(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)
Hey Dungeoneers!
In a few days, I'll be giving a presentation at Roguelike Celebration 2022! The presentation is titled "Smoothing the Sharp Edges of RNG", and will talk about some of the techniques I've used in Shattered to make the game's randomness feel more fair, without just making the game easier.
The presentation will go from 4:15pm to 4:30pm EST on Sunday October the 23rd. There will also be a 30 minute Q&A period afterward, going until 5pm. Here's a full description of the presentation:
Roguelike games involve a huge number of random calculations, from item and level generation to damage values in combat. We love this randomness because of the excitement and variety it brings to the Roguelike genre, but it can also bring unfairness and frustration.
In this talk I'll go over some techniques I've used to 'smooth off' some of the more extreme and frustrating results randomness can provide. These adjustments can make the game experience feel much more consistent and fair without perceptibly affecting the things we like about RNG.
As part of Roguelike Celebration's sale event, Shattered is also 20% off on Steam for the next week! I've made a bunch of improvements for desktop and controller users since Shattered's initial Steam release, so now is a great time to try Shattered out on a full desktop display!
I also gave a presentation at last year's Roguelike Celebration. It was a longer talk titled "Community-Driven Roguelike Development", and talked about Shattered's growth alongside its community. You can watch a recording of that talk on Youtube:
As for Shattered development itself, v1.4.2 will be releasing in another couple of days with a few more fixes and balance tweaks, and then it's on to v2.0.0 as I described it in the last blog post.