Roguelikes: the Misnamed Genre

ZorbaTHut writes "I've been playing a lot of Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup lately. It's a great example of a roguelike (and open source, too). But I can't stop thinking that perhaps 'roguelike' is the wrong term for the genre. 'Roguelikes aren’t about dungeons. They’re not about text-based graphics, or random artifacts, or permadeath. ... Roguelikes are about using an unpredictable toolkit with complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges.'"

Comments

Nethack

[Anonymous Coward]

Roguelikes are about incomprehensible control schemes utilizing every single key on your keyboard, twice!

Re:Nethack

[Anonymous Coward]

So vi and emacs are roguelike?

Re:Nethack

[Per Abrahamsen]

I know it is a joke, but the connection is there. The original rogue is vi-like, adopting the cursor keys of vi.

Re:Nethack

[$RANDOMLUSER]

No. You also need pedals and a joystick to get the full functionality from vi and emacs.

Re:Nethack

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Amen.

You know, there are always debates raging online about whether keyboard and mouse, or controllers are a better control scheme. And while keyboards have advantages, you have to admire how the restricted amount of buttons on a controller forces designers to rationalise their control schemes.

Keyboard based developers on the other hand never really have to face the problem of running out of buttons, and as such tend to designate every command to its own button, sometimes without any thought at all. Sometimes, out of necessity, the control scheme can be somewhat egonomicised , particularly for FPS games and the like. But for "roguelike" games, sometimes it feels like the developers matched keys to commands by rolling a dice. A little thought could drastically reduce the and rationalise the amount and kind of keys being used.

Sometimes, the controls for games like Nethack and Dwarf Fortress are so bad that I think the developers never actually sit down and play the game themselves; eat their own dog food so to speak. i think if they did, alternative control schemes would emerge very quickly. Then again, maybe they play a lot, and have just become inured to their own creations.

Re:Nethack

[Anonymous Coward]

Flight simulators are roguelike. Some of them also require pedals and joysticks.

Re:Nethack

[Elbereth]

NetHack isn't that bad, once you get used to it. Sure, you might think that q is an entirely random key to choose for drinking a potion (and you'd be right), but there's an mnemonic associate with it -- quaffing a potion. Once you start thinking in terms of the mnemonic, it's a lot easier, rather than struggling to remember which key is for drinking. The same is true of z, used for activating a wand. Again, this must seem entirely random, and you'd be right. However, the associated mnemonic is zapping a wand. Other commands are less defensible, such as Z, used to cast a spell. Once you've become familiar with zapping wands, however, it makes a little more sense.

Play enough times and it'll become second nature to you.

Re:Nethack

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but NetHack's controls are actually very mnemonic (q for quaff, Q for quit, w for wield, W for wear, r for read, R for remove, t for throw, T for take off...). And after few hours, the controls become your second nature, really. Experienced player doesn't really need to think about how to control the game, the fingers do it themselves with great fluency. Yes, the learning curve is rather steep, but that's because NetHack wants to make stuff easy for experienced player. Think of it like controlling an airplane... it's not easy, no point'n'click interface, no wizards, just sticks, some gauges and dials and that's it. Yet experienced pilot flies it without needing to think about this interface.

Re:Nethack

[bhaak1]

Roguelikes have a long history and some of those old decisions don't fit well into the modern computer environments. For example vi-keys (although almost all modern roguelikes support numpad) are such a case. Without tradition, developers probably would use a solution base on the nowadays more common WASD.

But there's also a reason for not changing. You've already got a lot of people familiar with certain concepts.

As a NetHack fork developer I don't want to alienate the large Vanilla player base by introducing new keys that would confuse them. Even though I know that it isn't the best possible interface for beginners.

Luckily you can try to improve an interface without completely overhaul it. It's not the best possible solution but a good compromise.

With Vanilla NetHack you've got the problem that it really hasn't changed much since mid-90s and is dormant since 2003. I wouldn't hold my breath for a version with a better interface from the DevTeam.

Re:Nethack

[Anonymous Coward]

If rogue had used emacs key bindings only Stallman would play roguelikes.

Re:Nethack

[Abstrackt]

The same is true of z, used for activating a wand. Again, this must seem entirely random, and you'd be right. However, the associated mnemonic is zapping a wand. Other commands are less defensible, such as Z, used to cast a spell.

My mnemonic for zapping a wand versus zapping a spell is that it's less effort to "zap" a wand than to "Zap" a spell (hitting shift as well). It also carries over into dropping one item or many ("d" vs "D").

Re:Nethack

[Arancaytar]

Plus a butterfly for the latter.

Re:Nethack

[Hatta]

Nethack is actually a perfect example of why all those keys are so useful. If you actually sit down and play it, before long the keys just become muscle memories. You don't have to remember whick key is what, and where it is. You just think 'pick lock' and it happens. I assure you, when it comes to beating nethack, memorizing the control scheme is a negligible part of the challenge.

Rogue likes on consoles (e.g. Powder on the GBA) on the other hand force you to scroll tediously through menus. What else can you do when you've only got 2 buttons?

Re:Nethack

[Imagix]

Based on your UID number, you probably remember... but the keyboards at the time Rogue (and vi) came out didn't _have_ cursor keys. It would make sense that Rogue would adopt the "cursor" keys of the popular text editor of that time since everybody would be used to them.

Re:Nethack

[Kagura]

If anyone has played ADoM, come try out the online SSH servers. They are very, very well implemented and the latency is a non-issue. Come visit #adom on irc.freenode.net to meet up with the community.

Re:Nethack

[hey hey hey]

Based on your UID number, you probably remember... but the keyboards at the time Rogue (and vi) came out didn't _have_ cursor keys.

You can't tell by my UID, but I was actually AT Berkeley when Rogue and vi came out. The ADM-3A terminal (which was by far the most common terminal there, and lots of other places) had a left arrow on the H, a down arrow on the J, a up arrow on the K and a right arrow on the L. Not cursor keys per-se, but a dang strong hint.

Re:Nethack

[ComputerGeek01]

DOWN WITH THE MOUSE! Say NO! to the oppresive GUI hegemoney! Long live CLI!

Re:Nethack

[iampiti]

I love slashdot because of comments like this. Where else are you going to find such delicious mostly useless information of old computers? :)

Re:Nethack

[hardaker]

And we didn't need them either! Now get off our lawn!

Re:Nethack

[steveha]

the keyboards at the time Rogue (and vi) came out didn't _have_ cursor keys

Not quite true. At the time of Rogue and vi, you would use a "dumb terminal" to connect to a multi-user ("time-sharing") computer. Most dumb terminals had arrow keys; the most popular dumb terminal of all time, the VT100, certainly did.

But there was a common terminal, the ADM-3A, that did not have arrow keys. As others have noted here, it did have little arrows drawn on the H, J, K, and L keys, respectively left, down, up, and right; you were expected to use Ctrl+H to go left, Ctrl+J to go down, and so on. vi and Rogue permitted you to juse use the bare keys (the H key instead of Ctrl+H to go left, and so on).

vi was specifically designed to be usable on any dumb terminal. The ADM-3A didn't have any function keys, but other terminals did; so in vi you could bind macros to function keys, and you could invoke the macros using "#1" (a two-character sequence, '#' and then '1') for function key F1, and so on. But if you were on a terminal that had function keys, you could just use them.

steveha

Re:Nethack

[Darinbob]

Only because keyboards of the time did not routinely have arrow keys. And even today there's no standard way of encoding these keys that you can get via getchar(). VI used those keys because HJKL keys on some keyboards had arrow symbols on them (ie, adm3a), and that key system was used by people who didn't even know what vi was.

