Michael Brough (game designer)

Last updated

Michael Brough
Michael Brough (6120713406).jpg
Michael Brough at Berlin Indie Game Jam in 2011
Born (1985-05-20) 20 May 1985 (age 37)
Auckland, New Zealand
Occupation Game designer
Website www.smestorp.com

Michael Brough (born 20 May 1985) is a New Zealand-born [1] indie video game developer known for his eclectic roguelike games. His games are often tightly-focused explorations of a single mechanical aspect of the roguelike genre, set on unusually small grids. [2] This style of game, perhaps best exemplified by 868-HACK , [3] has become widely known as the "Broughlike". [4]

Contents

Wired Magazine called Brough's games "corrupted" and "brilliant", [5] while The Guardian wrote that his work is "strange" and "elegant". [6]

Michael Brough graduated from The University of Auckland with a MS Degree in Mathematics under the supervision of Bakhadyr Khoussainov.

Design philosophy

Brough believes that games are best understood within genres, which led him to focus on the roguelike game genre. He cites the early roguelike Castle of the Winds as an early inspiration. One design problem with the original Rogue and subsequent roguelikes, Brough argues, is a large game board (80x20 tiles in Rogue) which leads to the player running down long corridors and "not making choices". In comparison, classic board games like Chess and Go use 8x8 and 19x19 board sizes. "You should never need a larger possibility space than Go," says Brough. For one of his first roguelike games, Zaga-33, Brough specifically limited the board size to 9x9. 868-HACK , Imbroglio, and Cinco Paus took this trend even further, with 6x6, 4x4, and 5x5 boards respectively. [7]

Brough also identifies another design problem in roguelikes which he likens to Zugzwang in Chess, when the game forces you to move into a bad situation. Most roguelikes implement a "Wait" command to let the player pass their turn, forcing monsters to move into a bad position instead; however, Brough argues this is a poor solution, and thus he tries to avoid implementing wait actions in his games. "Attacking is already a form of waiting" since combatants stay in the same positions before and after the attack, which means enemies are already "resources for waiting". To try to innovate on this Zugzwang problem, 868-HACK lets the player use ranged attacks, as well as consume resources to use a ".WAIT" ability if they have acquired it. [7]

Award nominations

His games Vesper.5, Corrypt, and BECOME A GREAT ARTIST IN JUST 10 SECONDS were finalists for the IGF's Nuovo Award in 2013, [8] 2014, [9] and 2015 [10] respectively, and 868-HACK and Imbroglio were finalists for the Excellence in Design award in 2014 [9] and 2017. [11]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

<i>NetHack</i> Classical roguelike ASCII graphics computer game released in 1987

NetHack is an open source single-player roguelike video game, first released in 1987 and maintained by the NetHack DevTeam. The game is a fork of the 1982 game Hack, itself inspired by the 1980 game Rogue. The player takes the role of one of several pre-defined character classes to descend through multiple dungeon floors, fighting monsters and collecting treasure, to recover the "Amulet of Yendor" at the lowest floor and then escape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roguelike</span> Subgenre of role-playing video games

Roguelike is a subgenre of role-playing computer games traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character. Most roguelikes are based on a high fantasy narrative, reflecting their influence from tabletop role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons.

<i>Rogue</i> (video game) 1980 video game

Rogue is a dungeon crawling video game by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman with later contributions by Ken Arnold. Rogue was originally developed around 1980 for Unix-based minicomputer systems as a freely distributed executable. It was later included in the official Berkeley Software Distribution 4.2 operating system (4.2BSD). Commercial ports of the game for a range of personal computers were made by Toy, Wichman, and Jon Lane under the company A.I. Design and financially supported by the Epyx software publishers. Additional ports to modern systems have been made since by other parties using the game's now-open source code.

Hack is a 1984 roguelike video game that introduced shops as gameplay elements and expanded available monsters, items, and spells. It later became the basis for NetHack.

<i>Colossal Cave Adventure</i> 1976 video game

Colossal Cave Adventure is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the player explores a cave system rumored to be filled with treasure and gold. The game is composed of dozens of locations, and the player moves between these locations and interacts with objects in them by typing one- or two-word commands which are interpreted by the game's natural language input system. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's attempted actions. It is the first well-known example of interactive fiction, as well as the first well-known adventure game, for which it was also the namesake.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Independent Games Festival</span> Annual video games festival

The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, and innovation in video game development by CMP Media, later known as UBM Technology Group, IGF is now owned by Informa after UBM's acquisition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hack and slash</span> Tabletop and video game genre

Hack and slash, also known as hack and slay or slash 'em up, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat with melee-based weapons. They may also feature projectile-based weapons as well as secondary weapons. It is a sub-genre of beat 'em up games, which focuses on melee combat, usually with swords. Hack-and-slash action games are sometimes known as character action games.

<i>Dungeon Hack</i> 1993 video game

Dungeon Hack is a 1993 role-playing video game developed by DreamForge Intertainment and published by Strategic Simulations for DOS and NEC PC-9801.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Action role-playing game</span> Subgenre of role-playing and action video games

An action role-playing game is a subgenre of video games that combines core elements from both the action game and role-playing genre.

