Hello everyone.
Today I’d like to talk a bit about character progression in my game. In many RPGs and roguelites, progression is built around several different systems. The most common approach is simple: the player earns experience, and experience gives levels. The player finds weapons and armor and becomes stronger that way. The player earns gold, which can then be spent on experience, armor or weapons, skills, or talents.In IRSEN, I decided to move away from this standard structure. So I’m trying to build progression without relying on those traditional pillars.That doesn’t mean there is no progression in the game. Quite the opposite: adjusting and constantly rebuilding the character is what I’m trying to make one of the core mechanics. I’ve simply moved most of that growth into one central system - genes.Experience and LevelsThe first thing I decided to remove was the traditional experience system. Usually, progression is simple and linear: the player defeats enemies (or completes quests), gains experience points, and automatically becomes stronger. Stats either increase on their own or through distributing attribute points. New abilities are either purchased or granted automatically as well.That system didn’t fit what I wanted to do. When I started developing the game, I wanted the character’s strength to depend primarily on the player’s decisions. Throughout the entire game, from the first battle to the last, the player is constantly making choices. Which enemy to break down into genes and which gene archetype to try to obtain. Which genes to keep for fusion and which to consume. Which genes to finalize, and which ones deserve the limited Gene Map slots first. In what order to combine genes and which gene chains to build.If the player simply goes through 20 battles and automatically gains several levels, that dependency starts to disappear. The character becomes stronger even without the player opening the character screen at all. That is why the main reward for combat in IRSEN is not automatic power growth, but new opportunities to create different builds.Why There Is No GoldThe reason is mostly the same. A universal currency is very convenient in RPGs. Almost any reward can be converted into a number, and then the player can spend that number to buy an item or unlock a skill. But at the same time, that currency becomes a second independent path of character progression. I didn’t want the player to be able to compensate for bad genes simply by buying a new sword or blaster.And since I personally enjoy RPGs a lot, I also wanted to move away from endless grinding - something many games constantly push me toward in order to make the character stronger. Grinding itself is limited in IRSEN as well. Every extra step brings the character closer to new mutations, and from mutations closer to death. So it won’t be possible to simply farm genes forever instead of farming gold.There is Gene Substrate, which the player obtains from gene fusion, but I don’t consider it another type of universal currency. It can only be used for further processing of those same genes.EquipmentOnce I moved away from experience and gold and shifted progression toward extracting genes from enemies, it already seemed obvious to me that traditional equipment had to go as well.Otherwise, equipment would become a second layer of character progression sitting on top of the gene-chain system. In addition to genes, I introduced implants and catalysts, as well as skill properties, which I plan to significantly rework into skill forms in the next version. Traditional equipment, on the other hand, would mostly add a large number of rewards that have little connection to the game’s central mechanic.That is why IRSEN has no traditional equipment system.One Progression SystemThe final idea is very simple. I chose one system as the foundation of character progression - the Gene Map. So every step that makes the character stronger is connected to genes. Either improve the genes themselves, or extract Substrate from them and then spend it on working with genes again.The core gameplay loop therefore looks like this:combat - loot - work with genes - rebuild the character - next combatFor me, the additional systems are mainly a way to control the scope of the game a little better. I try to make sure they support the genetic system instead of replacing it with another parallel way of endlessly increasing the character’s power.