This New Roguelike Wants To Make Its Difficulty More Welcoming
Dlala Studios is developing Murals, a roguelike that aims to make the notoriously punishing genre more accessible through customizable difficulty settings. While drawing inspiration from critically-acclaimed titles like Hades, the studio is charting its own course by blending dark fairy tales with the action-focused gameplay of modern titles such as Doom and Diablo.
The key differentiator lies in the game’s approach to difficulty customization. According to Dlala CEO Aj Grand-Scrutton, Murals will feature adjustable difficulty selectors that allow players to tweak individual settings rather than adhering to fixed difficulty presets. These granular options include enemy damage and enemy health scaling, among others.
The studio’s design philosophy prioritizes player enjoyment over traditional roguelike punishment mechanics. This approach doesn’t eliminate challenge entirely—players who enjoy punishing difficulty curves retain options to maintain that experience—but instead empowers each player to craft their own difficulty experience. The move reflects a broader industry trend toward accessibility in game design, acknowledging that not all players engage with roguelikes for their notorious difficulty spikes.