Re:Nethack

[VortexCortex]

Without tradition, developers probably would use a solution base on the nowadays more common WASD.

As long a I'm allowed to re-bind the keys as I please, I see no problem, that's the problem with some rogue-likes and most console games -- I want to re-map my buttons the way I like, yet few allow complete custom control schemes.

To prove my point -- Let's say you dedicate the "popular" WASD to movement.... I use Dvorak you insensitive clod!

Point being: I can't play most games that have such dedicated controls -- rogue-likes are sometimes an exception because the key letter actually means something......... In English. I feel sorry for players without USA Keyboard layouts.

Now, to further point out how rediculous WASD is: Why not just use EASD and leave the player's hands positioned on home-row?! That way, when I hit the "chat" or "console" mode, I don't have to reposition my fingers to chat, then back to play -- fingers stay where they belong -- ready to type. Not to mention that with EASD the "pinky" finger gets two extra keys to use (QZ, in addition to tab, caps, shift & ctrl)

WASD? Pffft, >OEU is where it's at, man.

Re:Nethack

[VortexCortex]

Only after I hit submit did I look at a QWERTY keyboard, and realize that I meant ESDF, not EASD... However, it should have been apparent to me since I was repeating the ASD part of WASD...

Meh, point still stands: WASD is dumb for no good reason.... EG: With ESDF, you can keep your eyes on the screen and quickly find your finger position -- the F has a nub... To do this with WASD you find the F -- then move left one for no apparent reason.

Re:Nethack

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, what would a guy named Elbereth know about playing NetHack, anyway?

Re:Nethack

[bughunter]

Um. Maybe here?

Re:Nethack

[bughunter]

And the real irony here is that the keybinds are one of the easiest learning curves in nethack, so for someone to complain about the keybinds marks them instantly as someone who will _never_ grok nethack.

Re:Nethack

[ConceptJunkie]

Probably the kind of person who just goes around vandalizing everything by writing his name on it.

Re:I love playing text games....

[Anonymous Coward]

There are the best kind, and no need in water cooled graphic card too.
Speaking of which, you know that you can play tetris in bash?
Here is a a guy's blog post about how he coded that

Goatse link!

One essential question...

[SharpFang]

Diablo and its derivatives, Diablo 2 and Torchlight - are they Roguelikes?
Quite crude for roguelikes, but the generated landscape changing with each game, varied monsters, levelled dungeon with ability to backtrace, random-generated items, and generally quite a bit of roguelike elements...
I think the thing that could make them apart from the genre is lack of "turn-based" mode, kinda like an active pause - even entering the inventory does not pause. But is it enough?

Re:One essential question...

[rasmusneckelmann]

Diablo is clearly heavily inspired by roguelikes, but there's really not that much of the original gameplay left. It would be like if I made a real-time strategy game with units like "pawn", "queen", and "king" and said it was a chesslike.

Re:One essential question...

[bertok]

That's actually a good analogy!

Diablo is to Rougelikes as RTS games are to Chess.

Re:One essential question...

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I know (I have not played Diablo that much), those games are about choosing which way you want to defeat monsters, and then improve those aspects. It lacks the problem solving parts common in games like Nethack (haven't played any other "rouge-like" games). In Nethack, for example, you can experiment with ways to use or combine the items in your possession to make it possible to take stuff from the shops without paying.

Re:One essential question...

[Per Abrahamsen]

Diablo was inspired by nethack, a roguelike.

The boundaries of the genre are not well defined, but turn-based would usually be considered one of the defining characteristics.

Re:One essential question...

[zwei2stein]

Yes they are. Same gameplay mechanics, same addiction rates. They are just to user friendly and too fun for ordinary person to be considered one by fans of genre.

Fun fact: Diablo 1 was actually turn based in early stages of development.

On the other hand Dwarf Fortress ( http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/index.html , http://df.zweistein.cz/ ) is also sometimes labeled roguelike. It seems like anything in text mode and arcane controls can get this label - even sims crossed with simcity.

Re:One essential question...

[Zandamesh]

No, they're Roguelikelikes!

Re:One essential question...

[Tei]

Diablo, Torchlight are Hack and Slash action RPG games.

-Are not turn based.
-Theres not permadead.
-You "unlock" all the skills of your class... on a roguelike you grown in power, until you die.

So, no, are very fart apart from roguelikes.

Re:One essential question...

[SharpFang]

The Horadrim Cube from Diablo 2 or the Alchemist from Torchlight?

Sure they were SIMPLE comparing to most Roguelikes - and Nethack is one of most complicated of them. There are some roguelikes comparable in simplicity to Diablo too.

Re:One essential question...

[SharpFang]

- Most have "hardcore mode" which is permadead.
- in single player there is pause, which allows for pretty much same thing as turn-based.
- unlocking skills of a class (spending exp at will) vs growing in power randomly is more like a flavor than a defining characteristics.

Re:One essential question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in that Diablo and RTS games are real-time while roguelikes and chess are turnbased. The analogy falls apart when you realize that Diablo's mechanics are much simpler than roguelikes', whereas RTS games tend to have more complex mechanics than chess.

Re:One essential question...

[Vintermann]

In particular, it's inspired by Angband and Angband variants. There's not much of Nethack in there.

Re:One essential question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dwarf Fortress has an adventure mode that is roguelike.

Re:One essential question...

[Anonymous Coward]

DF has two modes of play. One is roguelike, the other is not.

Re:One essential question...

[JackDW]

Pause isn't the same as turn-based at all. In a real roguelike, you get infinite time to consider your next move. And then you press a key and get exactly the move you wanted. This is the main reason why you can't have a multiplayer roguelike.

Re:One essential question...

[Anonymous Coward]

More complex mechanics don't neccessarilly make for a more complex game. So RTSes have more kinds of units, with various abilities, cooldowns, etc. Far more complex than chess pieces which have a very limited and constant amount of abilities. Yet because of these very limitations, such as only being able to move one piece at a time, mounting an attack in chess requires are more planning and forethought. There is no effective Chess equivalent to a Zerg rush. (Thing's like the Fool's Mate don't count, they require active participation of both players.)

The analogy still holds, a game's total complexity is more than its mechanics. If we throw an MMORPG into the mix (hell, why not?) consider for a moment World of Warcraft vs Chess. World of Warcraft is an incredibly complex game with many different kinds of classes, each of those classes having selecting talents that fundamentally modify a character's preferred role, abilities and capabilities, and special abilities granted through items, racial abilities or even professions. For all its complexity, the most important things in that game is still teamwork, good reflexes, knowing how to use your class's abilities to make the best of any situation, and - in the case of higher level raids that you've only just got the required gear to beat - perfect execution from all players with little room for error.

Yet, given all that, is Chess less complex than World of Warcraft? Not at all. World of Warcraft is about knowing not to stand in the fire, and basically being able to execute a strategy which is often fairly simple - or sometimes even devising new strategies for new bosses.

