The Codex of Roguelikes

[DakaSha V]

Edit: In addition the "example" you created lacks some features I believe Damned Registration would probably consider crucial for a roguelike. There is no exploration, nor there is any sort of resource management at all there. Not that it matters, the point you tried to make (or rather lack of one) is still the same. Shitty, lazy games can exist in any genre.

Who the fuck made him chief definer of roguelikes? The whole point is that its arbitrary garbage that doesnt mean shit. I could just as well give some arbitrary ass definition that meets the requirements for transcendence. My definition wouldn't be as traditional as his. Ok, then maybe ADoM isnt a roguelike since it has an overworld and quests. Thats a huge departure from its inspirations/roots, so why is that ok. Because reasons?

No, its because most people didnt know shit about roguelikes until the late 90's early 2000's when the internet became a thing, and people could latch on to that time period (20 years after rogue appeared) to satisfy their purist sensibilities.

edit: So yes i define a roguelike (or any genre for that matter ) by malleable feeling. It may be wishy washy but at least its not pretentious shit that tries to disguise itself as infallible law, designed for the sole reason of making nerds think they are "more knowledgeable" in the subject of childrens video games

 

[agentorange]

They are called roguelikes not roguecopies. Nothing about "like" implies that they need to exacting copies of the original, and that's not how genres are generally defined anyway unless the genre title itself contains an objective, definable component, eg. a first person shooter has the objective qualifier of being in the first person point of view, or a flight simulator needs the objective element of flight to be the focus of the game, and so on; however with a roguelike the only thing necessary is that the game be like Rogue, and there are many ways that something can be like another thing without being a copy. And, like daka said, often a work that deviates in some ways from the original is more successful at recreating the feeling of that original than a work that attempts to slavishly recreate every feature of the work it derives itself from.

 

[CryptRat]

It's not only about Rogue, and in particular about any Rogue feature, but the reason why these games are gathered around a clear label is because they all have common features which make them play similarly. A game which overall plays like Nethack, DCSS, ToME and ADOM also plays like Rogue, so yes if it plays nothing like Rogue then it's not a rogue-like. Tthe grid-based turn-based gameplay is one of these features which make these games samey, any real-time game is apart from the mass of these games just as much as a single character grid-based turn-based procedural RPG without permadeath.

 

[DakaSha V]

I'd consider the jump from ACSII to graphics more important than the jump from turn-based to real-time, but you're free to arbitrarily claim otherwise. (Not that graphics are a reason I'd ever name to violently remove a games precious roguelike designation)

edit: In fact my hardcore definition is probably more restrictive than most of your guys'. I just recognize the pointlessness of it.

 

[Damned Registrations]

How do we have all these buttons but still not a graphics whore button?

 

[Palikka]

Anyone played Legerdemain? Worth trying?

https://www.gofundme.com/legerdemain-source-code-ransom

In August 2008, an indie CRPG called Legerdemain was released to the world, which is to say, I posted an announcement on rec.games.roguelike.announce & a few people acknowledged it & maybe even downloaded it (it was free to play after all, it still is). For some time I had been nurturing a vision of a game that blended what I liked about roguelikes, MUDs, & interactive fiction into a nice textual slurry, something which I decided to call roguelikefiction. The phrase never really caught on. The game sort of did.

Legerdemain was met with bemusement, mostly, it didn't really fit into any of the genres it had aspired to join, but now & then a positive review would emerge, often enough that I put together a cluebook package to promote the game. I started a company called Roguelikefiction & we went on the road, starting in Atlanta, but eventually making it as far as Essen, Germany, to hawk our wares. The game was free to play, but if you liked it & wanted to support it we offered our package as a way to do so. It came with a book, a CD, & a hand-drawn map. People seemed to like the idea. We proceeded to have adventures & meet fans & experience a taste of the indie game-development world. In 2010 we released an updated version of the software with a tileset by Ian McKenna & we splurged on an additional print run, which was followed shortly by a third. The whole experience was a hoot.

Of course we could maintain our momentum for only so long. The visitors to our site gradually tapered off, reviews became less frequent. A second game never materialized. Sales declined & I moved onto other projects. The cost of keeping the company afloat became prohibitive. In the meantime, mobile-gaming had exploded, & a new generation of roguelikes had come to the fore. Steam became a popular platform for these new games, but Legerdemain was never able to make it a good fit. Now, in 2018, my work of so-called roguelikefiction is on its way to becoming a forgotten game, an obscure cul-de-sac in the history of roguelike variants & IF experimentation. I would like to do something about this, if I can. I still believe there are a lot of folks out there who would enjoy playing it, if they only knew it existed.

Anyhow a couple of weeks ago I was looking at the calendar & lo! the tenth anniversary of the first public release was approaching. I decided that now would be a great time to get in touch with old fans & recruit some new ones. I still have a few boxes of cluebooks left (remember those two additional print runs?) & I'd like to send them on to happy homes. What's more, there has always been a large concentration of developers in the Legerdemain fan base, & I think some of my design decisions & coding efforts could be of interest to them. Finally, as far as I know there are only a few players that have ever finished the game, so I'm sure there are many nooks & crannies that remain unexplored.

So I have come up with a source code ransom, as it were. To celebrate ten years I'm offering cluebook packages for $10. Cheap! A donation of $10 plus shipping gets you a copy. (+$5 for US/CA, +$10 international) But supplies are limited. In addition, if I manage to reach my fundraising goal of $1000, I will publicly release the Legerdemain source code. I haven't figured out what the licensing will look like yet. I haven't figured out if I will maintain it or make excuses for it. But I can guarantee I will leave it available on my website, http://roguelikefiction.com, for at least a year or two. That's the pitch. Thanks in advance for your support! Bon appetit.

 

[Fenix]

It's not only about Rogue, and in particular about any Rogue feature, but the reason why these games are gathered around a clear label is because they all have common features which make them play similarly. A game which overall plays like Nethack, DCSS, ToME and ADOM also plays like Rogue, so yes if it plays nothing like Rogue then it's not a rogue-like. Tthe grid-based turn-based gameplay is one of these features which make these games samey, any real-time game is apart from the mass of these games just as much as a single character grid-based turn-based procedural RPG without permadeath.

True.
Elona was created under ADOM influence.
Yet it has no permadeath (only optional) so it's not roguelike.
And Transcendence is real-time so it's not too.

Damned Registrations told game that has no foodclock isn't roguelike either - well, Transcendence does have foodclock but it's "too easy" that how he feels.

By the way - I have heard today that DCSS devs intended to get rid of food clock in future versions.
If that true - would you consider DCSS as NOT a roguelike game?

 

[Damned Registrations]

As I already pointed out, DCSS basically has no foodclock already- it's basically just a second tier fuel for spellcasting. It belongs in the genre because it retains many other qualities, like having an (almost- abyss and such are a sort of exception but only lategame) limited supply of resources, the basic turn based gameplay, enforced permadeath, and an ID metagame.

Elona is definitely in the grey area. The three biggest attributes of the genre are obviously the gameplay, the RNG, and the permadeath, and it's missing the last one. It's also got a heavy focus on things outside of combat like trading (like Transcendence) I'd put in in the same area is ToME, which trades the non-combat aspects for a total lack of consumable item management. These two are about as far as you can push the genre while still being best described by it rather than anything else.

Then you've got stuff like Desktop Dungeons or Dwarf Fortress, which is where I'd draw the disqualifying line, which is still plenty far away from all the other rogue-lite stuff out there- FTL, Thea, Transcendence, all the BoI and Spelunky clones, etc.

 

[Fenix]

All you said just mean that Transcendence and Elona is roguelikes too - because they share many features, not all but many.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Transcendence is missing 2 of the 3 most important features, and a number of the smaller ones. It's not even close.

 

[Fenix]

So what? You said yoursef that some features may be missing, it's not big deal.

 

[Damned Registrations]

A car missing a wheel and a seat and a roof is still a car. A car missing an engine is still a car. A 'car' that only has 1 seat and two wheels is not a car, it's a motorcycle.

 

[Fenix]

And what this has to... roguelikes?

The car without wheels is "car wihtout wheels".
In other words it could be called as car-like...

 

[Tito Anic]

It is not complicated at all

Roguelike is a subgenre of role-playing video game characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, tile-based graphics, and permanent death of the player character.

 

[Fenix]

Lol.
So, foodclock suddnly disappered from radars... finally.

Some features aren't required, and game still can be rogulike without it.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

General Principles
"Roguelike" refers to a genre, not merely "like-Rogue". The genre is represented by its canon. The canon for Roguelikes is ADOM, Angband, Crawl, Nethack, and Rogue.

This list can be used to determine how roguelike a game is. Missing some points does not mean the game is not a roguelike. Likewise, possessing some points does not mean the game is a roguelike.

The purpose of the definition is for the roguelike community to better understand what the community is studying. It is not to place constraints on developers or games.

High value factors
Random environment generation
The game world is randomly generated in a way that increases replayability. Appearance and placement of items is random. Appearance of monsters is fixed, their placement is random. Fixed content (plots or puzzles or vaults) removes randomness.

Permadeath
You are not expected to win the game with your first character. You start over from the first level when you die. (It is possible to save games but the savefile is deleted upon loading.) The random environment makes this enjoyable rather than punishing.

