From “Kin no Tori,” or “The Golden Bird,” an anime movie. This alchemist witch character and her cat-bat minions are so much fun!
It’s Halloween today! Boo! I don’t mean that in a bad way, I mean it enthusiastically! Boo, I say!
Growing up I was never a big fan of Halloween, other than the opportunity to get candy. I never wore a costume out. This has changed a bit in recent years, I still don’t dress up but I do try to observe the season. Today I’m running a video marathon of various things over on cytu.be. If you know me, you might know where to look to find it, if you’re interested in such things, but this isn’t really the place for it.
While waiting for trick or treaters, here’s a few vids to help you pass the time.
MrMatthews reviews all the Gameboy Castlevania titles (29m), a collection that rates from pretty good to abysmal. But that’s not what he says, he pretty much likes them all, even Adventure and Legends.
If your tastes run a bit more academic, Jeremy Parish has some dives into the Castlevania games: the original (16m) II: Simon’s Quest (15½m), Super IV (17m) and Circle of the Moon (23m). He hasn’t done III yet it seems. His old design discussions of the NES Castlevania games at anatomyofgames.com are still up, marred a bit by the fact that the site’s been hacked to host links to casino sites. Earlier this month Jeremy appeared on the Still Loading podcast to talk about the ‘Vainia, which you can listen to on the site, or on Youtube (1h33m). The embeds below are of the original and the podcast:
To finish off, an early Sundry item, TerminalMontage’s “Something About Castlevania” animation (4m). This is basically Simon Belmont’s whole personality: violence.
This year it’s happening between Saturday and Sunday, October 25-26. That’s the day after tomorrow! There’s an unusually good roster this year, and I don’t just say that because I helped find speakers for it this year.
We’ve already had a preview event with a couple of great talks, including a real star, Jon Perry, who created two of the best games in UFO 50, Mini & Max and Party House. While I spent a lot of time with Mini & Max uncovering its many secrets, it’s but a small fraction of the time I’ve played Party House. (If you want to hear Jon Perry’s talk, from September, you can find it here, as well as Ezra Stanton’s talk on Synergy Networks in roguelikes, and Alexei Pepers’ Designing for System Suspense.)
Mixing Hand-Crafted Content with Procgen to Achieve Quality
1:30 PM 10:30 AM 7:30 PM
Max Sahin
Stuff: The Behavioral Science of Inventory
1:45 PM 10:45 AM 7:45 PM
Florence Smith Nicholls
Roll for Reminiscence: Procedural Keepsake Games
2:30 PM 11:30 AM 8:30 PM
Alexander Birke and Sofie Kjær Schmidt
Hoist the Colours! Art Direction and Tech Art in Sea Of Rifts, A Naval Story Generation RPG
3 PM Noon 9 PM
bleeptrack
From Code to Craft: Procedural Generation for the Physical World
3:30 PM 12:30 PM 9:30 PM
Zeno Rogue
The Best Genre for a Non-Euclidean game
4:30 PM 1:30 PM 10:30 PM
Cole Wehrle
Play as Procedural Generation: Oath as a Roguelike Strategy Game
5 PM 2 PM 11 PM
Jeff Lait
Teaching Long Term Consequences in Games
6 PM 3 PM Midnight
Ray
A Mythopoetic Interface Reading of Caves of Qud
6:15 PM 3:15 PM 12:15 AM
Johnathan Pagnutti
Wait, No, Hear Me Out: Simulating Encounter AI in Slay the Spire with SQL
6:30 PM 3:30 PM 12:30 AM
Jamie Brew
Robot Karaoke Goes Electric
7:30 PM 4:30 PM 1:30 AM
Stephen G. Ware
Planning and Replanning Structured Adaptive Stories: 25 Years of History
8 PM 5 PM 2 AM
Tyriq Plummer
Scrubbin’ Trubble: The Journey to Multiplayer Roguelikery
8:15 PM 5:15 PM 2:15 AM
Andrew Doull
Roguelike Radio 2011-Present
Sunday, October 26th
Time
Speaker
Talk
12:45 PM 9:45 AM 6:45 PM
Ada Null
Dyke Sex and Ennui: Generating Unending Narrative in “Kiss Garden”
1 PM 10 AM 7 PM
Younès Rabii
We Are Maxwell’s Demons: The Thermodynamics of Procedural Generators
1:30 PM 10:30 AM 7:30 PM
Dennis Greger
The Procedurality of Reality TV Design – An Overview
4:15 PM 1:15 PM 10:15 PM
Paul Dean
Picking up the Pieces: Building Story in a Roguelike World
4:45 PM 1:45 PM 10:45 PM
Patrick Belanger and Jackson Wagner
Hand-Crafted Randomness: Storytelling in Wildermyth’s Proc-Gen World
5:15 PM 2:15 PM 11:15 PM
Nifflas
Music algorithm showcase
6:15 PM 3:15 PM 12:15 AM
Seth Cooper
Building a Roguelike with a Tile Rewrite Language
6:30 PM 3:30 PM 12:30 AM
Quinten Konyn
Anatomy of a Morgue File
6:45 PM 3:45 PM 12:45 AM
Alexander King
Don’t Pick Just One: Set-Based Card Mechanics in Roguelike-Deckbuilders
7 PM 4 PM 1 AM
Brian Cronin
Playtesting Process for Ultra Small Teams
8 PM 5 PM 2 AM
Mark Gritter
Sol LeWitt, Combinatorial Enumeration, and Rogue
8:15 PM 5:15 PM 2:15 AM
Dan DiIorio
Luck be a Landlord – 10 Lessons Learned
8:45 PM 5:45 PM 2:45 AM
Liza Knipscher
The Form and Function of Weird Li’l Guys: Procedural Organism Generation in a Simulated Ecosystem
If some of these talks seem like they’re spaced closely together, some of them are “lightning talks,” very short. Those have their titles in italics in the above list.