In the ends, games are complex in different ways, many of the challenges in World of Warcraft are purely logistical, organising people, maintaining a raiding team of 25 people, where hopefully most of them know what the hell they're doing, and movitate them to push themselves to perform at the top of their skill. In that way WoW is far more complex than chess, which is after all a two-player game. The hardest logistical challenge is finding a matched opponent, and setting up a match with them.

Chess is about knowing where you have all your pieces, knowing where all your enemies pieces are, making careful strategies to mount a successful attack, while not leaving yourself exposed to a similar attack. You have to consider what you're doing, what he's doing, and even a small flaw in your defense can often be mercilessly exploited by your opponent with devastating consequences. The rigors of strategy makes Chess far more complex.

In the end, complexity in mechanics is not sufficient to make a complex game. A class having 100 abilities doesn't matter if you can acheive the best result just using a single ability over and over and over. A heroic dungeon having a group of trash mobs with different abilities that all have to be countered and controlled to perform a clean kill doesn't matter if everybody has gear just to force their way through the mobs without thinking, because the tank can tank all of them at the same time with no issues, and the healer can keep the tank up as well, even if some DPS inevitably overaggros.

Re:One essential question...

[Internetuser1248]

complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges.

diablo 2 -
complex interaction = reapeatedly left click on monster
unpredictable challenges = the same monsters that always spawn in that area
Those are actually the key gameplay features that make a roguelike great, and the gaping holes in gameplay that make diablo 2 substandard.

Re:One essential question...

[LordLucless]

The first Diablo was actually originally developed as turn-based. It was converted to real-time relatively late in its development cycle.

Re:One essential question...

[Anonymous Coward]

But DF is a roguelike. It's turn-based (the turns just go by fairly quickly), dungeon levels and challenges are randomly generated, death is permanent aside from savescumming, you have to use a toolkit to survive, etc. It even has randomly generated artifacts. The whole 'being text-based' thing is very important, but DF meets the other criteria handily, especially when you realize that there is a single-player Adventure mode.

Re:One essential question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your fact isn't all that fun.

Re:One essential question...

[Viewsonic]

Roguelikes no not need to be turn based. The online versions of nethack, rogue, etc have all been real-time, and they've been around for decades this way.

Also, Diablo does have a permadead mode, it's called hardcore, and is VERY popular.

The games are very similar. Diablo is basically a commercial roguelike.

Re:One essential question...

[Viewsonic]

Multiplayer roguelikes have been around since roguelikes first appeared.... Use a vt100 terminal and log into the unix server and check them out. I used to play online with my buds back in 91, and they were pretty well advanced back then.

Re:One essential question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you forgot Battlnet. That's a challenge to overcome, quite random too.

Re:One essential question...

[JackDW]

It's a question of definition. To me, a roguelike gives you as long as you want to make a move, and then allows you to specify exactly what you want to do. It's therefore neither real-time nor multiplayer. But clearly other definitions exist if (as some claim) Diablo is a roguelike.

Re:One essential question...

[arose]

There is no online real-time version of Nethack...

Re:One essential question...

[tehcyder]

Only in that Diablo and RTS games are real-time while roguelikes and chess are turnbased. The analogy falls apart when you realize that Diablo's mechanics are much simpler than roguelikes', whereas RTS games tend to have more complex mechanics than chess.

That's why you should always use a car analogy. No one here understands them, so you get away with it much more easily.

Re:One essential question...

[gknoy]

There is no effective Chess equivalent to a Zerg rush. (Thing's like the Fool's Mate don't count, they require active participation of both players.)

It's been a while since I played chess, as it was mainly in middle school and high school. However, I'm pretty sure that there IS an analogue to chess's complexity in an RTS. Let's talk more about Starcraft 2. Some tactics work well against poor players (like me), but skilled players know that there are a variety of openings, all of which you need to be able to defend against. There are several mid-game branchings of technology trees (magine if you didn't know whether your opponent was developing Bishops or Knights until they engaged you) which you can recognize based on timings of events in the game (buildings seen, units seen, etc). On top of that, some maps favor different tactics.

If you've never watch Day9's video blog on Starcraft 2 strategy (especially his videos on learning the timings of tech trees and what your opponent is working on), it's fascinating. It may change your mind about the relative complexity of chess versus SC2. SC2 has branching choices for what your opponent might do, combined with fog of war, resource management, and the very real problem of maintaining battlefield awareness (which I am terrible at) enough to recognize what your opponent is doing before he rolls into your base with something you're ill-prepared to defend against.

Day[9] Daily #132, Back to Basics: http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/3732340/
He rambles a bit at the start about Random Crap, but talks a lot about the fundamentals of the game, and such. (I wanted to find the video he did during the Starcraft 2 beta about recognizing your opponent's tech tree decisions based on the time at which you see certain telltale units, but I can't find it. If another poster knows what I'm referring to, can you link it?)

Re:One essential question...

[praxis]

I have no idea of what you speak with this online real-time NetHack. Care to supply a link?

For me there are three aspects that are definitive to a roguelike to me: turn-based, permadeath, randomized world offering re-playable challenges. Diablo is not very similar to NetHack, for example, because it lacks the randomized world offering re-playable challenges.

Re:One essential question...

[Vintermann]

Diablo is far more like Angband (mostly randarts, non-persistent dungeons, town) than nethack (fixedarts only, persistent dungeons, no town). I have trouble believing the Diablo developers decided on all the Angband innovations to rogue independently.

maybe to you...

[waddgodd]

To the rest of us, rougelikes are just that, clones of rogue. Clearly Star Trek isn't a roguelike, yet it's "about using an unpredictable toolkit with complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges.", no?

Re:maybe to you...

[Hydian]

The only thing unpredictable about Star Trek is figuring out if it is the episode where they are screwed until the last 5 minutes of the show when Scotty miraculously fixes the warp drive by kicking it or the one where they go back in time and change history yet somehow claim to have a continuity that can later be screwed with.

Re:maybe to you...

[waddgodd]

not the $%^& series, dolt

"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[shutdown -p now]

"Roguelike" means "like Rogue", no more and no less. There's no need to try to seek some deeper meaning in there. If the game has top-down view, intricate RPG-like stats, but mostly consists of slaying things rather than heavy NPC interaction and advanced storyline, it's a roguelike. All of these are necessary components - e.g. Stonekeep is not a roguelike, because it's first-person.

As for the "new" definition in TFS/TFA, it's so vague as to be meaningless. Heck, it's broad enough to match contraption games (like Crazy Machines).

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[SharpFang]

What about Dwarf Fortress?
In the "adventurer mode" it is a clear-cut roguelike with a vast world to explore.
In the "fortress mode" it becomes a strategy game (freely switchable between RTS and turn-based.) But still it utilizes the same game mechanics, the same world (to a degree where your adventurer may find and explore your fortress), and generally is just a different mode of the same game.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[DNS-and-BIND]

It's just a bunch of nincompoops playing games that aren't like Rogue in any way, and calling them 'roguelikes' because they use a console interface.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[the_enigma_1983]

Seems like you answered your own question. In "adventurer" mode it's rogue-like. In "fortress" mode it isn't. Just like Portal 2 is "multiplayer" when doing co-op, and "single player" when doing the .. solo campaign. I don't see what's wrong with a game being "rogue-like" in one particular mode, especially when, like Dwarf Fortress, different modes of game play are so different.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[DNS-and-BIND]

It's just a bunch of nincompoops playing games that aren't like Rogue in any way, and calling them 'roguelikes' because they use a console interface. It's a sign of a tiny mind that can't expand to embrace new concepts and seeks to explain everything in terms of its own limited, parochial worldview.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[arkenian]

"Roguelike" means "like Rogue", no more and no less. There's no need to try to seek some deeper meaning in there. If the game has top-down view, intricate RPG-like stats, but mostly consists of slaying things rather than heavy NPC interaction and advanced storyline, it's a roguelike. All of these are necessary components - e.g. Stonekeep is not a roguelike, because it's first-person.