Turn-based
Each command corresponds to a single action/movement. The game is not sensitive to time, you can take your time to choose your action.

Grid-based
The world is represented by a uniform grid of tiles. Monsters (and the player) take up one tile, regardless of size.

Non-modal
Movement, battle and other actions take place in the same mode. Every action should be available at any point of the game. Violations to this are ADOM's overworld or Angband's and Crawl's shops.

Complexity
The game has enough complexity to allow several solutions to common goals. This is obtained by providing enough item/monster and item/item interactions and is strongly connected to having just one mode.

Resource management
You have to manage your limited resources (e.g. food, healing potions) and find uses for the resources you receive.

Hack'n'slash
Even though there can be much more to the game, killing lots of monsters is a very important part of a roguelike. The game is player-vs-world: there are no monster/monster relations (like enmities, or diplomacy).

Exploration and discovery
The game requires careful exploration of the dungeon levels and discovery of the usage of unidentified items. This has to be done anew every time the player starts a new game.

Low value factors
Single player character
The player controls a single character. The game is player-centric, the world is viewed through that one character and that character's death is the end of the game.

Monsters are similar to players
Rules that apply to the player apply to monsters as well. They have inventories, equipment, use items, cast spells etc.

Tactical challenge
You have to learn about the tactics before you can make any significant progress. This process repeats itself, i.e. early game knowledge is not enough to beat the late game. (Due to random environments and permanent death, roguelikes are challenging to new players.) The game's focus is on providing tactical challenges (as opposed to strategically working on the big picture, or solving puzzles).

ASCII display
The traditional display for roguelikes is to represent the tiled world by ASCII characters.

Dungeons
Roguelikes contain dungeons, such as levels composed of rooms and corridors.

Numbers
The numbers used to describe the character (hit points, attributes etc.) are deliberately shown.

 

[DakaSha V]

Grid-based
The world is represented by a uniform grid of tiles. Monsters (and the player) take up one tile, regardless of size.

lol

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Grid-based
The world is represented by a uniform grid of tiles. Monsters (and the player) take up one tile, regardless of size.

lol

This is usually how it is...

Non-modal nature is more indicative more often than not.

 

[DakaSha V]

Grid-based
The world is represented by a uniform grid of tiles. Monsters (and the player) take up one tile, regardless of size.

lol

This is usually how it is....

Its a perfect example of meaningless, arbitrary constraints. Are you telling me that if i make a really popular angband mod, that just so happens to give dragons 4x4 tiles instead of 1x1, that the game is suddenly suspect to be placed within the "arguably a rogue-like" category, due to failing one of these "high value factor" checks?

Get fucking real man.

Even this bit

Exploration and discovery
The game requires careful exploration of the dungeon levels and discovery of the usage of unidentified items. This has to be done anew every time the player starts a new game.

Is barely applicable to the arbitrarily chosen, holy portrait of roguelikes ADoM, since a fucktonne of the IDing in that game can be skipped due to giveaways such as weight. description, color, etc.

The only thing there that is worth mentioning is "Missing some points does not mean the game is not a roguelike. Likewise, possessing some points does not mean the game is a roguelike."

Yep wishy washy. Still makes more sense than this arbitrary list of factors, based on an arbitrary list of roguelikes that were famous before an arbitrary moment in time.

 

[DakaSha V]

I should actually add that the list may not be quite as retarded as i first thought, since it seems to imply there are some things we often associate with roguelikes, and that it is left to the player to decide where to draw the line. I can roll with that

Pretty So with that said, would probably brofist list. I literally skimmed past the first paragraph.


edit:

The purpose of the definition is for the roguelike community to better understand what the community is studying. It is not to place constraints on developers or games.

Yeah. I take back my last post (but not deleting like fag)

 

[PrettyDeadman]

It's the best definition of roguelike so far.
All other attempts to classify roguelikes by applying an number of arbitrary constrains came out simply wrong, which is why the most sophisticated members of roguelike community came out with a number of non-arbitrary factors which help to talk about what roguelike usually is / so far was.

 

[DakaSha V]

It's the best definition of roguelike so far.
All other attempts to classify roguelikes by applying an number of arbitrary constrains came out simply wrong, which is why the most sophisticated members of roguelike community came out with a number of non-arbitrary factors which help to talk about what roguelike usually is / so far was.

Sigh. I give up. Just gonna play fun games while you guys take this shit seriously.

 

[Ranarama]

I'd consider the jump from ACSII to graphics more important than the jump from turn-based to real-time

Epyx Rogue and Rogue 2 literally had graphics.

 

[DakaSha V]

As opposed to figuratively

 

[Ranarama]

As opposed to figuratively

Yes. Do you have some form of learning difficulty?