Dead Man's News #05: Of Guns And Fighters
Howdy fellow gunslingers!
This time we are going to talk about the progression system of Colt Canyon! First, I want to talk about my motivation behind the design I chose for Colt Canyon. You might’ve heard that Colt Canyon is a rogue-lite. That is not entirely wrong, but it might raise false expectations about the progression system, so that’s why I want to clear up a few things.
In general, rogue-lite games tend to have a strong focus on progression and after every run you will advance towards permanent upgrades, unlocks or other helping elements that will make future runs easier for you. Even if you fail your run early on, you might’ve earned some currency or stuff that will be carried over to the next run or can be used to unlock new, permanent upgrades that will help you in future runs. One run influences the other. It’s not even unlikely that you have no chance at “beating” the game for the first bunch of runs simply because you’re still missing crucial unlocks and have huge disadvantages when compared to someone who unlocked everything there is, completely ignoring the skill and experience advantage you get when playing a game a lot.
In my opinion, this does not feel fair. I understand that it can be frustrating when you fail a run and not get any obvious reward like some additional currency or a new permanent upgrade. But for me, this also feels like a forced grind that punishes skilled players by not giving them access to needed abilities right away. It’s likely that the only reason you die, can’t advance further, or can’t reach certain spots is that you’re missing an ability that you have no way of accessing in the current run just because you haven’t spent enough time grinding the game yet. You’re being held back artificially by the game. This is an easy way of stretching out a game’s content and playtime and most players would probably even enjoy the constant progression.
However, with Colt Canyon, I am trying to approach the progression a little bit different and that’s why rogue-lite might not actually be the right word to describe the game, or rather the game’s progression system. In fact, Colt Canyon is more something of a roguelike, or to be politically correct, simply a game with roguelike elements. The runs are self-contained, don't directly influence each other and don’t need each other.
This more classic approach tries to achieve a more skill and experience-based gameplay with minimized grind but without taking away the sensation of progress and satisfaction of unlocking new stuff. You don’t need any of the unlocks to see the credits roll. In fact, you could beat the game and set a world record on your very first run without having unlocked anything yet. In Colt Canyon unlocks are not needed to progress. In Colt Canyon unlocks are rewards for progressing. They might not make future runs easier, but they will help keep things interesting.
You will find two major categories that you will be going to unlock stuff in. The first one being playable characters and the second one being starter loadouts for said characters.
You will start with only one character being unlocked, the default gunslinger. (Well actually this character could be counted as two characters because you can choose between a female and a male version but let’s ignore that for now)
All other characters will be unlocked through specific actions like finding secrets, completing certain challenges, or just by being lucky and meeting them in the canyon. I don’t want to spoil too much, but the first 3 additional playable characters can be unlocked very easily and I doubt anyone will fail at this. After playing a couple of runs you will have unlocked a solid cast of playable characters and, depending on how well you did, also some new loadouts. This is more than enough to unlock all achievements and rescue your partner. But unless you're very talented you will continue to unlock a lot more stuff before experiencing your first of many successful rescues.
Now, you might ask yourself, what are the different characters good for?
Well, the characters are mostly a way to introduce more gameplay variety. All characters will play differently because every character comes with their own strengths and weaknesses and with their own set of starter loadouts. Some characters might be better for a stealthy approach, others are better for run and gun action. Some characters might come with special abilities and others are just more agile in general. Once in a run, every character’s advantages and disadvantages could be supported or compensated by certain upgrades allowing for a dynamic playstyle. Just because you have a character that is not very good with guns doesn’t mean it has to stay this way for the entirety of the run. Within a run you will be able to change the way a character plays more than once.
Next to the different stats another major difference between the characters are the starting loadouts.
Every character has a certain default loadout that you will use the first time you’re going to play the character. But by playing the character you will unlock new loadouts by advancing through the canyon and other actions. Unlike what you might expect though new loadouts might not necessarily be better than already unlocked loadouts or even the default loadout. Loadouts can be very complex and are not just a weapon but can also include things like different starting health, different amounts of starting ammo or even more special inventory changes.
So some loadouts might give you an advantage at the beginning of the game, but they could also give you a disadvantage at first and only be of advantage later in the run. Or not help you at all but actually give you a new challenge, just to keep things interesting. Keep in mind that starting loadouts will usually only have influence on the first half of a run or less. After all, you are going to find tons of new weapons and upgrades within your run, it's likely that you're going to swap out your starter weapon sooner or later. Nevertheless, this will improve the replayability of the game, keep the easier sections of the game interesting even for experienced players and also give the players a clear sense of progression without making the game a linear experience where you have to grind to be able to complete the game.
As you can see the real progression in Colt Canyon does not come from unlocking better gear. From your very first run on you will be able to compete with players that have hundreds of hours of Colt Canyon on the clock. There is nothing holding you back except for your experience and skill. The true progression in Colt Canyon comes from this experience, which you will gain by entering the canyon over and over again. You will get to know the game and its mechanics. Colt Canyon has a lot more depth to its game mechanics than you might think and getting familiar with these mechanics and the canyon is what will get you closer to your partner. Having a lot of luck and finding powerful weapons, upgrades and tons of ammunition only help you if you know how to use them.
This is what Colt Canyon will look like at release. Future updates might introduce even more interesting unlocks or collectible though.
All the best and stay healthy!
Jonathan
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