly.

Any game offers permadeath by simply quitting a file or playthrough. For the brief period I streamed on Twitch, a number of my nights were spent playing Skyrim with permadeath for each character. The creator Joov has made a number of videos exploring different games with permadeath in mind.

Just as I finished my final draft on this post, I stumbled on this video by 360chrism in which over 500 players randomized 500 games’ items into one giant cooperative playthrough. Across these games, over 140 unique games were included. From Super Mario 64 to MS Paint. This is a simple showcase of how customizable randomizers have become.

I could continue on and on with different games and how permadeath adds to the experience, but my recent affixation on randomizers and roguelikes was a particular topic I wanted to reflect on.

Games and Goals

With the idea of Swing I’ve been trying to drive towards goals, small and large. Regular habits and milestones keep momentum, and the big experiments, even those that fail, are attempts to really try something. As I found myself more and more enthralled by Old School Runescape, I got thinking how the way I was playing the game would be a pretty good way to think about my real life goals as well.

When OSRS Took Over

For a handful of posts, I’ve mentioned a recent dive into the world of Old School Runescape. This game, and most other live service or MMOs, has an everlasting treadmill of goal after goal. From experience and levels to gear and cosmetics, these games drive player engagement by providing something new to do with a reward on the other side.

Every game has a goal and usually a fail state, a winner and a loser – sometimes multiple of one or the other. Many games have a clear target for what a player’s goals are, but some leave them vague on purpose.

Runescape’s sandbox approach puts the player in control of their goals. After a brief tutorial on how the game’s basic systems work, the player is dropped into the world and sets out on whatever journey they have in mind. There are ways the game nudges the player, such as quests and even the activity advisor which both provide some direction, but none of these systems are required by the game. That’s how people have made niche goal-based accounts such as chunk locked, tileman, etc.

The first real goal I set for myself was to complete all the quests and earn the Quest Cape. Earlier this year, I accomplished that goal, and did so just before Varlamore The Final Dawn was released adding a few more quests. I did knock those out after the update was live, and it was fun tackling the new quests.

With this major goal completed, I found myself into the real grind of the game. Hundreds of hours leveling, thousands of boss kills for drops, and countless hours plotting and planning what to do next. I constantly found myself thinking about what to do next in game. OSRS was overwriting the actual goals I set for myself. Instead of post topics or projects to work on, I would plan out what skill to train or boss to grind. I would make excuses to play for just a little bit at any time. Having the app on my phone made it easy to do a small task here or there, even while on vacation with friends.

This mental takeover was interrupted by stumbling on this video, where a longtime player explained his reasons for quitting. It led me to reflect on how much I was giving the game, and while I don’t plan to quit for good, I don’t know when, or actually if, I will go back. I can see some new quests or a planned group event with some friends bring me back for a bit.

Transferring Game Goals to Life

As I started to peel away from the game, I began using my mindset while playing directed towards positive goals and tasks, and I’m not the only one. In the last few weeks, I’ve found at least two YouTube series of people using Runescape as a way to spark real life goals.

Touch Grass follows a player who goes by Sumo who is locking Runescape’s skill system behind a certain threshold of real life activity. For example, to raise combat stats he has to workout for an extended period, and while similar the Agility skill is locked behind rock climbing. I’m excited to see what he comes up with next.

A simpler, but still interesting approach, is Gym Locked, in which grinds are accompanied by some kind of exercise with major milestones like quests locked behind completing those initial tasks.

Both of these directly link game play with real life action, a step in the right direction, but I’m hoping for a way that doesn’t rely on continuing to play. I’m hoping to instead leverage the mindset of planned repetition, milestones and solid rewards to drive personal goals and projects.

A Fresh Outlook

Over the last few weeks, I’ve taken a step back from going deep on any projects, and trying small actions to see what sticks. With how deep I was wrapped up in OSRS, it became hard to find what I was really passionate about.

Most recently, I’ve fallen down the Linux rabbit hole (Arch btw) and having dipped my toes into really customizing the system. I have an old Lenovo Thinkpad, aka the standard Linux device, and decided to revitalize it with a fresh install of Linux. I set it up to dual boot with Windows years ago, but never used the Linux install. This time I went all in and completely deleted Windows form the machine.

I know there is a lot more to try out with Linux but am going to stick with this setup for a while to see what I like and dislike. The exposure to Linux tinkering, has got my really thinking about setting up a home server/homelab. Having some kind of personal server is something I’ve considered for years, but saw it as a far future project. Setting up something small to get started seems like a fun side project for tinkering. Before making any purchases, I’m really considering my use cases and specific tasks for what I actually want or need. Homelabbing can be a slippery slope in spending, so going to do my best to be very careful about what I purchase for any kind of project.

Sticking with tech, the I’ve gotten back into game development. For now, I’m working with Godot, an engine I’ve only started abandoned projects on, with an extremely simple incremental game, or more colloquially a “clicker game.” This type of game offers an easy base to build systems a top. I got the idea after watching this video where a developer and some friends turned Oregon Trail into this kind of game. Starting with the simple concept, there are a ton of mechanics all built on the simple action of clicking on a wagon. What I have thus far is certainly not reinventing the wheel, but after a long time away from making games, it’s nice to start with a super simple idea.

For each of these projects, I’m breaking down the bigger milestones to simple tasks. Admittedly, the piece I’m really missing from this is the satisfying reward. The dopamine rush of a level up or rare drop is hard to beat. While the satisfaction of tackling a challenge does offer some reward, I feel there needs to be a little something extra to get that real kick. In the past, I’ve tried BeeMinder or other punishment systems, but to me they haven’t really been successful in motivating me, just providing an extra layer of stress on top of the task at hand. If you have any ideas for reward systems, please share your thoughts in the comments.

