During the development of Electronic Evolution, we committed ourselves to a design pattern popularly known as “follow the fun.” Instead of designing every element of our gameplay before development, we prototyped a few core mechanics and adjusted the overarching goal as we tested what worked and what didn’t. To our surprise, in just a couple of months, our planned Tower Defense became a Roguelite. Here’s how that happened.

What’s “Follow the Fun”?

If you do a quick search on the internet about game development, chances are you’ll find many people claiming that the first step to every game project is writing a game bible, also known as Game Design Document (GDD). While it is perfectly fine to develop a game based on a bible — and even a required stage when working with big teams —, another way to create games is by “following the fun.” That means taking the time to try out ideas and throw them away, keeping what feels fun to play.

“Following the fun” is a popular methodology for developing games, and we could argue that’s the best way to start a new project if you have the resources to spend on it. That’s because while following the fun, you’ll probably spend weeks working a game loop that’ll never see the light of day as things move fast and change in a somewhat chaotic manner. However, in the case of Electronic Evolution, it was the lack of resources that made us adopt this principle.

We didn’t have any funding to start developing Electronic Evolution, and to even have the opportunity of finding investment later on, we knew we had to create just the right game. Of course, we could have spent a long time working on a GDD we felt confident to present to the public. Nevertheless, the best way to try out our ideas was to build them in a game engine and see how things worked — or not. So, while working on our day job to pay the bills, we used our free time to let our imaginations roam free, creating many iterations of the same mechanics just to see what would work.

While you cannot follow the fun forever, or you’ll never finish a project, the first few months of Electronic Evolution helped us to realized what was good in our base idea and what was bad. As a result, we redefined the scope and the goal of our development process, adjusted expectations, and reworked the whole narrative multiple times. Not being restrained by a detailed GDD also allowed us to take risks and try new things. And, what do you know? What started as a Tower Defense transmuted into a Roguelite.

We’ve already reached a new development phase that demands everything to be written down, with clear objects all team members can work on. Our development became more complex and, until we get proper funding, things need to mimic an old-fashion clock so we can still work on our day jobs and make satisfactory progress in Electronic Evolution. But without a “follow the fun” step, we wouldn’t have reached core gameplay that’s engaging, exciting, and brings something unique to the player. Of course, it’s up to each team to choose what works best for them, but embracing a little bit of chaos sure did wonders for us.

How ‘Electronic Evolution’ Went from Tower Defense to Roguelite

The original GDD for Electronic Evolution, less than three pages long, defined the global themes and ambitions for the project. We wanted to make a high-quality game. However, without proper funding, we needed to have a small scope project. So, we chose one of the heroes of our big narrative universe and created a Tower Defense around them. Just as any Tower Defense, our game would ask players to protect a base against waves of incoming enemies. Our game, however, had a twist: enemies would adapt to the player’s choices. So, if players stuck too long to the same strategy, enemies would learn and adapt, forcing the player to try out a different combination of tools.

While the idea is solid on paper, we soon decided to expand the core gameplay, making it more intractable. While Tower Defenses are great for idle gaming, we thought putting an action spin on Electronic Evolution would make it more interesting. So, instead of placing static units on the ground, the player would attach different parts to a robot and then control this robot to clear each wave. We were still committed to the idea of building a Tower Defense, but the core gameplay of Electronic Evolution became combat.

While it was already fun to try out different weapons and upgrades, it soon became apparent that it was boring to have a static position. It was not enough for our robot to defend its base: we would need to charge against the enemy headquarters. There was still something inspired on Tower Defense in this iteration of the game, but with the added movement, Electronic Evolution became a reverse tug-of-war, where each side tried to push the other until one of the two bases was finally destroyed. It was a fun idea that focused on combat and introduced many customizations while also making the player traverse a level. But something was still missing: replayability.

The last Tower Defense iteration of Electronic Evolution was a lot of fun to play, but it was still a game that didn’t give the player enough reasons to come back. We toyed with the concept of an infinity mode, but without a clear goal, the reverse tug-of-war didn’t work anymore. So, we thought about making different levels with different bosses, giving the player a unique combination of challenges at each playthrough. It was only then that the realization struck us: we were no longer building a Tower Defense; we were making a Roguelite.

Once we accepted that the fun had completely discarded our Tower Defense core, we embraced the action as our primary goal and started to refine combat. Instead of each playthrough being unique for the player, we began to work on unique runs, where different levels and bosses are stitched together. And while this new structure demanded us to make player customization less chaotic, we now have a dynamic level generation with many different elements that are added to the player and reflected in increasing difficulty. 

All our efforts, now, are put into building the best Roguelite experience we can while also offering a good superhero story. We are still a few months away from an alpha that showcases the level of polish we want to give our game, but following the fun helped us find our way. Now, we are just working to make our alpha prototype worth your time.