As for the "new" definition in TFS/TFA, it's so vague as to be meaningless. Heck, it's broad enough to match contraption games (like Crazy Machines).

While I mostly agree with your definition, I'd have to add 'random dungeon generation' as a key point. In some ways THE key point, more so I'd argue than 'top-down view'. (Although 'what will the red potion do to me this time?' was always fun. Also for those who think permadead is critical, I'll point out that there were workarounds....)

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[kikito]

"Like" implies "more or less". Don't you know SQL?

Something "like Rogue, but no more and no less", should be roqueequals, not roguelike.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[hitmark]

The adventurer mode is underdeveloped (to put it mildly) compared to the fortress mode.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[amicusNYCL]

Roguelikes are about using an unpredictable toolkit with complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges.

Ah, so like Portal 2 and Angry Birds, right?

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[alexo]

I'd say that the the definition of "Roguelike" has evolved to mean a game developed by a self-appointed "dev team" who are too "elite" to communicate with mere mortals and have marked 468 bugs(*) as "fixed" while not releasing a single line of source in over 7 years.

(*) Yes, I counted.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[shutdown -p now]

Ironically, I also considered making a point by giving Angry Birds as an example. But then I thought that, possibly, it's not quite unpredictable enough.

Portal is spot on though.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[shutdown -p now]

You're right - at least thinking of those roguelikes that I have played, they always had a strong random element when it came to maps (not necessarily 100% random everywhere, but certainly the majority of visitable locations).

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[blivit42]

Something "like Rogue, but no more and no less", should be roqueequals, not roguelike.

How about equivarogue?

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[loimprevisto]

Oh, so Ledgermain (roguelikefiction.com) doesn't count as a roguelike? Roguelike interactive fiction is a perfectly cromulent genre!

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[FoolishOwl]

"Roguelike" means "like Rogue", no more and no less. There's no need to try to seek some deeper meaning in there.

It's a silly problem, really, in which there's an organic development of forms, and then someone decides to justify their personal preferences by making up some abstract definition after the fact so that they can claim that things they don't like are objectively inferior to things they do like.

Full disclosure: I enjoy playing the Android port of Angband on my T-Mobile G2.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[spun]

What was the last version you played? Toady One has been mostly working on adventure mode stuff for the last six months or so. There is quite a bit more to do as an adventurer now, but the next release will be an even bigger adventure mode improvement, with full randomly generated cities including keep, workshops and stores, sewers, and catacombs.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[Darinbob]

But Rogue does not have intricate RPG-like stats, it has almost no stats at all except health. The main thing I think of with rogue-like is mindless non-stop hack and slash against randomly generated enemies in a big zoo like environment. Rogue is sort of an anti RPG in many ways (just like Diablo).

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[spun]

Hmm, portal 2 has four liquids, buttons, boxes, portals, light bridges, vortex tubes, and turrets. These elements are set up in carefully controlled levels where there are, at most, a few right ways to complete the level. Portal 2 presents you with a very predictable toolkit and simple, limited interactions. Not to mention, it walks you through exactly how and when to use each of these tools before forcing you to use them on your own.

Nethack, for example, has hundreds of random monsters, from hydras to Keystone Kops, fountains, water, magma, dozens of random potions, wands, spells, armor, and weapons. It has intelligent, trainable companions. It has random stores to buy things on. It even has kitchen sinks. Every thing in the game can interact with every other thing. Portal 2 doesn't come close to the complexity or unpredictability of a rougelike. It's a great game, don't get me wrong,

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[shutdown -p now]

Admittedly, I haven't played Portal much, but since it tries to do fairly comprehensive physics modelling, isn't it theoretically quite possible to come up with very unintended effects when using various things together?

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[Sancho]

You've described Rogue fairly well. Unfortunately, "like" is a highly subjective term. "Roguelike" will be defined and redefined by the common usage, just like other words that are used incorrectly ("literally", "ironic", "peruse", and "nonplussed" spring to mind.)

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[shutdown -p now]

Of course. It's not meant to be a precise term, no more than any other genre name is. We had similar issues with the past, e.g. there used to be a term "C&C clone" back in the day.

Nonetheless, the definition is good enough for the "I know it when I see it" approach that is surprisingly consistent between different people (i.e. if you took many gamers, and asked them if any given game is roguelike or not, the answer of vast majority of them would likely agree).

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[spun]

No, one of the absolutely beautiful things about portal is that ALL such interactions have been documented, if they are left in the game, they are intended to be there. I am basing this on the developers' commentary tracks, included with the game, They explain one particular shortcut, and why they left it in when taking out almost all the others.

That was one of the only levels where there is really more than one way through the level. Pretty much, the game leads you straight down a garden path. It explains, "see this thing, all lit up and shiny and jumping out at you? This is what this is for. See this other thing? That is what that is for. Now, let me explain how you can combine those two things. Okay, now here is another level, I'm not going to tell you how to do it, but remember what you just did? You might want to try that."

Portal is a puzzle game. The aim is to solve the puzzles, in the exact way and on the exact time-line that the developer intended you to do it. It is a lovingly hand crafted game in that regard, everything has a place and a purpose. Rougelikes, on the other hand, take a "Throw everything against the w2all and see what sticks" approach. Nothing his hand crafted. There may not be ANY way to get through a level, there may be one way, or there may be many. It's all random. But nobody sat down for each level and thought, "okay, how are we going to make the player realize they need to do exactly this one particular thing right now?"

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[shutdown -p now]

That was one of the only levels where there is really more than one way through the level. Pretty much, the game leads you straight down a garden path. It explains, "see this thing, all lit up and shiny and jumping out at you? This is what this is for. See this other thing? That is what that is for. Now, let me explain how you can combine those two things. Okay, now here is another level, I'm not going to tell you how to do it, but remember what you just did? You might want to try that."

See, this sounds very familiar to contraption games of old, such as The Incredible Machine, or the more recent Crazy Machines. There, too, the tutorials explained in great detail how pieces worked, and how they could be combined. And most certainly, levels (puzzles) were designed to have one or two specific solutions. However, since such games do physics emulation (even if only in 2D and greatly simplified), as number of rearrangeable pieces grew linearly with later puzzles, the number of possible interactions grew exponentially, and some edge cases were positively unpredictable. So it was very possible there to complete the puzzle in a way completely unintended by the designer by accidentally finding a different arrangement - usually very radically different, and often not even using all the pieces.

It's too bad if Portal doesn't have anything like that, though I'd be curious about how they achieved it - it's very hard to predict interactions once you have that many elements.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[spun]

Mostly, they do it by limiting the way tools and parts can interact. Your portal gun, for instance, can not place portals on any surface, only specific surfaces. You can only jump so high, and so far. The game was also playtested enormously, and when places were found where people could go off the beaten path, they were mercilessly removed.

