Roguelikes and Replayability in Mystery Games

How to design handcrafted mysteries with nearly infinite replay value

Probably the biggest news of the week is that a few days ago, a mystery game called Blue Prince was released, skyrocketing into popularity with over 1,400 reviews as of this writing, and scoring a 93/100 on Metacritic.

Blue Prince is a unique game that combines escape rooms with roguelikes. Every time you step through a door, you have the choice of which room appears next. Each room has its own unique qualities, including its own type of puzzle, items that can be found in the room, and number of exits that lead to other rooms. So you are literally constructing the "blueprints" for this mysterious house, as you proceed in search of the elusive Room 46.

The game limits the number of steps you can take. When you move between rooms, those steps decrease, and if you run out of steps before reaching the end, you are forced outside the house. All the rooms are randomly shuffled, and you must start over from the first room (though possibly with some advantages for next time).

The game also has nonlinear elements, where backtracking is necessary, so managing your steps (and the creation of doorways that connect rooms) becomes an optimization problem. Items found in each room, such as keys and coins, act as currencies that must also be managed — as well as time itself, which progresses as you make your way through the house.

Now, because I haven't had the chance to actually play Blue Prince myself yet, today's post won't dive too deep into this particular game. Instead, I'll share some recent thoughts I've been having on the general concept of mixing roguelikes and replayability with mystery games. It's seriously untapped potential for the mystery genre, so it's no wonder Blue Prince has done so well!

What is a Roguelike?

The term roguelike originates from the 1980 game Rogue, a turn-based dungeon crawler that introduced key gameplay features now used to define an entire genre. Over time, the genre has evolved and diversified, giving rise to terms like roguelite and roguelike deckbuilder.

These subgenres can be confusing, especially since developers and fans use the terms inconsistently, and some games have mechanics that overlap between subgenres. So please forgive me if I make a mistake here — I’m a mystery game expert, not a roguelike expert!

Roguelikes are primarily defined by navigating a procedurally generated world with permanent death. So if you lose the game, you must start all over, in a brand new world each time.

Traditional roguelikes also have turn-based combat, grid-based movement, and resource management. But as genres have evolved over time, there have been plenty of exceptions to those rules.

Examples:

• Spelunky

• The Binding of Isaac

• Crypt of the Necrodancer

The term roguelite refers to a roguelike with meta-progression. That is, after each run, you gain permanent upgrades that make each successive run a bit easier.

It's like when you struggle to fight a strong boss monster early on, but then later in the game you are strong enough to defeat it as a common enemy.

I personally prefer roguelites because it feels like there is a strong sense of growth, but hardcore gamers who want a challenge will prefer roguelikes.

Examples:

• Rogue Legacy

• Vampire Survivors

• Hades

Last but not least, the term roguelike deckbuilder refers to a hybrid genre where players construct a deck of cards within the permadeath-focused structure of roguelikes or roguelites.

The cards do not necessarily have to be actual cards, though it is often displayed that way for easy visualization. The point is that each card represents an action (or choice) that the player makes, and by constructing a deck, the player has control over which actions they can (or can't) take in a given scenario.

Additionally, because the deck is shuffled, there is some element of randomness that the player must deal with, so creating a deck that has strong synergy between its cards is important to winning each match.

Slay the Spire popularized a structure where you go through a series of battles, culminating in a boss battle in each zone. The player can choose their path: maybe they want to fight more battles, or take a chance on a minigame that can potentially modify their deck of cards, restore health, or various other effects. So the player must master a meta-strategy between battles, as well as each battle itself.

Examples:

• Slay the Spire

• Loop Hero

• Balatro

Last year, I had only managed to identify one deckbuilder mystery game, but I wouldn't describe it as a roguelike (it's structured more like a traditional RPG). So Blue Prince is the first mystery game I've seen that actually has a roguelike structure.

(If there are other roguelike/deckbuilder mystery games I’m not aware of, definitely let me know!)

Why mystery games need replayability

One of the biggest weaknesses mystery games have traditionally faced has been their lack of replayability.

Mystery games are a blend of story games and puzzle games, and this weakness is the worst of both worlds. There is usually no reason to replay a story game once you've experienced all of its story, nor is there much of a reason to replay a puzzle game once you've solved all of its puzzles.

But over the past decade, replayability has become a major selling point for most games. Here are 3 reasons why:

1. Audience Retention

It's easy to sink hundreds or thousands of hours into roguelikes. Each run could range from 30 to 60 minutes, and with a wide variety of ways to complete each run (or perhaps fail it), you end up spending dozens or even hundreds of hours playing a single game. Winning requires mastery of skills and strategy, which goes a bit deeper into gameplay than most story or puzzle games even consider.

2. Value Perception

Because of its high playtime and skill mastery, a game with high replayability is outright perceived by gamers to be a better deal. Would you rather spend $10 on a game that you'll finish in 5 hours, or $10 on a game that will last you 500 hours? Also keep in mind that when someone is playing a roguelike for 500 hours, that's 500 hours they're not able to spend playing your game instead.

3. Marketing

Games with high replayability aren't just fun for gamers, but also for streamers and content creators who need an endless amount of content for their channels. If your game is a one-and-done experience, you're unlikely to be picked up by an influencer, and your game will struggle to reach any audience. The longer others can play your game, the odds increase that a video will go viral enough to make your game profitable.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with creating a highly linear game for its own sake. But it is clear that as the gaming market has evolved, replayability has played a major role in the biggest indie hits of the past decade.

Benefits of Replayability

On the surface, it might sound like replayability is the antithesis of the mystery genre. But I don't think that's quite true. I just think we haven't learned how to master it yet.

Here's how adding replayability to a mystery game actually enhances the core experience:

1. Make the journey fun, not just the destination

Traditionally, we think of mysteries as the pursuit of an answer. But relying too deeply on the answer can make or break your game: imagine investing 50 hours into a mystery game where the answer turns out to be a total cop-out. One bad answer can ruin the whole experience, no matter how lengthy the game.

That's why we need to flip the concept on its head: make the gameplay more about the process than the result. The fun should come from the process itself, so that even if the answer is anticlimactic, it doesn't ruin all the hours of gameplay that came before it.

2. Skill mastery and optimization

Any roguelike or other highly replayable game is about challenging yourself. Getting to the end of the game is not actually the end of the game: you start up a new run and find a new way to challenge yourself and do it all over again — but better than before.

Replayable mystery games reward players for thinking critically, spotting patterns, solving problems under pressure (time or resource management), and adapting to constantly changing information.

Those challenges force the player to adapt a real detective's mindset. It helps the player feel smart by actually letting them test out new strategies and prove their intellect.

3. Additional story depth

Replayability does not need to detract from or ruin a carefully handcrafted story. Procedural content does not have to mean randomized chaos.

Replayability allows for:

• Branching storylines tailored to the player

• More than one solution to the same puzzle (rewards creativity)

• Alternate interpretations of the same events (more depth)

How to Make Mystery Games Replayable

If mystery games want to stand the test of time, they need to evolve beyond static stories.

They need to give players more than just a single brilliant twist.

They need to become systems, not just scripts.

But you might still be skeptical — you might say that this is only possible with complex systems that take years to develop, or that the use of generative AI isn't the right way to go about it.

That's okay, because you can easily make a mystery game replayable, even if the mystery itself never changes: one culprit, one truth, infinite replayability.

Below, I'll go through some specific actions game designers can take to achieve that goal: