Ok seriously, what the actual fuck? I was having a good run and about to fight satan when I pick up a card I've never had before. So I use it. And I fucking die instantly. I'm sorry but this is fucking poor game design. Shit like this is why the game should tell you what items do. It isn't fun to have a run fucked up like that. It's frustrating and for all the wrong reasons. At the very least a warning when using that specific card would have been nice. WARNING: THIS ITEM INSTANTLY KILLS YOU. ONLY USE IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO REVIVE YOU AFTER DEATH. DO YOU STILL WISH TO USE IT? How hard would something like that be? God I'm so pissed off right now.
The game has permadeath and is a roguelike. You used a card called Suicide King. One death in hundreds of games to learn what a card does. This is not bad design, and the card does have uses.
This is actual roguelike design. This is the game expecting and teaching actual experience, as in you as a human gaining knowledge and wisdom and not filling a numbered bar with more numbers.SNIP
And, I mean, there's also the hint that the card is called Suicide King.
Yes, exactly. Try picking up a cockatrice corpse in Nethack. Heck, try quaffing unidentified potions in Nethack. But both have extremely good uses once you learn how to handle them correctly.
Getting upset at death in a roguelike is like getting upset that we're all gonna die someday -- it's a fact, get used to it, and appreciate the fact that at least games like Nethack and BoI allow you to restart whenever you want.
Lol no. This is the game fucking me over without giving me enough knowledge to realise this would fuck me over. If the game just tells me what it does then I can use my brain and decide on the correct strategy. Then I can apply rational thought to the situation. There's no strategy involved if I'm not given the information required. It's just trial and error.
You're looking at it backwards -- that is to say, from the existence of a single game. It doesn't matter that your one character died. It's immaterial, you're being too attached to a single playthrough. Permadeath games (roguelikes) are about the meta-game -- the hundreds or thousands of deaths you'll face along the way to transcendence.
The game did not fuck you over. It taught you a lesson. If you rage about a single death, then perhaps permadeath games are not for you. But that does not mean it's bad design -- in fact, it's probably my most valued trait in a game.
The game gave you solid hints about the card -- 'Suicide King'. You chose to use an unknown item on a playthrough you were enjoying, rather than, for example, dropping it and waiting till you find it on a run you didn't care about. Or, even better, saving it until you had a dead cat or ankh or other source of more lives.
It's no different from equipping a dagger in a roguelike that ends up being a cursed piece of crap, or finding out the hardway something poisons or stones you, or discovering that, if wearing armor, you sink to the bottom of the lake and drown.
Thanks for all this. I've gotten infinite D6 a bunch of times with Isaac but I didn't know there were specific ways to reroll angel room and secret room items.
I figured it out through trial and error. Angel rooms are the worst, and make sure you look up 'special items' (there are 14) and don't pick any of those up besides the D6. Just having the D6 alone means every time you roll 'godhead', there is a 50% chance that it gets insta-rerolled and becomes something different. Every other special item increases those odds.
The reason it's important to keep lots of items in your item pool if you're rolling for a rare Angel Room item is that, from what I can tell, each time you then cycle through the D6 you have a chance at Godhead/etc. If you burn through your item pools, it stops a full reroll and you just get lunchbox. This cost me a couple hours to learn. Iirc this only applies to sacred heart and godhead in the Angel Room.