Gran Turismo has very realistic physics, too, and plenty of interaction, but again, there is basically one way through each track. Maybe you can shave a few seconds off your best time, but you aren't suddenly going to find a way through that takes minutes less.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[hawk]

>The main thing I think of with rogue-like is mindless
>non-stop hack and slash against randomly generated
>enemies in a big zoo like environment.

Some of them.

In nethack (the only game that *matters*), it is a sure path to death.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[hitmark]

thanks for the heads up, as it may indeed have been a while since i checked for updates (maybe because i spend most of my days using Linux).

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[spun]

Dwarf Fortress runs on Linux too. But Dwarf Therapist doesn't, making managing over 100 dwarfs or so a real pain.

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[hitmark]

used to be that DF ran, but did so slowly. But testing now i see that the performance is basically the same as i recall it being on Windows so i guess i missed a news item at some point. Thanks for getting me to have another look (Adventure mode is insanely brutal btw).

Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue"

[spun]

Yeah, even playing a Godlike character, you will get slaughtered by Bogymen the first night you spend out in the open, unless you manage to find some good weapons and armor first. Or, if you are playing a dwarf, try running in circles around the Bogymen until you enter a martial trance, then take them out. df.magmawiki.com has some strategies for getting your adventurer powered up to the point they can survive outside a village.

wtf is roguelike?

[metalmaster]

I googled to find out, but it would make a lot more sense for the summary to include at least a sentence to explain it.

"I've been playing a lot of Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup lately. It's a great example of a roguelike [short definition goes here]

Maybe im asking a bit much from slashdot though. who knows.....

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[ryansherwood]

I share your sentiments, however, prepare to be trolled.

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

When there's a summary mentioning Tetris or Pacman, do you also then want a brief definition of what those games are about?

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't.. I mean, how... what the... eugh.

IVAN. Go play.

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[peppepz]

You must be new here.

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[the_enigma_1983]

The very article explains that it is hard to define "rogue-like" as anything except "similar to the game Rogue". I'm not sure what better description can be given, and if you want one linked, then TFA does actually go over what a Rogue-like game is.

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[metalmaster]

text-based RPG, action shooter, bdsm riddled hack n slash, arcade fighter, driving simulation.....any of these could put in the summary to better define a roguelike.

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[Dodgy G33za]

Here is a thought. If you don't understand something on the interwebs, go and google it. Then continue. Simple eh?

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[metalmaster]

did you even read the comment thread?

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is another thought. GP has a point about adding 2-3 descriptive words.

Why post anything at all, ever? We could all just use Google and never need any other sites or blogs or news or comments at all! Why should anyone ever do anything, when we can just use Google ourselves?

Everyone needs stop submitting stories to Slashdot. We all should already know about all stories, from Googling them. Stop helping all these lazy retards who can't be bothered to use Google and want others to post things to a site for them!

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[EllF]

I think that familiarity with roguelikes -- at least in terms of general context -- are an assumed part of the Slashdot culture. I hear you on the lack of explanation around obscure references to things that only a select group of folks know, but for those of us who have been around for a while, *hack doesn't really fall into that bucket. That said, the point of the article is that the genre supposedly defies easy explanation; offering a definition would be somewhat contrary to that point.

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[Rysc]

Except for "hack and slash" none of those have any relation to roguelikes. In fact it's ridiculously hard to define roguelikes briefly, which is part of why they're still called roguelikee.

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[Rysc]

Is it technically permitted for someone to read Slashdot and not know what Rogue is?

I'll define Roguelike for you: "You have died. Would you like to play again?" There's no other definition which is short and adequate to summarize the roguelike experience.

(If you're at a loss here the answer is YES.)

Re:wtf is roguelike?

[Darinbob]

True, a main feature of Rogue like games is that winning is exceedingly rare. I played all through college and never won, and the number of "total winners" was very small on the computer I played on. The originals (plus hack) had features where a save game was just an extended pause; you could not copy the save file as a check point in case you died, if you died you lost your saved game. You'd often lose within minutes of starting if you got unlucky.

So it was a lot like solitaire in many ways. You didn't play to win, you played just to waste time and see how far you could get.

Monkey Island?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it considered roguelike?

Re:Monkey Island?

[Hork_Monkey]

No, but you fight like a cow.

This is a SPAM submission

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Its a dupe from an earlier submission that was not deemed fit to become a story

http://games.slashdot.org/submission/1543364/Roguelikes-The-Misnamed-Genre

So its actually someone writing a story and then spamming the slashdot submission to get it in here.

Sadly it's not better then the last time this sad story was submitted - can it please die - don't comment please.

Re:This is a SPAM submission

[spong]

I agree, strikes me as shameless self-promotion in a target-rich environment... Downloading as I type this...

Re:This is a SPAM submission

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the heads up; I'll make sure I don't RTFA.

Re:This is a SPAM submission

[ZorbaTHut]

That's odd - I only submitted it once, to the best of my knowledge, but I was having browser trouble at the time so something funky might have happened. However, I can guarantee that if it got submitted twice, they were both at roughly the same time.

Are you sure that's not just what Slashdot does when a story is submitted?

Re:This is a SPAM submission

[tsm_sf]

The guy wrote a reasonably interesting article on his own personal blog and submitted it to /. twice.

I'm failing to see why you're so butthurt over this.

"Fucking hard", RPG?

[no known priors]

The first thought that came to mind was "fucking hard". The next was RPG (that standa for "role playing game", not a term from a FPS that starts with "rocket").

Someone asked if Diablo is a "roguelike". Well, Yes? No.

The "roguelike" that I've played the most of is Nethack. Even when cheating outrageously (save scumming, fiddling with bones files, all the tricks in the book), I still can't win. It's just too fucking hard! But, I've played a lot of other RPGs (e.g. Exile and Avernum from Spiderweb Software), which are winnable.

Then again, Dwarf Fortress isn't exactly an RPG.

Maybe we need to stop putting everything into little boxes?

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[daid303]

I enjoyed the Doom roguelike much more then nethack, it's easier to play (less options/buttons) but still a very good game.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Shikaku]

Nethack

hard

No. It's actually not that hard. Most games tell you to attack everything headfirst. 2 important tips:
1. Don't ever melee more than 1 enemy unless you are 100% certain you can take them all. Narrow corridors and wands are your friend.
2. http://nethackwiki.com/ specifically http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Identification learn to do this

You can practice in explorer mode by typing capital X. Get to the point where you don't die much at all.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[bmo]

>It's just too fucking hard!

I think the "giant's drink" game in Ender's Game is nethack.

I could be wrong. But I've never seen the balrog so I can't say that the balrog is /not/ the giant.

--
BMO

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Sheesh, God forbid anyone actually try to play the game as it was intended, rather than use every bit of fun-draining information available on the net to make the game into an 'achievement' instead of 'fun'.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Vintermann]

Nethack isn't really intended to be winnable without spoilers. DCSS is, though, but still a good deal of the fun is talking about it, exchanging strategies and ideas.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, his point 1 was valid. Then again, I thought it was pretty much covered under the first two letters of RPG. If your character is an idiot who rushes headlong into combat with numerous foes, then yes, your character will die. If your character has half a brain, they will remember everything they've heard about the dungeon being dangerous, realize that adventurers far more skilled than themselves have died, and show just a little caution.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[mcvos]

Roguelikes don't have anywhere near enough roleplaying (none whatsoever, generally) to be RPGs. They're basically simple hack & slash games, but what makes them interesting is the tactical problem solving. You encounter a monster, swarm of monsters or other situation that's just too hard to overcome by your usual methods, so you need to think of something clever. You need to think, and you need time to think (which you don't have in an action game).

