For a sidescrolling shooter I’m working on, I got stuck on the following: The game allows the player to buy upgrades for their character. This oppertunity comes in the form of a shop that sits at the end of each world (containing a couple of levels each).

Now, it’s entirely possible that the player does not purchase any upgrade (extra health, stronger weapons, etc) because they lack the money for it, or simply choose not to. This potentially causes them to move to the next levels being slightly/very underpowered, only able to fix their situation once they completed the full world again.

I’m looking for some advice on how to best mitigate this issue. The conflicting features seem to be:

• Upgrades are not always available
• The player has the choice not to purchase them
• The levels get more difficult every world

Some ways to solve this, inelegantly:

• Make upgrades automatically unlock, but that takes away some of the player autonomy I want to include.
• Only scale the difficulty once an upgrade is purchased, but this feels a bit silly
• Allow the player to restart from an earlier world, so they can make different choices and/or play better (to be able to afford an upgrade this time around). Obviously not ideal either.

Any help and advice is much appreciated!

EDIT: Worth pointing out that this game follows a “campaign” like structure. For a rouguelite, simply having to try again would suffice, but I want to avoid making the player retry anything more than just their current level.

For a sidescrolling shooter I’m working on, I got stuck on the following: The game allows the player to buy upgrades for their character. This oppertunity comes in the form of a shop that sits at the end of each world (containing a couple of levels each).

Now, it’s entirely possible that the player does not purchase any upgrade (extra health, stronger weapons, etc) because they lack the money for it, or simply choose not to. This potentially causes them to move to the next levels being slightly/very underpowered, only able to fix their situation once they completed the full world again.

I’m looking for some advice on how to best mitigate this issue. The conflicting features seem to be:

• Upgrades are not always available
• The player has the choice not to purchase them
• The levels get more difficult every world

Some ways to solve this, inelegantly:

• Make upgrades automatically unlock, but that takes away some of the player autonomy I want to include.
• Only scale the difficulty once an upgrade is purchased, but this feels a bit silly
• Allow the player to restart from an earlier world, so they can make different choices and/or play better (to be able to afford an upgrade this time around) — obviously not ideal either.

It's worth pointing out that this game follows a “campaign” like structure. For a rouguelite, simply having to try again would suffice, but I want to avoid making the player retry anything more than just their current level.

For a sidescrolling shooter I’m working on, I got stuck on the following: The game allows the player to buy upgrades for their character. This oppertunity comes in the form of a shop that sits at the end of each world (containing a couple of levels each).

Now, it’s entirely possible that the player does not purchase any upgrade (extra health, stronger weapons, etc) because they lack the money for it, or simply choose not to. This potentially causes them to move to the next levels being slightly/very underpowered, only able to fix their situation once they completed the full world again.

I’m looking for some advice on how to best mitigate this issue. The conflicting features seem to be:

• Upgrades are not always available
• The player has the choice not to purchase them
• The levels get more difficult every world

Some ways to solve this, inelegantly:

• Make upgrades automatically unlock, but that takes away some of the player autonomy I want to include.
• Only scale the difficulty once an upgrade is purchased, but this feels a bit silly
• Allow the player to restart from an earlier world, so they can make different choices and/or play better (to be able to afford an upgrade this time around). Obviously not ideal either.

Any help and advice is much appreciated!

For a sidescrolling shooter I’m working on, I got stuck on the following: The game allows the player to buy upgrades for their character. This oppertunity comes in the form of a shop that sits at the end of each world (containing a couple of levels each).

Now, it’s entirely possible that the player does not purchase any upgrade (extra health, stronger weapons, etc) because they lack the money for it, or simply choose not to. This potentially causes them to move to the next levels being slightly/very underpowered, only able to fix their situation once they completed the full world again.

I’m looking for some advice on how to best mitigate this issue. The conflicting features seem to be:

• Upgrades are not always available
• The player has the choice not to purchase them
• The levels get more difficult every world

Some ways to solve this, inelegantly:

• Make upgrades automatically unlock, but that takes away some of the player autonomy I want to include.
• Only scale the difficulty once an upgrade is purchased, but this feels a bit silly
• Allow the player to restart from an earlier world, so they can make different choices and/or play better (to be able to afford an upgrade this time around). Obviously not ideal either.

Any help and advice is much appreciated!

EDIT: Worth pointing out that this game follows a “campaign” like structure. For a rouguelite, simply having to try again would suffice, but I want to avoid making the player retry anything more than just their current level.