If you follow indie gaming circles, there are a fair number of exciting speakers among the talks! Jeff Lait (homepage) has made twenty highly interesting roguelikes, many as 7DRLs. Nifflas of course is the creator of Within a Deep Forest, the Knytt games, Affordable Space Adventures and others. Dan DiIorio is the creator of the oft-mentioned (at least in my hearing) Luck be a Landlord, and Zeno Rogue makes the long-lived, and brain-bending, HyperRogue.
And make sure to have a look at the Redbubble and Steam links too! In this year’s Steam selection, MidBoss and Shattered Pixel Dungeon are already on sale.
It’s your annual reminder that adamgryu’s Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival is online and live again, through and a couple of weeks beyond Halloween.
Log in, carve up a gourd with the easy mouse-based controls, and submit your new orange child to reside on the shelves for people to gawk at and wonder over.
My contribution for 2025
And some of the pumpkins that were up when I logged in this year:
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
I’d like to point out that Chipwits is a game we’ve covered here before!
In other news… itch.io has come under a firestorm over the past couple of days over their delisting a whole bunch of games that covered adult subjects because of pressure from their payment processors. As it turns out, those processors themselves have been targeted by a campaign from right-wing “Christian” organization Collective Shout. I have tried to prioritize links to itch.io, and even distribute software and books through that site, but now I’m going to have to think hard about alternatives. PCGamer has a good overview of the situation.
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
“What should tomorrow’s post be? On the ancient C64 GEOS operating system? On weird finds in Mario Kart World? More on Kirby Air Ride? Wait, what was it that starts on the 6th again?”
I’m helping out with Roguelike Celebration 2025, the now ten-year-running conference-like thing about all things roguelike, roguelite, and roguelike-adjacent. Yes, I’ve presented there three times so far, and figured it was time to give back!
While RC got its start as an in-person conference, when the pandemic hit they switched over to being entirely virtual, presented through video feed. All of their talks end up posted online, so anyone can see them for years after. But if you can attend during the conference you can participate in chat, ask questions of the speakers, and explore a very clever MUD-like chat interface!
I’ve tried to spread the word about Roguelike Celebration where I can, through social media and this very blog here. Every year they have several very interesting talks that, if you read Set Side B, I know you’d be interested in seeing. They’ve hosted Tarn Adams, co-creator of Dwarf Fortress, the creators of the original Rogue, and many other thoughtful speakers.
This year Roguelike Celebration takes place October 25-26. They sell tickets, but they also let people who are strapped for cash apply for a free ticket. (If you can pay for admission though, please do, as it takes money to run an event like this.)
And if you have a roguelike, or even vaguely-related project, please please please answer their Call For Proposals, to apply to present your work to their devoted audience of extremely thoughtful attendees! The CFP site is here, and their deadline has been extended to July 20th, so you have about three weeks to get in your proposal!
Give it a shot, it’s a great way to spread the word about roguelike work, or about a procedurally-generated game you’re interested in, or just something you think the world should know about.
By volume most game players, let’s be frank, are interested in the big AAA productions. But there are lots of people out there who are willing to give indies a chance, which roguelike games often are, and we have to stick together. Not only to talk with each other and build those connections, but to do it in public, non-corporate venues. Reddit largely is a sham these days, more interested in monetizing their userbase, and Discord isn’t web-searchable, and requires navigating a maze of requests that you upgrade to “Nitro.”
I do not lie: little volunteer-run organizations like Roguelike Celebration are a lot closer to the true spirit of the internet, and the World Wide Web, than those are. So please keep them in your thoughts, if you can buy a ticket, and if you have something to present, answer their CFP! You won’t regret any of those things.
It got by me this year, but the now 20-year-old 7 Day Roguelike Challenge, a gamejam where people try to construct a complete roguelike within a week’s time, finished up Saturday.