This is something all true roguelikes (nethack, moria, angband, adom) have in common. They are incredibly challenging and almost impossible to win. (I only managed to finish adom once through outrageous save scumming.) They require thinking and creativity. They need to be turn based and have a ridiculous number of options. They have to be fucking hard. It's about overcoming the challenges, not about experiencing some story (because there is none).

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

NetHack is perfectly winnable without spoilers. Most players don't realize there's explore mode and wizard mode always available to you. So you can try stuff without needing to sacrifice hours of gameplay. On the other hand Crawl is intended to be played without spoilers, and sure, it gives you a lot of in-game info. But then, it is mostly about learning when to fight and when to flee. After inevitable misjudgement of an unfamiliar enemy resulting in death, you're bound to start the game completely anew.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Abstrackt]

Some of us like to research and plan how we play our games, kind of a meta-game, the thrill is in imagining all the possibilities. To that end, the Nethack devs actually did a good job of anticipating silly things people would try to do (e.g. "That is a potion bottle, not a Klein bottle!" when attempting to dip a potion into itself).

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Hatta]

Nethack is absolutely beatable. If you're already cheating, go ahead and read the spoilers. Memorize them. For every way you can die in Nethack, there's a way to avoid it. Learn to avoid crises before they happen. If you're not 100% sure something is safe, don't do it.

Once you figure out how to stay alive long enough to piece together most of an ascension kit, the rest of the game is pretty straightforward.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Defenestrar]

Without any sort of spoiler, how many people do you suppose actually independently discovered how to properly complete the invocation? Nicking the amulet, ascending, and sacrificing it are all reasonably obvious steps. But learning the steps to [spoiler alert]open the vibrating square[/spoiler alert] even in wizard or explore mode is not even close to trivial.

I don't remember the list of what hints are from fortune cookies and the oracle, but I have a feeling you'd go through a lot of cookies even if the ritual is spelled out.

Personally, I think learning how to cheat is part of the fun. Sure there's ways of completely spoiling the game but "spoiling" is a relative term - for example: I suppose some people might enjoy a dungeon crawl while being invincible and wielding an unlimited number of death wands or extinction scrolls, but I would not (well, the novelty would wear off quickly anyway). If I decide to play a round with some cheating, I mostly am just looking for a little edge - consulting the wiki, perhaps an early wish, or a restored "save" from a RNG generated YAAD (but not a YASD - you earn those) just enough of something to change the game from frustrating to fun. I bet some people would consider playing the tiled version to be cheating even :) While playing Nethack, I've died a lot, cheated a little, and only ascended once - but I had plenty of fun.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Hatta]

Of course rogue-likes have a story. It's just that you write the story as you play, and it's different every time.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[mcvos]

It's a pretty lousy story, though.

"I met a goblin and I killed it. Then I met an orc and I killed it. Then I saw a troll and I ran away. My dog got killed."

If that's a story, then there's no game that doesn't have a story. Maybe nearly dying and escaping from a deadly situation is dramatic enough for a story, but the same could be said about any game where you snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

Roguelikes don't have anywhere near enough roleplaying (none whatsoever, generally) to be RPGs.

Most "RPG"s don't either. The whole set of jRPGs have little in the way of roleplaying; the general pattern is that you follow the one story line and similarly linear side quests, and the "RPG" notation comes from the fact that the battle system is ultimately derived from Dungeons and Dragons.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[ais523]

There's a 1/19 chance that the Oracle, if paid enough for a major consultation, will give a hint about the invocation ritual specific enough that the correct sequence would be discovered in two or three tries, if not first time. I don't consider that to be particularly sufficient, but if you play enough to even get to that point in the game unspoiled, you'll likely have heard the consultation in question by then. (Disclaimer: I'm working on my own fork of NetHack because official development seems to be unlikely to ever produce a new version, and in that, identified items have viewable descriptions, which, for the invocation artifacts, spell out the ritual pretty precisely.)

On the other hand, I find the game to be more fun spoiled than unspoiled. Quite a lot of the interest in NetHack comes from figuring out how to do something in particular (even if it's just surviving in a particular situation); the more spoiled you are, the more information you have in order to come up with an interesting plan.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can second the "Really Fucking Hard" idea. I've been playing ADOM off and on for over 10 years and only finally managed to beat it last year after ALOT of save/backup/die/restorebackup action. Fantastic game though.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[mcvos]

I totally agree. I tend to call computer RPGs "CRPGs" to distungish them from real RPGs, but the name still contains the word "roleplaying", which rarely plays much of a role in those games.

There are exceptions, mind you. In Planescape: Torment, the entire story revolves around you, who you are, who you were, and what you're going to do about it. Great roleplaying potential (pointless though it seems to roleplay alone with a computer). The Witcher featured lots of hard choices that define where you stand in the world. KotOR 2 has a very interesting approach with questions about the past, including stuff you did in the past (not part of the game), where the game doesn't really care what you answer, but you as a player do. For a long time I was convinced that there's simply no such thing as "computer roleplaying", but now I'm not so sure anymore.

There are others that at least scratch the surface of what roleplaying should be about. And in fact, some of these games go a lot deeper into who your character is and what his motivations are than most of my "real" pen&paper roleplaying sessions (which aren't quite as satisfying as I wish they are, and I'm sure they could be).

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Omestes]

I'm a huge fan of Tome4 (Tales of the something-something).

I'm sure a lot of die-hard fans will get annoyed though, since it predominately tiled graphics and not text. And has a somewhat fixed map/structure with large randomly generated dungeons. There are different death options too, with hardcore being the most roguelike of them (perma-death, barring some hard to get items), but you can also have limited lives. I like it since it bring lots of modern conventions to the genre, and makes them a bit less opaque. Its also very nice because the stats say that most characters never clear the first boss.

I have nothing against upgrading the genre, personally.

Stonesoup is pretty damn good as well. As is Desktop Dungeons, though I'm not sure if thats actually a roguelike, I think it is, but I'm sure the hardcore among us will disagree.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Rysc]

I disagree. It is entirely possible to win nethack without ever reading a guide or cheating, it just requires repetition. I know these day's it's considered horrifically bad if you can't win a game the first time you play through it but, thankfully, this poison has not spread to most roguelikes. Go, play, die. Keep learning, keep repeating until you understand what to do and what not to do and can survive to the end.

