Roguelike combat Design

Tool: Fallout 4, Creation Kit (Mod Level)
Platform: PC
Level Size: 19 rooms
Gameplay time: ~30 minutes
Team Size: Individual
Development time: 8 weeks, ~120 hours in total.

Trailer

Level 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)

Room Set
Each combat sequence draws from a predefined pool of rooms, composed of a mix of Easy, Medium, and Difficult encounters. The overall difficulty distribution is tuned per sequence, with earlier sequences favoring easier rooms and later sequences introducing more challenging ones.

Difficulty Selection
Within each sequence, rooms are selected from the pool based on both randomization and player choice. Before entering the encounter, players choose between two entrances: a standard door and a door marked with a difficulty indicator. The standard door leads to rooms from the lower-difficulty portion of the pool, while the marked door leads to the higher-difficulty portion, increasing the likelihood of more challenging encounters.

Level Sequence & Room Set Explanation

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, and a new room will be selected instead

Combat Room Design, Difficulty & Rewards Parameter

Each combat room maintains a consistent enemy count across same difficulty levels, with variation introduced through different combinations of melee, ranged, and turret enemies. (Level layouts were designed in Miro.)

Easy Combat Rooms
Medium Combat Rooms
Difficult Combat Rooms
Other Rooms

Enemy Difficulty Parameter:
- Melee Synth: 1x
- Ranged Synth: 1.25x
- Turret: 1.5x
- Boss: 3x
Room Difficulty Parameter: Sum of the enemy parameters in the room. The overall difficulty is slowly ramped up.
- Easy Room: ~4.75x (~means average number)
- Medium Room: ~8.75x
- Difficult Room: ~13x
- Boss Room: 15x

Killing enemies will be rewarded caps
- Melee Synth: ~40 (~means a randomizer added)
- Ranged Synth: ~50
- Turret: ~60
- Boss: ~200
Complete a combat
- Small: ~800
- Medium: ~1200
- Large: ~2000
- Exit Room: ~3000

Vendor

Shop List Gallery

Apparel
Weapon
Ammo
Buff
Aid

Price Details

Weapons will be at price
- Institute Laser Gun: 1200
- Combat Shotgun: 1800
- Combat Rifle: 1600
- Minigun: 3600
Ammos will be at default price, and the vendor will be replenished
Armors will be at default price
Grenades will be at prices as follows, and the vendor will be replenished
- Molotov cocktail: 20
- baseball grenade: 40
- nuka grenade: 100
- plasma grenade: 135
Aid and Chems will be at default prices, and the vendor will be replenished

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. Each buff is available in three tiers (Level 1–3), priced at 400, 800, and 1200 respectively.

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.