Out of all the available game genres out there, rougelikes/rougelites are one of the most abusive relationships with a flavor of Stockholm syndrome for every inner masochist. Between the promise of making every experience different, demanding and rewarding and the likelihood of winning being so low, it’s hard enough to determine if you are having fun and, even more demanding, to describe why one means of flagellation is more favorable than another. Every once in a while, however, you manage to find that one specific means of torture that scratches a specific niche, and Sword of the Stars: The Pit is one of them.
Unlike many rogue-likes/lites that make small, skill vs. luck based expeditions of failure to reach the end, The Pit chooses to make each venture down the 30 (40 with Gold) floors the reward, not the obstacle itself. Although there are probably other games that create 5-10 hour game loops for rogue-likes, The Pit manages to make each journey, even in dire situations, worth its bleakest moments. Even if it ends in failure, there are in-game accomplishments and rewards along with metagame progression systems to encourage players to immediately dive back into the fray. This is the major difference between a game that treats failure as a hindrance versus a game that treats it as its own reward.
What’s Not to Rogue-LIKE?
Although labels are often helpful to categorize games, the Rogue genre has always towed the line between being a game like Rogue versus a game with nontraditional elements inspired by Rogue. The difference is important as SWOTS: The Pit is a proper, true-to-form Rogue game set within the Sword of the Stars universe as a standalone title that manages to outshine its source material.
As a proper Rogue-Like, the gameplay is turn-based combat where movements act along a grid amongst randomly generated labyrinths full of traps, enemies, resources, etc. On top of these traditional elements, The Pit incorporates more modern aspects like weapon durability; mutations for stats, armor, and weaponry; over a dozen classes to choose with their own starting loadouts; skills for basic needs like repair and salvaging; and thousands upon thousands of items, craftable components or items on their own, to give the game its full arsenal. These all come together to create a proper RPG experience focused around builds and scavenging that benefits the core gameplay loop itself.
Most roguelikes would obscure or hide away information behind wikis or the meta progression. The Pit allows players to experiment with items like crafting better food or crafting components to enhance or create new weapons, armor or supplies. Players could simply utilize a wiki but the player can naturally learn these recipes by decoding messages across games, and any message partially decoded can only become clearer. Once a recipe is learned or used, the player’s index will retain this information for the player. This system is a compromise with the progression system between people who enjoy the discovery and others who always want to know how they can scavenge what they have.
On top of the recipes and story notes with some tidbits of weakness information, the player is also allowed to store up XP and items a la Diablo 2/3 between floors 5, 10, 15. This allows runs that begin with items that cannot be used by a different alien race not to become disposable as well as allow players to cheat the system if they want to simply level up their characters by marathoning the first fifteen floors. This also allows players to start mid-way into the journey rather than from the beginning, so even the grind itself provides measures to mitigate players who may not like ending in total failure.
The Innate Sense of Humanity is Progress
Passing up on the early-game progression, however, would be skipping the real main course of the journey and that is the progression itself. Not only can you obtain more valuable supplies like back-up weapons and kits but you would be missing out on how the game makes its grind into the main spectacle of the game.
If you have ever craved to level up in pen-and-paper games or CRPGS, the Pit is a distilled, tactful concoction of the RPG mechanics themselves as it expertly creates the sense of accomplishment and anticipation as you watch the meter. The Pit makes the most out of this system by leveling up players quickly in the early game to shape their playstyle with intended bonuses or smooth out their defects. This allows players some malleability with their builds to become more personal, and choosing when to level up in later floors is also something to consider as it fills up the player’s health and food meters. Instead of thinking of simply making it to the next floor, there is a greater sense of anticipation to level up to improve a skill that is becoming dull or becoming more capable to better handle a new weapon.
As a result, players don’t play to progress the game but rather players play the game for the progression. This is why no matter how many times the player will end in failure there is a greater desire to start over again to get back on its progression because of its addictive qualities. Unlike gambling or lootboxes, players can rig the game in their favor if the grind ever becomes tiresome or dull, or the player can experiment with a new class to discover its own benefits and drawbacks. There is always something else to change up the game from ever becoming stale, and the Mind Games, essentially System Shock psi-abilities, and the Gold expansion, six/seven new characters and gear, create a journey where winning isn’t the end goal but merely a sign that the player should try something new.
”Maybe I’ll Win; Maybe I’ll Lose… Maybe I’m Crying the Blues."
As you might expect, I have not finished the game as the closest I’ve came to the end was floor thirty-seven on Easy with my Pilot. There are some gamers who will loath a game that denies them victory even after spending dozens of hours in failure. However, many deaths will be cumulative of all the errors you made that kill you, not a specific encounter or action. In many ways, the surplus of items and the likelihood that you will always have a full inventory, encourages a more liberal usage to stay alive at all cost.
Does this make the game perfect? No. AI for enemies is limited to melee and projectile attacks with some special properties for special enemies that increase in numbers as you reach further at the end. Items can become so numerous that you may have a load of junk without knowing what to do with them. Food items can become the most scarce resource if you explore levels too long while finding nothing to eat. Lastly, bosses are nonexistent as the challenge is to reach the end at the fortieth floor; the journey isn’t an illusion for the final obstacle but the main threat itself with Death and Luck tormenting you at every decision.
However, as with many games based on mastering probabilities at its core, it’s knowing how and when to a play a bad hand well is the key to success rather than lamenting when you don’t have the best cards.
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