What makes the FTL random events so good?

[Demozilla]

Hey guys. I'm working on a roguelike inspired, among other things, by FTL. And I think they've done a great job with the events. They help create a dangerous but really interesting world through text alone. There's something to be learned from them.

Now at the moment we are working on adding the many random events to the game. And since that's a large job I thought I'd ask and see what you guys think makes great (or ♥♥♥♥♥♥ for that matter) events. What are the important ingredients? And what do you want to see? Or what should we avoid?

(if anyone's interested: The game is called Nowhere Prophet[www.noprophet.com] and you can find out more at http://www.noprophet.com)

[Gorgeous Freeman]

Those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ giant alien spiders

[kapitan nemo]

Depending on your choices in the past (blue options) each event is different. Also the more "psychological" choices like giving away fuel for free to a stranded ship or choosing between 2 sides. That's what I like at least

[Demozilla]

Originally posted by Freeman:

Those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ giant alien spiders

Hehe. Yeah, they're "fun".

[Demozilla]

Originally posted by bastards:

Depending on your choices in the past (blue options) each event is different. Also the more "psychological" choices like giving away fuel for free to a stranded ship or choosing between 2 sides. That's what I like at least

Yeah, the reverberating choices are fun, and make a lot of replayability as you want to give them a try but don't have the right equipment at that time.

The "ethical" choices are also fun, yeah. But there I'm not sure how much gameplay weight they should have to work. I keep thinking that the less they have, the more valuable they are as they let you decide more freely with what you believe. But too little and they don't have any weight.

[interferens]

I think one aspect is that the spectrum of available events in FTL is somehow consistent, if that's the best way to describe it. The variation of themes and situations feels restrained in a good way, and then there's a few – like those spiders – that spice it up just enough.

[Snowhusky5]

One thing that's good about FTL's random events is that they aren't completely random. Each event has 2-4 outcomes, and over time, you learn the risks of each choice in each event. Games which do this thing wrong tend to make random events too random, too much risk for too little reward. Basically, all the events are like the 'giant alien spiders' event, where you either get a decent reward or (more likely) lose a crewmember.

[IamACD]

Give your players lots of options. In many games, your options are limited to "Kill" or "Not kill". I find that a lack of options decreases the overall "full" feel of any game, as if there is only one or two ways of going about things. Make things like capturing enemies to take hostage (or dare I say recruit) possible. Your game looks promising.

[Demozilla]

Originally posted by Snowhusky5:

Games which do this thing wrong tend to make random events too random, too much risk for too little reward.

Yeah, that's one thing we noticed in early tests and which is consistent with psychology. Something called loss aversion:

Losing $1 hurts more than getting $1, so if there's a 50% chance to gain 5 Food and a 50% chance to lose 5 Food, the event feel as if it's not worth it. In those cases you need to weigh the random slightly on the side of positive things, so that it does not feel cheaply unfair. Especially since you don't do 100 dice rolls in a row but only feel the event every few playthroughs.

We're not sure about the exact percentage thought. I'm guessing it's probably dependent on the strength of the gains and losses in relationship to one another.

[Demozilla]

Originally posted by interferens:

I think one aspect is that the spectrum of available events in FTL is somehow consistent, if that's the best way to describe it. The variation of themes and situations feels restrained in a good way, and then there's a few – like those spiders – that spice it up just enough.

That may be it. The theme in FTL is pretty restrained and thus strong. Can you make an attempt at putting that spectrum into words? My guess would be "space hijinks in an unfriendly universe".

[Demozilla]

Originally posted by Fusion:

I think the best way to figure this out is to find another game that has horrible random events and compare the two. What does FTL have that this other theoretical game does not?

Hm. Good idea!

Let me try:

- Unpredictable outcomes (too much random)
- Unpredictable outcomes (world follows no proper logic)
- Events that seem unfair to the player (may depend on the above)
- Bad writing
- Too much text
- Choices that seem important but do nothing (which you will find out over time)
- Rhythm of events is too high or too low
- Events repeat constantly
- Events without choice (that one we noticed quickly: if there's only 1 button and a bunch of text, people don't care. Add an option or a stat change and the context of the event becomes interesting - you need it before you can decide.)

I think a little bit of some of these things (unpredictable, no choice?) is fine here and there to keep some variation, but too much is bad.

[Demozilla]

Originally posted by IamACD:

Give your players lots of options. In many games, your options are limited to "Kill" or "Not kill".

This one I'm not too sure about. I think you're right in that the black/white "safe the puppy or eat it" morality found in many games is pretty boring. Since plain text is relatively cheap we can provide more variation, however too many options quickly become overwhelming. I think 2-3 options for most events is perfectly fine, maybe adding 1 special option here and there if you fulfill some certain criteria.

Originally posted by IamACD:

Your game looks promising.

Hey, thank you! Much appreciated. We will be putting it on greenlight soon. If you want to follow along, sign up for our newsletter on the bottom of the page. I promise not to spam you - once a month at most.

[interferens]

Originally posted by Demozilla:

That may be it. The theme in FTL is pretty restrained and thus strong. Can you make an attempt at putting that spectrum into words? My guess would be "space hijinks in an unfriendly universe".

I think you got it. It's probably something related to how one looks at the events as they are written. If you just go on writing them one by one and put the cards in the event stack you probably end up with something inconsistent, but if you take the time to consider all the events as a whole and part of a story you're more likely to start weeding things out because they don't make a consistent space hijinks narrative when presented randomly.

[Demozilla]

Originally posted by interferens:

Originally posted by Demozilla:

if you take the time to consider all the events as a whole and part of a story you're more likely to start weeding things out because they don't make a consistent space hijinks narrative when presented randomly.

Yeah, I think having a strong central theme or thread that you consider when writing events is useful here.

[interferens]

Btw, I like what you have on the website and will keep an eye open when something playable comes around. And you seem to think about gamemaking things the right way, so I don't think you need to find too much help in getting your game working. :)

[Demozilla]

Thanks. We'll update the website soon with some updated screens and hopefully a better video too. Please do follow us on twitter/facebook/newsletter, so you can stay in the loop.

Also thanks for the compliments. I'm doing my very best and I can bring a good lot of years of experience to the tablet, still there's always something to learn :D