If you didn't want to play that kind of game I can recommend a number of fluffy web games with just enough difficulty to require you to sometimes pause before you click a button.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

So my friend is playing Slash'em and whoring out an alter for all it's worth. She gets some weapon, a pet hell hound, and then... a spoon. She get's Houchu. The artifact spoon. She has no idea what to do with it. But this is Super Lots of Added Stuff Hack (Extended Magic), you can experiment in all sorts of ways. She tries to wield it and smacks down a jackal, badly. She tries to eat it, invoke it, apply it, draws in the dirt with it, drops it on things, drops things on it, tries dipping it in potions. Nothing. She has this gift from god that seems like a complete red herring. (which happens when your god is XOM, but not in slash'em). Eventually she tries throwing it at walls and doors. Well, she's goes to throw it at an open door (hey, you never know with the dev team), and she doesn't see that her yappy little pet hell hound get in the way. The spoon hits the dog and EXPLODES dealing a ludicrous amount of damage. Like 9999 damage. The dog had 32. The spoon is gone too. My friends says she just sat there in disbelief for a solid minute before cursing the game and soldiering on. Good times.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I have this tourist going. I get lucky. Really lucky. I wasn't that good of a player, and didn't know all of the cheap things you can do to survive. But this tourist somehow manages to survive past the suck stage, gets whisperfeet speed boots and Mjollnir. He has a nice compliment of wands and rings, like regeneration and sustenance, and he's going strong. He gets to the deepest I had ever been. Better then all that had come before him. This is like level 12-20, everyone's a newbie at some point. He finds a tin on the ground, hey, it's spinach! His strength isn't maxed out yet so of course he eats it. Did I mention he had a ring of sustenance? He's having a hard time getting it down... Do you want to continue? I barely thought about the risk as I wanted that extra strength.
So yeah... He choked to death. He stayed at the #1 slot for a long time before he was dethroned.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I'm playing spriggan enchanter stabbers. There's a great feeling you get when you tip-toe up to a named sleeping elder dragon and one-shot it in it's sleep. I swear you must be shoving the full blade into the eyeball. Followed by the hilt, hand, arm, and shoulder. And then stirring. So anyway, I've got a fresh one whose stabbing skill isn't all that much. I see my very first ogre right around the corner. I tip-toe up, easy peasy, and slit the fucker's throat. Well the only problem is he doesn't die. He turns around and slaps me with a giant spiked club, killing me instantly. An instant counter-kill. From full health to negative before I could blink. I'm angry at the game for a little while. But up on cooler reflection, when I saw the ogre, knowing my stabbing was low, I should have simply walked away. There's an important life lesson there about biting off more then you can chew.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[geminidomino]

"I met a goblin and I killed it. Then I met an orc and I killed it. Then I saw a troll and I ran away. My dog got killed."

Go back to the Country Music Channel!

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

obvious troll is obvious

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Vintermann]

I did not say it was completely impossible to win nethack without spoilers. Obviously, it isn't - though it's worth noting that there is no record of it happening, ever, and nethack's been around for a long time.

I said that nethack isn't really intended to be winnable without spoilers, in other words, that winnability without spoilers has not been a significant priority for the dev team. It has been an important priority for the Crawl team, and by far most roguelikes care more about it than nethack. Few roguelikes have as cavalier in adding features you're never going to find out about without spoilers.
It even seems this has been deliberate: winning nethack is about "hacks", finding exploits. The deliberate decision to keep pudding farming in the game, for instance, is strong evidence of this. Such hacks are also basically what makes conduct games possible: Combine enough exploit tricks, and you can win the game without ever eating food, or ever killing a monster personally. Some conducts are abstaining from the more obvious and/or powerful tricks, but still you have no chance at them unless you know about the game's more counterintuitive features.

By comparison, in Crawl, the difficulty is strategic - where to go, when and how to spend your limited resources. All features that reward keeping a webpage of spoilers open, or even a scrap paper of notes, have been systematically pruned: If you need to track it, the game tracks it for you. If you need to know, the game tells you. Do vault guards see invisible? Why yes, they do, you can just look at them to find out rather than look at a spoiler, or die trying to find out. You can work out the things you need to know to win on your own, without spoilers, but still the game is fiendishly difficult.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Vintermann]

Nethack is theoretically winnable without spoilers. It has yet to happen, so I think I'm justified in saying it's not intended to be.

> After inevitable misjudgement of an unfamiliar enemy resulting in death, you're bound to start the game completely anew.

After playing crawl for a short while, you'll quickly learn to treat unfamiliar enemies with the utmost respect :) Of course, that paranoia comes back to bite you, you'll get further but then you're going to die from running out of consumables (strength potions, wands, etc.) in face of the ever-increasing challenges. Learning when to fight and flee is important, but that alone won't win you the game.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Vintermann]

I want to like ToME4, but it's kind of frustrating. It's a bit too slow for my taste - you go through lots and lots of levels of none too challenging monsters, and then you're level ... 3. And then you go down another stair, meet not Bill the Troll but that Orc Reaver guy, throw everything you got at him and still die. Dying is OK, the problem is it takes too long time, and unlike Crawl the process of getting there isn't much fun. Yeah, I guess I could farm the levels above that orc reaver guy for a while (an option Crawl doesn't give you), but that would be just more boring grind time before the actual fun stuff.

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that if you play Nethack in reverse it's a story about an emissary from god going deep into the earth to lock away the amulet of Yendor and granting life to a host of homicidal fanatics on his way out?

Re:"Fucking hard", RPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have beaten Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup on a server once, that means no save scumming. These game are extremely hard, but not near impossible as there are people that play on akrasiac.org who have 100+ wins. Tactics and knowing how to handle different situations is key critical to this game.

So what's the problem with the name 'roguelike'?

[Zwets]

'roguelike' simply means 'like rogue'. I think the poster has a problem with the term 'dungeon crawler', which indeed gives dungeons (and crawling :-) a little too much credit. But 'roguelike' seems like a perfect, if unhelpful, name for the genre.

Re:Seriously?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Dude. Chillax. People need to know this stuff. Otherwise they could get eaten by a grue.

Perhaps you don't know what a true roguelike is...

[dirtyhippie]

If you're not searching for the amulet of yendor, it doesn't count. It all started going wrong with nethack...

In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody knows, much less cares, what "roguelikes" are.

Re:In other news

[maxwell demon]

Nobody knows, much less cares, what "roguelikes" are.

Well, obviously "roguelike" means like a rogue.
Of course a "roguelike game" might also be a game acting like this. :-)

That's not what roguelikes are!

[Urkki]

Roguelikes are games that are like Rogue both in game play and in appearance (IMHO graphical tiles and even isometric or 3rd person 3D are allowed, as long as it doesn't affect game play, though purists may disagree).

The summary tries to imply there's some deeper meaning behind the word, but really, there isn't.

Re:I love playing text games....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but that is how he coded it -- he pulled it out of his ass. And if you think how big and ugly tetris.sh would be.... I think it's as plausible an origin story for goatse-man as we're likely to get.

OPs link doesn't know what it means.

[Anonymous Coward]

They really don't. ASCII art is NOT a requirement to be Roguelike, not in the slightest.
It is a common feature since it is easy to implement, but hell, you can have any game in ASCII that isn't a roguelike.
I seriously wish people would get this stupid idea out their heads already. ASCII does not define Roguelike, and vice versa.

Also, games can have multiple, separate game modes.
A game isn't restricted to one genre.
If it was, that would make "X game collection" series of games impossible to mark since they usually contain 5, possibly 10 different game types. (and not the stupid blanket term genres that most of the idiot industry use at that)
Games are quite capable of containing multiple genres of gameplay in one.
It isn't hard, you just do this, "genre(s): dungeon-crawler / roguelike"

Roguelike is very well-defined. You just never google'd the definition and read the many articles on it, particularly the one anyone can contribute to, and is kept well, the Wikipedia article on it.
Also, for the love of god, do not liken games to movies. It sickens me.
Movies are terribly abusive with genres as it is.
Mind you, games are slowly catching up, FPS, RPG, sports, puzzler, platformer, strategy.
Most games these days are thrown under those 6. Action / Adventure is barely even used these days anymore. It used to be the go-to genre for everything actiony and adventurey, now FPS is.

