Hello there,
In this month’s devlog we’ll cover what happens when you’re defeated and how Death’s Die might grant you a perk.
The Cyclical Rogue
A roguelite is generally more of a system than a game world. What you explore is the optimization of tools, powers, or rules, rather than a narrative and a fictional world. The setting, story, and art is the backdrop, the scenery. The fiddly gamey bits are the actors, the play. Sure, there is an audio-visual journey and a big boss at the end, but the actual experience is finding all those little bits of game design and seeing what it does.
It is this distinction that makes it enjoyable to repeat the game from the start, over and over again. GrimKeep can be "beaten" the first time around, with luck and skill. But to enjoy all the combinations of play that can be found, you'll have to play more than once. Most of you probably know this from playing other games in the genre and to us game designers, this is intentional. It's a reasonable and proven design pattern, maybe even the very core of roguelites. BUT; every defeated player character, every 'death' if you will, is a very common exit point in the player journey.. It's a source of 'churn', i.e. players quitting.
Playing Death
We wanted to try to bridge the gap between defeat and starting a new run. So what do you do? What gameplay is there when you're dead? We were inspired by the Swedish cult legacy movie ‘The Seventh Seal’. The iconic scene portrays a knight asking Death to play a game of chess for a chance at a continued life. Maybe that’s what got us to add a die roll with Death’s Die in GrimKeep. This die might let you continue with full health, or give you various boons for the next game, or simply give you nothing if you're unlucky.
The iconic scene from 'The Seventh Seal'.
In the first version, Henrik wanted a new take on the character ‘Death’. It ended up being an art-nouveau illustration, albeit darker and less flowery. We like the character, but once it was in the game, it was apparent that without the space to properly explain who she was, it was mostly confusing. She ended up decorating a "thank you for playing" note in our early demos instead.
First iteration, by Henrik Pettersson - maybe she will appear in another role some day.
The Final Version
It was about this time in the project that our artist Samuel joined. With the realization that we needed the well-known iconography of the Grim Reaper, Sam set about drawing our own version. He certainly pulled out all the stops and drew more than just the character. He themed all of it in a scene of tranquil stillness, with an imposing giant of a reaper floating over a dead silent sea from where a mountain of souls climb over each other, vainly trying to reach out for a second chance at life. It's dark, but it's beautiful. When looking at this piece, it's hard to believe that Sam prefers pastel colors in his personal work!
Death by Samuel Schultz
That’s a little about how we came to add the roll with Death’s Dice when you die (or don’t die) in GrimKeep. We hope you will savor those occasional resurrects same as we do.
See you in The Sea of the Reaper!
– The GrimKeep Team