Fixer Upper

Recently, I took on the challenge of fixing an issue I was having with my TV. Odd circles of light starting popping up throughout the screen, and with some quick research, it was due to some pieces of plastic that diffused the LED backlights falling out of place. A relatively simple fix, not unlike when I needed to fix my phone screen after it stopped working. Cracking open my devices and trying to uncover a simple fix has been a great experience for me, even when things don’t go according to plan.

The Joy of Repair

There is something extremely satisfying about taking apart something, learning how it works and fixing what was once wrong with it. I’ve taken a turn to digital devices recently, but I can’t think of how many simple items have been fixed with some glue or tape. If you think about it, that’s still the same practice. A place some friends and I rented years back had this annoying screw in the front door that kept causing issues. To fix it, I glued in a bunch of toothpicks to the hole the screw was loose. With the toothpicks for the screw’s threads had something to grip, and thus no more door frustrations.

Something I’ve learned about myself in this process is that I do enjoy tinkering and trying to fix things. Back when I owned a car, a 2007 Saturn Ion with over 170,000 miles, I enjoyed doing maintenance on it. From simple oil changes to changing tires and even replacing a hub and bearing – well actually two because I replaced the wrong one the first time.

It’s tough to say if I brought it in somewhere if they would have found the issue before the car totaled. I bought and drove that car with the intention that I would learn what I could on a relatively cheap car, and to that I say I learned a lot.

That is oddly one of the things I miss about having a car, is simple maintenance on it. A lot of people will tell me something to the effect of, “I would learn to do it, but it’s cheap and I don’t have the time to do it.” To me this always feels like a copout. It’s okay if you don’t want to learn, but once you do you learn that it takes like 3-5 minutes of actual work. I guess the time that a person drives to a shop, waits for the service, goes through checkout and then drives back isn’t a factor. I’ll say dropping the oil off and getting new oil and filters is an element to account for in the time, but I would say this can overlap with maybe one of the trips to the mechanic who will do your change for you. In my case, I literally only had to drop off my old oil once, and I frequented the neighborhood Advanced Auto Parts often enough that a specific oil drop off trip wasn’t needed.

Admittedly, the only time I really struggled with changing my oil was the very first time, and it was largely because the shop I once brought it to, tightened the filter housing way too tight. I had to buy a socket large enough to go around the housing’s bolt shaped screw and then hit the socket wrench with a mallet to loosen it enough to finally open. After that, a good hand tightened turn is all it needed.

A Lot to Learn

I wish all of my fixes went flawlessly. The TV fix mentioned in the introduction here didn’t go according to plan. Replacing the diffusors was easy. A dab of glue and repositioning is all it took, but in the process of taking apart the TV, I accidentally cracked the screen despite the fact I was following a video with the title “How to Fix White Spots Without Cracking your LCD Screen.” This is largely because I made several mistakes in the process, the video was actually extremely helpful and informative. If I had followed it more closely, I no doubt would have my 10 year old TV back in action.

Sometimes it takes a failure or mistake to learn how to do something right. The first time I replaced my phone screen, I made a couple mistakes. The biggest of which caused a nasty green line from the top to bottom of the screen – yes I broke the replacement for the first one I broke. This was caused by several pins inside the phone casing that were redirected when I opened the phone and poked the backing of the screen. After nearly a year of dealing with this broken screen, I finally replaced it. With my lessons learned, I did so successfully.

A few quick fire lessons from my experiences, that hopefully you can avoid after reading this!

  • “Put it back together” is not one step. I’ve found myself here a few too many times throughout my efforts. Taking it apart is a several step process, and then I think “just do that backwards.” Of course this fails to be as simple as I make it out to be, thus requiring back tracking because I missed a part or didn’t account for the caution needed before putting a certain piece back together – see my multiple broken screens for this.
  • Take pictures along the way not only to help with reassembly, but to document the process. This can save you a headache in the future when you begin the multiple step “put it back together” phase. You also have pictures to compare the progress, evaluate other possible fixes or just to share the experience.
  • Don’t use a bed as a work surface. You might, like past me, think “it’s soft so good for preventing damage to sensitive items.” In practice, it’s too soft and the small movements in the surface might lead to say a cracked screen – you won’t hear the end of this any time soon. You’ll want to use a firm surface such as a table with a soft later on top like felt or foam. In a pinch a towel or blanket might work okay, but these will get bunched up and things can be lost in folds when moved around. A solid piece of soft material works better since it avoids this.
  • When following a guide, watch or read it all the way through. That will ensure you have all the tools or materials needed, as well as prepare for any particular steps that might have some tricky needs. It can also explain why a given step that may have seemed unneeded earlier is accounted for. If you think “I don’t need to do that, I’m only doing X.” You may discover that step was needed because of a piece to get to X or to prevent Y from breaking – once again see my screen graveyard.
  • Finally, even with all care taken, every step followed, a fix may not work as expected or an accident can leave an item more broken than before. Have a backup or contingency just in case. In the event of a luxury like a TV, it might be as simple as foregoing it until a new one is available. If it’s something more necessary like a car, can public transit or a carpool for something like work cover you until a replacement is secured. I’ve been lucky that in the several breaks I’ve had, nothing was urgent to replace. Even my car hasn’t been replaced in the nearly 2 years since. Granted I’m luckily in a suburb with good transit options and have a plethora of friends and family willing to offer rides.

Learning is one of the best parts of the process. Finding a fix, a way to do it better and knowing that I can do it the next time I run into that situation makes even initial mistakes satisfying in the long run. So next time, somethings a little broke, maybe give fixing it a try, just remember to watch the pins!