Repetition as Mechanic and Story in Video Games

A bit of time ago, I reflected on how Majora’s Mask’s story of repetition led to it giving the feeling of something a bit darker and more depressing than other Zelda games. But repetition is pretty frequent mechanic in video games. Repetition allows players to understand how games function, to see something in tutorial and then repeat that action in slightly more complicated scenarios as the game progresses.

But some video games take the idea of repetition to a more extreme. Rogue-type games, by which I mean both Rogue-like and Rogue-lite games, prefer to take the idea of repetition as a constant. The core gameplay of these games is a dungeon crawl where the various rooms are procedurally generated. Death in these games are typically in some way scripted into the narrative and functionality, with runs through the dungeon only ending with death of the playable character.

I normally used to not really like these games as much, but recently some have really changed my mind about the genre. Games like Moonlighter, Hades and Cult of the Lamb have taken the genre and really run with it. What I find particularly interesting in these games is the way they script death and repetition into the game, and craft the narrative in such a way that repetition doesn’t really seem all that repetitive.

Repetition, in itself, is not really all that abnormal in storytelling more generally. The rule of threes is a thing in comedy for a reason - two repeats that we get, and one that doesn’t fit the standard. A similar concept is common is folklore and mythology, where we get repetition of events, stories and characters with small changes and alterations as the story progresses. This repetition helps to build tension and expectation. We know that things will alter at some point, but what point will that be?

In video games, we have two ways to tell stories. I covered this briefly in my previous video on Worldbuilding, which I’ll link the description below, but I’ll sum it up here: we have story as it is written and story as it is played or experienced. Now obviously there is crossover between the two, but ultimately this is a difference between the written story that is told to the player through dialogue and written narrative, and story as it is played out by the player actively. It’s the difference between telling you that your character has done something and getting the player to put in the buttons that makes your character do that thing instead.

This is, of course, a simplistic way of understanding it, but I think it gets the point across. Stories can be experienced as well as told, both inside and outside the world of video games, and both are important to telling a good story. There’s nothing so disappointing as a video game that tells a great story but has terrible ways of letting the player actually experience that story. And likewise, a good experience without a wonderful story can feel a bit empty at times. So how do games that need to rely on repetition in gameplay build the expectations and tensions without altering too much of gameplay, and while not making the narrative boring.

The first way this can happen is in scripting repetition and dungeon crawl change into the narrative. In Hades, the playable character Zagreous actually does die when the run fails. He’s just an immortal and so is brought back to the beginning to try all over again. In Cult of the Lamb, the character is reborn through their pact with the god of death. This means that the story itself revolves around trial and error and repetition. The dungeon crawl aspect is in the way the narrative explains the world the player finds themselves in. For Hades, the ever-changing world is due to a security aspect of the underworld in which elements of the chambers constantly move. Cult of the Lamb’s dungeon crawl is through a forest in which it’s easy to “get lost” or something.

The repetition in the narrative means that there’s a scripted way for both the player and the character to carry their experiences forward and therefore grow and develop change in each crawl. This is primarily through the ability for the character to keep experiences, items or elements that they gained through a run even after death. Most of the time, these are things that would feasibly be carried forward. In Hades, for example, whatever boons and money that has been collected is removed after death because the attempt is over - the money recollected by Charon when you are carried back to the land of the dead. For Cult of the Lamb, on death a large amount of your items that you collected is removed. This works as both a punishment for the player as well as a demonstration of the difficulty of carrying items back when you, ya know, die.

The second way you can have repetition with difference is through the use of a hub world. Some engage with hubworlds in far more detailed ways than others. For Hades, for example, the hubworld is simply a place to look over your details, formulate a plan for the next run, and gather some information and items from your friends who live there. Unless you’re looking into detailed reports, which you won’t really do until after you beat the final boss a time or two, you don’t spend a lot of time here. For Moonlighter, the hubworld is where the dungeon crawl is deemed as either successful or a failure. In this game, the character runs a shop where they sell items gathered in the dungeon. The player must manage item costs to keep prices from either falling or rising too much and ensure the right stock is in at the right time. This is also similar to Cult of the Lamb, which uses the hubworld of the cult to create a cult management part of the game. Here, what you collect during your runs effects the ability to manage can have positive or negative effects on your adherents. Similarly, things you do in the cult management can have positive or negative effects on your runs.

