Roguelike combat Design
- Tool: Fallout 4, Creation Kit
- Platform: PC
- Level Size: 19 rooms
- Gameplay time: ~30minutes
- Team Size: Individual
- Development time: 8 weeks, ~120 hours in total.
Trailer
Summary
“Towards The Dark” is a single-player roguelike level in Fallout 4, offering a thrilling side adventure where the player delves into the mysterious dreams of Elin. In this quest, players need to buy and upgrade supplies at a vendor, tailoring their gear to survive six intense combat encounters and a challenging boss fight. As the story unfolds, players will uncover that Elin is a 3rd Generation Synth who lost her memories and is hunted down by the Institute.
The level is system & combat design focused, featuring a dynamic room-selection mechanic, a vendor system, and a strategic buff system. It encourages the player to define their playstyle, discover unexpected surprises in various rooms, and continuously upgrade their equipment to face increasingly formidable foes. “Towards The Dark” provides a customizable and replayable experience, pushing players to adapt and strategize with each run.
System Breakdown
Room Selection
The goal of this project was to create a dynamic rogue-style combat experience with enough variation to keep replays fresh. To balance difficulty ramping, I determined six fights would be an ideal sequence length. I designed 15 combat rooms—2.5 times that amount—to ensure each run felt unique while also offering unexpected encounters.
The quest structure incorporates vendor opportunities between combat sequences, allowing players to replenish supplies and adjust tactics as needed. This design ensures a balance between challenge and player agency, offering strategic decision-making while maintaining combat intensity.
Room Structure
- 1 start room
- 1 vendor room
- 16 combat rooms
- 1 boss fight room
Room Sequence
- Start -> Vendor
- Combat -> Combat -> Vendor
- Combat -> Combat -> Vendor
- Combat -> Combat -> Vendor
- Boss Fight -> Start (End)
Code Snippet
Door Activator
- Calculate the randomized room number
- Teleport player
Room Determination
- According to room sequence number, determine the destination is the vendor or a combat room
- If the destination is a combat room, then calculate the randomized room number
- A random reward will be added to the reward container after the room is determined, including simpaks, ammos, buffs, grenades, and caps. The amount is randomly determined in a certain range according to the room’s difficulty.
Room Randomization
- Each room sequence that corresponds with a combat room has an array of possible room numbers stored in the property, arranged according to the difficulty index
- If the player chooses the harder door, then get a random number from the second half of the array, if not then get one from the first half of the array
- The number of a room that the player has already visited will be discarded in the output
Vendor
Shop List Gallery
Price Sheet (coming)
Due to limited development time, my focus was on creating a dynamic environment. Given more time, I would enhance the design by adding more weapon mods and implementing alternate enemy spawn templates for each room, increasing variety and replayability.
Buff
A wide range of buffs were designed and implemented to give players a variety of choices, allowing them to select buffs that best suit their individual playstyles.
- Iron Fist, Gunner, and Explosion support players that prefer melee, ranged or grenade weapons.
- Defense buffs support players that are bad shooters, giving them more tolerance.
- Movement buffs support players that prefer to switch covers frequently.
- V.A.T.S buffs fit into the unique attack option in Fallout 4.
Gallery (more to come)
Download To Play
Download from HERE> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lzXuxwcFRkx8L_TSQacKNCrt6wsDkKxL/view?usp=sharing
Download Level Design Document:
Yuning "Anona" Yang 
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