Escaping the Loop: Breaking genre expectations in One More Run

It’s easy as a developer to get locked into a specific mindset:"I need to make the engine more performant.""I need to add more abilities."Those tasks feel productive — comfortable even — because they’re what we’ve always done. Comfort doesn’t always lead to the best game, though. That takes me to today’s topic: worldbuilding — and more specifically, the new event system in One More Run.

Escaping the Loop

I’ve known for a long time that I wanted One More Run to have a deeper world, but I kept putting it off. The core loop didn’t feel “ready” for lore. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t time yet. In reality? It was that same comfort trap. I was sticking to what I already knew — system design, gameplay tweaks, and polish.

The funny part of it all? Worldbuilding is supposed to be my comfort zone. I’ve DM’d in a homebrew setting for around 15 years now, and creating compelling narratives has always felt fairly natural. So why did it feel daunting here?

It clicked when I stopped treating One More Run like “just an action roguelite” and started applying the same storytelling mindset I’ve always used at the D&D table. It took duplicating a fair bit of work to get there, but it was worth it.

Building the System Twice

My first pass at the event system was very mechanical. Events gave buffs, debuffs, loot - things you’d expect from any action roguelite. It was serviceable enough, but it didn’t tell a story in any meaningful way. It was simply a delivery system for game mechanics dressed up with some filler text.

It felt like I was building something that would be right at home in a dopamine loop generator. Those games are great, but that’s not what I want to make, so I scrapped the system entirely.

I started again with the primary focus of the event system being to tell stories and give meaningful decision that rewards exploration and risk-taking, which led me to where we’re at now.

There’s Never a Bad Time for Dice

So, fast forward now a week and a half of tuning and iteration, and One More Run now has a full narrative event system that honestly feels more at home in a CRPG or visual novel than a bullet heaven shooter — and that’s perfect.

Events run on a D20 system. Not just “yes/no” or “bad/good/best” options. You’ll have multiple equally viable choices, with multiple possible outcomes based on the rolls:

• Critical failure • Failure • Success • Critical success

Each outcome comes with narrative consequences — and eventually, lasting impact on the game world.

This opens the door to fail-forward design. Sometimes, a critical failure will unlock a new path or reveal something you couldn’t have discovered otherwise.

It’s worth nodding to Disco Elysium here — a pinnacle of this design philosophy. In that game, even repeated failures felt rewarding. The slow spiral into madness from repeated failed checks remains one of the most memorable narrative experiences I’ve had in gaming.

While One More Run isn’t directly drawing from Disco Elysium’s content or tone, its approach to narrative structure — the way success and failure both shape the world — is an inspiration I want to openly acknowledge.

Over time, your choices begin to affect the D20 system itself. The system becomes a narrative device that the player can interact with and adjust in interesting ways through their decisions, rather than just a delivery method for outcomes.

Welcome to Azoris

The story itself isn’t entirely new — it’s just now finding a new home.

One More Run takes place in Azoris, the same world I’ve used in all my D&D campaigns. It’s a hybrid of fantasy and science fiction. Players choose which age to play in at the start of a campaign, with eras leaning primarily fantasy, but gradually more sci fi as they progress down the timeline or deeper into the lore.

One More Run takes place after all of those events, in a later age that gives me greater creative freedom, but with a rich history to build upon. Actions taken by many D&D players are going to be layered into the story, with some player characters even returning for camios.

Geographically, we’re just scratching the surface. Right now, the game explores Praescia, the easternmost continent. If the game continues to grow though, there’s a massive canvas to work with.

Take Marrodrim for example, the dwarven machine city."Marrodrim is a city in name only. It spans more land than some kingdoms - a sprawl of iron, steam, and stone built into the bones of the continent. To outsiders, it’s a relic. To its people though, it’s a living engine."Marrodrim fits the setting and tone of One More Run perfectly, and I’d love to explore it in the game one day. It’s not in scope yet, but I hope we’ll get there.

One last thing, a big shoutout to Jen — https://www.deviantart.com/jocarra for bringing these world maps to life. 8 years ago she turned my MS Paint doodles into the incredible world maps you’re seeing here and will see in-game. More recently, she also created the game’s Steam page capsule art.

A Shared Story

Keeping with the D&D roots, I want this entire development process — and even post-1.0 — to be an interactive storytelling journey.

That’s what the new event system makes possible. Take, for example, an encounter with a particularly courageous squirrel. Right now, it just ends with a “Continue” button. But I want more than that. I want it to have real consequences. If a player wants to, they should be able to make that squirrel the center of their narrative universe.

There’s now an #event-feedback channel in the Discord. I’ll post encounters that I’d like to expand there, and you’ll get a chance to suggest outcomes or vote on narrative branches. It’s a bit like a community D&D game — and you’re all helping shape the next adventure.

In the end, you’ll be shaping the final product of One More Run.

And About That Demo…

Now, all that being said — this event system wasn’t originally a top priority on the demo roadmap, but I realized it needed to be. I know many action roguelite purists might disagree with that sentiment, but I had to go where my passion for this game takes me.

So, some of you might be wondering: “Does this mean the demo’s delayed?”

The answer is: definitely not — The demo launches on July 3rd.

That date isn’t moving. Regardless of how many roadmap items get checked off between now and then, that’s the demo release date.

If the demo results in more wishlists, great, but that should never be the primary goal of an early demo like this. It should be to make a better final product through player feedback and an open development process, and that can be done even if the game's still far from feature complete.

So yeah, needless to say, I’m very excited to open this game up to a larger player base so we can make this thing awesome together!