<i>Strange Adventures in Infinite Space</i> 2002 video game

Strange Adventures In Infinite Space is a roguelike video game created by the indie developer Digital Eel and released for Windows and Mac on March 15, 2002 by boardgame developer-publisher, Cheapass Games. Releases for Pocket PC and Palm by British developer-publisher Astraware followed. In 2020, the game was updated to run on current computer operating systems of the day. It remains free to download and share.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Eel</span>

Digital Eel is a self-funded independent video game development team located in the Seattle, Washington area. Digital Eel is best known for its Infinite Space series of space roguelikes.

A text game or text-based game is an electronic game that uses a text-based user interface, that is, the user interface employs a set of encodable characters, such as ASCII, instead of bitmap or vector graphics.

<i>Spelunky</i> 2008 video game

Spelunky is a 2008 source-available 2D platform game created by independent developer Derek Yu and released as freeware for Microsoft Windows. It was remade for the Xbox 360 in 2012, with ports of the new version following for various platforms, including back to Microsoft Windows. The player controls a spelunker who explores a series of caves while collecting treasure, saving damsels, fighting enemies, and dodging traps. The caves are procedurally generated, making each run-through of the game unique.

<i>Beneath Apple Manor</i> 1978 video game

Beneath Apple Manor is a roguelike game written by Don Worth for the Apple II and published by The Software Factory in 1978. Higher resolution "Special Editions" were released in 1982 and 1983, through Quality Software, for the Apple II and Atari 8-bit family. It was one of the first video games to use procedural generation.

<i>FTL: Faster Than Light</i> 2012 video game

FTL: Faster Than Light is a real-time strategy roguelike game created by indie developer Subset Games, which was released for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux in September 2012. In the game, the player controls the crew of a single spacecraft, holding critical information to be delivered to an allied fleet, while being pursued by a large rebel fleet. The player must guide the spacecraft through eight sectors, each with planetary systems and events procedurally generated in a roguelike fashion, while facing rebel and other hostile forces, recruiting new crew, and outfitting and upgrading their ship. Combat takes place in pausable real time, and if the ship is destroyed or all of its crew lost, the game ends, forcing the player to restart with a new ship.

<i>Tales of MajEyal</i> 2012 roguelike video game

Tales of Maj'Eyal is an open-source roguelike video game released for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in 2012. Tales of Maj'Eyal is available as donation-supported freeware (donationware) from the developers; donations grant some exclusive online features as part of a freemium model. The game may also be purchased through the digital distribution outlets Steam or GOG. The game's TE4 game engine source code is under a GNU GPLv3 license, while the game's assets are licensed for use "with the Tales of Maj'Eyal game only."

<i>Legend of Dungeon</i> 2013 roguelike video game

Legend of Dungeon is an indie roguelike action role-playing video game by Robot Loves Kitty for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux. The goal of the game is for players to fight through 26 monster filled levels, grab the treasure, then make it back through all 26 levels without dying. Legend of Dungeon also features a unique artstyle and atmosphere by blending pixelated characters in a 3D world as well as having both a dynamic shadow and music system.

868-HACK is a 2013 roguelike video game developed and published by Michael Brough. The player controls a hacking program in a computer system and must grab as much computer data as possible before a defence program destroys it.

<i>Rogue Legacy 2</i> 2022 video game

Rogue Legacy 2 is a platform video game developed and published by Cellar Door Games. It is the sequel to 2013's Rogue Legacy, and the game was released for Windows via early access in August 2020. The full version was released in April 2022, for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, followed by a Nintendo Switch port in November.

References

  1. ↑ "NZ Game Development Industry". New Zealand Game Developers Association.
  2. ↑ Couture, Joel (15 January 2018). "Freedom through constraints: The design of Michael Brough's Imbroglio". Gamasutra. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  3. ↑ Nowak, Mike (30 August 2013). "Review: 868-HACK". Pocket Tactics. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  4. ↑ "broughlike". Warp Door. 16 March 2015. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  5. ↑ Rigney, Ryan (26 February 2013). "The Ugly, Corrupted, Brilliant Games of Michael Brough". WIRED. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  6. ↑ Stuart, Keith (5 July 2013). "Outsider art: Michael Brough on creating strange elegant games alone". the Guardian. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  7. 1 2 Brough, Michael (17 November 2013). PRACTICE 2013: rogue(like)^n (Speech). PRACTICE 2013. New York City, NY.
  8. ↑ "2013 Independent Games Festival Announces Main Competition Finalists". IGF. 7 January 2013. Retrieved 10 January 2018.
  9. 1 2 "2014". IGF. 12 September 2016. Retrieved 10 January 2018.
  10. ↑ "2015". IGF. 12 September 2016. Retrieved 10 January 2018.
  11. ↑ "2017 Independent Games Festival announces Main Competition finalists!". IGF. 6 January 2017. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
  12. ↑ Lien, Tracey (March 19, 2013). "Vesper.5: Finding meaning in rituals". Polygon . Retrieved November 9, 2019.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.