Roguelike Radio Roguelike Radio ep 167: Designing for Mastery, with Josh Ge
Aug 22, 2025
In this engaging discussion, Josh Ge, known as Kyzrati, reflects on a decade of developing Cogmind. He shares insights into mastering game design amidst intense industry competition. The conversation dives into the evolution of roguelike gaming, balancing complexity for both veterans and newcomers. Josh analyzes player engagement trends and the significance of mastery through innovative mechanics. He also discusses design challenges and community dynamics, emphasizing how player feedback shapes the gaming experience.
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Let Players Argue To Reveal Balance
- Encourage community debate about what's strongest to reveal balance issues and spread evaluation across players.
- If everyone uses one feature, treat it as a design problem to adjust or mitigate.
Favor MacGyvering Over Power Fantasy
- Design games where players adapt to RNG by MacGyvering solutions rather than building fixed class power fantasies.
- Favor emergent problem-solving over guaranteed long-term power so mastery requires cleverness.
Score Should Reflect Real Difficulty
- High scores must reflect difficulty rather than raw actions to reward mastery fairly.
- Josh penalizes or caps exploit paths and scores to avoid tedious, unskillful grinding.