The differences in aspects of the hubworld demonstrated in these types of games, far more Cult of the Lamb and Moonlighter than Hades, means players are encouraged to do repetition again to look for the differences in the repetition. This keeps the repetition from being boring, and more in line with difference rather than similarity. In other words, it’s the hubworld that provides the possibility for tension and change in the repetition, things that are put into action by the player through another aspect of gameplay. In both of these example games, there’s essentially two games being played, which each impact the other. They also have their own storylines and narratives which weave into the others in intricate and complicated ways. So while they’re not stand-alone aspects of game, they are - in effect - a different game which the player engages with while thinking and building strategies for the more repetitive side of the dungeon crawling aspect. This means that the player goes in to the dungeon crawl with more thought and consideration in regards to what could be different, or should be different, and therefore builds their own tension through the consideration of possibility.

If gameplay is another form of storytelling, as we talked about before, than the incorporation of a new type of gameplay also introduces new ways of experiencing the story for the player. The story of the shop owner needs to tell the story of the successful shop. The story of the lamb’s cult needs the cult management side to show it’s a successful cult. Like life simulation role-playing games, the story of the success side of these things is told in the gameplay of the player.

So where does that put games like Hades, whose story revolves around successfully leaving the underworld and the hub world is not as relevant? Like the other games, the hub world in Hades does further the story but only in side conversations and detailed information on the people who surround the playable character. But, as any speedrun will show you, attention to the hub world isn’t actually necessary to have a “complete” game. Though it does give you more of the story that the game is demonstrating when actually played. You learn about the people who surround the playable character through talking to them. For Hades, the storytelling in the hub world is far more of the explicit kind - it’s the written narrative that’s scripted and presented to the player through dialogue. This is in contrast to the runs in your attempt to escape, where the success or failure or way that the story unfolds for these escaped is played rather than scripted. The developers of Hades - Supergiant Games - actually emphasises the importance of the player by directly referencing aspects of the play depending on how the run has gone. A god may reference that you look more haggard if your health is lower than normal, or sometimes referencing which boons you have gathered, or not gathered.

These types of interactions, which are dependent on the variation in the gameplay, also means that the repetition is altered in the way that the script part is presented. In other words, Hades not only makes differences in repetition in the way the story is played, but also in the way the story is presented. By reacting to the changes, even if slight and subtle, the game is acknowledging the alterations and emphasising difference.

As much as rogue-like games, and rogue-lite games if we are to make the distinction, do carry a lot of repetition in them, that’s not to say that repetition is reserved for these types of games and no others. As I mentioned before, repetition is part and parcel for storytelling in many forms of media - and no media at all. Zelda games require repetition of familiarity in structure - go to the temple, get the weapon, beat the boss, move on to the next temple. Life simulation games require repetition of routine. Repetition by itself is not necessarily an issue, but rather how the various ways that stories can be told and communicated to the player is dealt with, written, and experienced that makes a game either successful or not. Or, whether the story is a good story and experienced positively by the player.

Because as I said before, even old stories built on repetition. Hercules had seven labours, which had elements which carried over between them. But also there’s repetition between stories, tropes and structures which are repeated in order to lull the listener, or player, into a sense of familiarity and comfort. We recognise characters for what they represent, even if we are only first encountering them, and it’s these repetitions that we also carry with us in our day to day life.

But repetition in gameplay can sometimes lead to fatigue and finding the game, quite frankly, boring. But it’s not the repetition in and of itself that’s the problem but rather the way that repetition is understood and utilised by the game to increase interest, security, and heighten the experience of the player rather than lose that interest.