Abstract

The main research focus of this paper is the player experience in a specific genre of games, namely roguelikes. This thesis explores the genre’s history, its continued evolution since its origin in 1980, and its perception throughout the years, with a focus on the two main mechanics of the genre: permadeath and randomly generated content. Furthermore, it also analyzes the concept of a player’s positive experience and its optimization in games in general as well as how this applies to the roguelike genre. In particular, this thesis will look into how both randomness and permadeath can facilitate a Flow experience and how player models can be built and then used to improve a player’s experience in the game, for example, through dynamic difficulty adjustment.

Results/Implementation/Project Description

Conclusion

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