Super Metroid is literally my favorite game, and I don't really have a strong urge to play this.
Metroid is an exploration-based game. The game rewards you for finding secrets and for knowing how to get places. It teases you to find a way to break sequence, and much of the replay-ability of that game is based on the possibility to do that and to bask in what you've already learned about the world. Procedural generation takes a big dump on any sense of familiarity, which is a big part of the reward for exploration.
In fact, the _only_ games I've played where procedural generation were good for the game are story-building games, such as Rogue-likes and Dwarf Fortress. They reward you for building a story, not for traversing obstacles. In every other game, they are just a weak thematic obscuration of the underlying mechanical goals. The Dryad's name in Terraria doesn't matter. Dig deep enough and you'll find diamonds in Minecraft. Kill a boss enough times in Borderlands, and you'll get a good gun. There's no story about achieving these goals. Procedural generation doesn't participate in making the goals more interesting to achieve, it's a forgettable and incidental fact about something almost wholly unrelated.
Game developers need to stop trying to lean on it as a substitute for content. A game is what people can expect from it each time they play it, and if all it is is a bundle of mechanics and throw-backs, then there's not going to be much appeal.
I'm curious about where the story happens? I've played a rogue-like (Pixel Dungeon), while I found it fun, I didn't think it had much of a story. Are others better?
In say nethack you can pick up random overpowered or weird items that change the game or get into crazy adventures when you meet some weird rare creature.
I kinda like games like nethack and brogue but my only problem with them is since it's extremely easy to die, it emphasizes attention a bit too much imho. I'm not a very attentive person and when I play games I'd much rather it be a bit more relaxed. When I know that even if I play the game for a whole Saturday, one floating eye can just randomly kill me for no reason, it kinda demotivates me...
It works like gambling. You play the game 100 times and you just lose most of them, but on the rare occasion you get very lucky... and you walk away with an unforgettable story about how you defied all the odds and did something wonderful and amazing. That's where procedural generation shines the brightest.
I suppose that's true. But one can imagine a game just like nethack except it's not as easy to die so after, say 20 run, you learn the ropes and can enjoy the game every time you play it. Obviously, eventually you'll get bored (unlike playing 100 times and losing every time) but that few times you beat the game would be enjoyable.
Not nethack, I was talking about a hypothetical clone of nethack where you can supposedly make a whole run without "surprises" that can randomly kill you, like floating eyes (or Jelly monsters in brogue). I think such a game would be very enjoyable first few times you play, but then since not challenging would be boring. Entirely different genre but Universal Paperclip might be a good example, extremely interesting story but the game is almost too easy after you learn to reliably win it. I think nethack is "boredom proof" because it's so challenging. I must be honest, I never finished brogue nor nethack (but I suck at video games because I play them once a year or so) but every game still gives the same rush of enjoyment every time. Still, though I don't keep playing it because the "demotivation" thing I was talking about earlier stops me from starting a new game (I'll lose anyway).
That's right, Tariru has won 61 times in a row. So that makes my 100 losses 'avoidable' in some sense, which spurs me on to do better. It only requires luck if you play inattentively :)
At the risk of sounding like an elitist - Pixel Dungeon isn't a "real" roguelike. Check out something like Nethack, or ADOM, or Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. Or maybe Tales of Maj'eyal if you want something with lots of graphical polish (this one also has a decent amount of actual scripted plot).
These games have the extra depth and detail that cause the kinds of emergent gameplay and "storybuilding" that people are talking about.
In Sproggiwood, the story takes place around dives into the dungeons. Each dive is "rogue like" but the overall progression outside each dive is persistent.
I think this is the best way to do a random dungeon roguelike with a story.
That said, I wouldn't sell Sproggiwood on its story in particular, just the arrangement of everything. The game is fun because it's a good bite size style of roguelike for a phone with interesting/fun mechanics in play.
I would recommend Rogue Survivor. Pixel Dungeon is an ok game, but it doesn't really encourage you to get attached to your character or environment. There's very little backtracking or foreshadowing in it, so learning the lay of the land or remembering where things are just isn't very important.
If you are aiming for a game that people play for more than 1000 hours, sure. Commercially, this would be a terrible segment of the market to aim for. The people who play the same title for that long are unlikely to buy your game, because they don't have time to play it. Unless you happen to find a niche first, you will end up with a few players, but supporting them for a long, long time.
Shorter games are fine, and sell to people who want novelty over repetition. Don't make the game longer than its content, and price accordingly.
It doesn't make a game better, it just superficially defers the realization that the game is played out. Yatzee's only claim to being a game is that you roll dice... if you didn't, people would immediately see it as the pointless activity it really is. Video games are no different. If you put 1000 hours into a game, you will see it for what it is, and proc gen is not even a factor at providing interesting gameplay at that point. A game ultimately succeeds based on the merits of the structure it actually has.
Now, if the proc gen is sufficiently complex, we're talking about something else, (but that is rare if it exists at all.)
I would say it is a perfect example of a story-building game. The specific details that drive the main gameplay mechanics are based on the circumstantial arrangement of procedurally generated components. Where any two players are in the world matter to the events that subsequently play out, and those relationships are based on proc gen.
Metroid is an exploration-based game. The game rewards you for finding secrets and for knowing how to get places. It teases you to find a way to break sequence, and much of the replay-ability of that game is based on the possibility to do that and to bask in what you've already learned about the world. Procedural generation takes a big dump on any sense of familiarity, which is a big part of the reward for exploration.
In fact, the _only_ games I've played where procedural generation were good for the game are story-building games, such as Rogue-likes and Dwarf Fortress. They reward you for building a story, not for traversing obstacles. In every other game, they are just a weak thematic obscuration of the underlying mechanical goals. The Dryad's name in Terraria doesn't matter. Dig deep enough and you'll find diamonds in Minecraft. Kill a boss enough times in Borderlands, and you'll get a good gun. There's no story about achieving these goals. Procedural generation doesn't participate in making the goals more interesting to achieve, it's a forgettable and incidental fact about something almost wholly unrelated.
Game developers need to stop trying to lean on it as a substitute for content. A game is what people can expect from it each time they play it, and if all it is is a bundle of mechanics and throw-backs, then there's not going to be much appeal.