Not only has it been around a long time, but a number of games have come out of it that went on to greater things. Jupiter Hell got its start as a 7DRL project called DoomRL. The amazing Jeff Lait has made a ton of 7DRLs, and many of them have some awesome twist, like a game where you can make portals, but where the portals result in the world through them being rotated and possibly allowing you to get mixed up!
Jeff Lait’s Jacob’s Matrix
There’s regular several very interesting games in the challenge each year! Its itch.io page is here. This year’s theme was, simply, “roguelike,” and 819 people have joined it so far! I can’t wait to see what they’ve made!
I’m putting aside Sundry Sunday for today, to let you know that the (relatively) long-lived week-long charity speedrunning marathon, AGDQ, or Awesome Games Done Quick, begins TODAY, just a couple of hours after this post goes up! It snuck up on me this year!
It’s one of two GDQ marathons every year. The other SGDQ, usually happens in the middle of the year. I usually do an overview for each marathon of runs that I find interesting, but I feel like that’s more for me than anything you’d find useful? Still, there’s some terrific runs lined up this year. The complete schedule is on their website.
Of course GDQ does other speedrunning events throughout the year, including Frame Fatales and Hotfix, but the ceremony and energy of doing it before a large audience, both in-house and online, builds the hype to mammoth levels. Every year they raise millions of dollars for their chosen charities.
Here’s an informal list of things that I find to be highlights. When I mention times, I’m generally speaking from the context of US Eastern time.
Sunday launches with a run of Pikmin, a game that’s intrinsically suited to speedrunning, and soon after there’s one of Kirby Air Ride City Trial “Any%.” I’m not sure what that means (City Trial games are by their nature time limited anyway), but I presume it’s clearing off the checkboard, a huge list of achievements to aim for. Then there’s a Wind Waker Any% run near the end of Sunday that finishes it in a bit over an hour, that probably takes advantage of the late-game skips that have been found in the treacherous final room before the Ganondorf fight.
Monday leads off with two Alan Wake II DLCs, then Lego The Hobbit, which I’m sure will have much more entertainment value than the trilogy, somehow, of Hobbit movies. Later there’s a PC port of Turok 2, Super Lucky’s Tale, and a selection of retro games including Ninja Gaiden II, Snake Rattle N Roll, Dick Tracy and then a 42 minute Final Fantasy Legend II, which I’m sure will be as bizarre as that game’s storyline, followed by a bit of UFO 50. Approaching 1 PM there’s a more substantial UFO 50 set, followed by Super Meat Boy, Mario Maker for the 3DS, Sonic Origins and a Metroid Prime race. Then as a bonus game (one for which there’s a donation incentive), there’s Breath of the Wild, played with two players on one controller. The day concludes with several substantial runs: Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare DLC, Horizon Forbidden West and Yakuza.
Right after midnight Tuesday morning there’s Shenmue and Beat Slayer, and at 8:43 is VA-11 Hall-A. Later Castevania: Portrait of Ruin, Unicorn Overlord, Ys VIII, Spyro Reignited, then the amazingly difficult F-Zero GX, then Super Mario Bros. “Any% STA.” I’m not sure what STA means in this context. The last run of the night is the recent Silent Hill remake.
Wednesday morning there’s the Batman Forever arcade game and Gauntlet IV for the Genesis, which hews very closely to the arcade original, but in “quest mode,” a special console-only scenario. Other interesting games include two Sonic titles, a bonus inventive of all the romances in Fallout: New Vegas, a Super Mario 64 A Button Challenge TAS showcase and Rocket League workshop maps. Starting late at night and rolling into Thursday is what I presume to be “Awful Block,” since it leads off with the notoriously awful Superman 64.
Thursday has a surprisingly long run of Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, an all-dungeons run of Tears of the Kingdom, and Sega’s “Chunithm Luminous Plus” arcade rhythm game. There’s a number of longer runs in the later half of the day.
Friday has a sequence with Castlevania: Dracula X, Gimmick 2, Froggun Encore and No One Can Stop Mr. Domino, and later on FFVII Rebirth and GTA Vice City. Afterward look out for Nintendo World Championships (not the cart from the 90s, the recent Switch release), Tetris: The Grand Master and a PS1 “Mystery Vs. Tournament.” There’s Kaizo Mario World 3 as a bonus incentive, and a standard Mario World race late at night, and another arcade rhythm game.
Saturday is the last day, starting with Peggle Extreme, Metal Gear Solid, Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble and Mega Man 10. Around 10 AM is the traditional super long Pokemon run, this time a race of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. (Are the runners playing different versions?) Then there’s two Elden Ring runs, then one I posted about before, the eagerly awaited Crazy Taxi with live backing band. (Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!)
The last three games are Ocarina of Time with a no logic randomizer, that is, the game mixes things up without regard to how finishable that makes the game, leaving it to the player to use glitches to overcome any blocks, then Echoes of Wisdom Any%, and finally a Super Metroid randomizer race.