We don't need another genre. We need to educate people that there are other genres, not the silly blanket terms like Action Adventure, Strategy, RPG, etc.
Those 3 can be split in to probably 3 times that number alone.
Here is a start: Video Game Genres list

Re:OPs link doesn't know what it means.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia is for people who obsessively categorize and list everything.

When you get down to it, most of the articles are just obsessive lists of trivia associated with the topic, rather than actual articles. Anything that's not strongly grounded in the hard sciences (and even that seems not to be immune) eventually becomes a list of trivia (or, as that heading is now known, "in popular culture"), starting to accumulate Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or some other infantile shit) factoids, until 2/3 of the article is now either examples, lists, or Buffy trivia, no matter what the original article was supposed to be about.

And God forbid that you remove that important Buffy factoid! It will cause a shitstorm, because you're REMOVING INFORMATION FROM THE SUM OF ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fucking aspies.

Posted anonymous to protect my life against the wikiaddicts, who would probably try to kill me for criticizing it.

Re:OPs link doesn't know what it means.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're basing your opinion of Wikipedia on XKCD instead of actually using it?

I've never seen a Buffy "factoid" on Wikipedia. In fact, in the Wiki entry for factoid, there is no mention of Buffy whatsoever, and, while you may be offended by the several list elements that appear after the introduction, the introduction does sum up "factoids" nicely.

You can have multiplayer angband.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pause isn't the same as turn-based at all. In a real roguelike, you get infinite time to consider your next move. And then you press a key and get exactly the move you wanted. This is the main reason why you can't have a multiplayer roguelike.

MAngband is a multiplayer version of Angband. If I remember correctly, it uses a tick system to handle actions. It's not quite real-time, so you have time to think, but not much. Everyone playing performs their actions and they all happen at the next tick.

The time between actions is configurable, so if you're hosting your own for friends you can make the game faster or slower, whichever is more comfortable to you. If you're accustomed to taking a long time between actions you'll have to readjust, but it works well enough and is fun without ruining the roguelike feel.

It's not about the players silly..

[Anonymous Coward]

...it's about having fun writing pure, algorithmic code with few user-interface distractions.

Most hobby coding projects get bogged down in user-interface or graphics issues.
Writing a Roguelike from scratch is like writing your own kernel without having to worry about all that stuff.

For those of us who like to tinker with systems-like code, roguelikes are as good as it gets.
You can re-invent a different wheel every day: AI, line-of-sight, maze-generation, maze-traversal, ...

Not even a mention of the new release

[KiloByte]

It seems to be an attempt to promote links to his blog, yeah.

The submitter didn't even bother including such details like yesterday's release of a new major version of Dungeon Crawl with a crapload of goodies. This is what I'd promote. Ok, ok, I do happen to be a member of the devteam so I might be a little biased too :p

Re:Not even a mention of the new release

[ZorbaTHut]

It wasn't really a major part of the story - I had a focused thing to talk about, and a new release of DCSS wasn't on-subject.

Congratulations on the release, though :)

Re:member of the dev team

[TaoPhoenix]

Hiya, Member of the Devteam!

What is Stone Soup and why did you folks make "DCSS" sound a lot like "DeCSS?"

category of one

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked on an online database of games for many years. I came to believe that there can never be a completely satisfying system of genre and style classifications. Any such system is abstract and static, while the realm of game development is organic and evolutionary. I believe that an Aristotelian approach, which tries to classify individual games by what they have in common, produces more useful results than a Platonic approach, which tries to fit each individual game into some immutable category from on-high. That way, your genres and styles evolve along with each new game you classify within them.

No matter how you set up your system, however, there will be games that seem to belong in more than one category. There are "Role-Playing Games" that also have elements of adventure, "Adventure" games with lots of puzzle-solving, "Strategy" games with action sequences, and so on. Is GTA3 a "Driving" game, a "Shooter," an "Action Adventure," or what? Should the Sims be classified as a "Simulation" game or as a "Strategy" game?

As to this discussion, I agree that there is really only one game that is 100% Roguelike, and that is Rogue. Others may be Roguelike, to some degree, but not completely. I think it can be a useful term, just as terms such as Civilization-like or Zelda-like could be useful descriptors to people who have played those games, but I don't think there's much use in trying to define Roguelike as a genre or style unto itself. A category of one is seldom useful in any system of classification.

Confused with TV show?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't think of any good reason why "roguelike" should imply the qualities you describe. The description you gave sounds like you might actually be thinking of, not a video game genre, but a TV show called Macgyver.

Re:Perhaps you don't know what a true roguelike is

[Anonymous Coward]

But in NetHack you are searching for the Amulet of Yendor!?

Fanfic?

[Anonymous Coward]

[quote] using an unpredictable toolkit with complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges.'"[/quote]

I know nothing about this genre, but the summary makes me think it's fantasy-based Macgyver fanfic.

Re:Perhaps you don't know what a true roguelike is

[EricWright]

Why? Because simply finding the AoY deep in a dungeon is good enough? Let's not make it more difficult by requiring you to actually ESCAPE the pits of hell with the amulet. /sarcasm

I played plenty of rogue, nethack, moria, angband and even a little bit of larn back in the day. Nethack was far and away the best of them, balancing fear of insta-death, inside jokes, variability of game-play, etc. However, moria and angband were solid games in their own right. I particularly enjoyed how easy it was to fiddle with angband without actually touching code. All items/monsters/etc. were defined in plain-text config files.

Other genres

[lyinhart]

You know when Spelunky is described as a roguelike, there's some serious issues with genre naming. Defining is a roguelike is pretty simple. Dungeon crawler - saving = roguelike. It's certainly a far better definition than "...an unpredictable toolkit with complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges." Um... you could say the same about platform games or almost any other genre of game for that matter when you first play them. And the "toolkit" itself isn't unpredictable - even if the items are randomly generated, their behavior and properties are certainly defined.

Other genres are similarly confusing. Like RPG video games - they are actually strategy games. It's the fantasy settings they have that has lead them to be lumped in with real RPGs like D&D and its ilk. We needn't complicate matters further by coming up with vague definitions and proceeding to pat ourselves on the back as we confuse the heck out of everyone.

Re:Other genres

[Jaqenn]

I would heartily call Spelunky a roguelike. Random levels, frequent death, and a learning style where you don't get taught what something does before you interact with it the first time.

For the record, Toejam & Earl count too.

Re:Other genres

[Anonymous Coward]

"- saving"? You could save the game in the original Rogue.

What roguelikes are

[cgomezr]

That the term "roguelike" is vague is a well-known fact, but there are definitions around much better than the one in the article: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=What_a_roguelike_is

The distinguishing features of roguelikes are random world generation, permadeath, complexity of item interaction, RPG-like stats, killing scores of monsters, grid-based motion, turn-based mechanics and arguably ASCII interface. A game may be a roguelike and not have all of these, but if it has, say, all but two, it is undoubtedly a roguelike.

The reasoning in the article that leads into calling "Super Smash Bros Brawl" a roguelike is just ludicrous. Of course there is no limit to how one can redefine a term, but one should not expect to be taken seriously after saying that every animal with four paws should be called a dog. Saying that "Super Smash Bros Brawl" is a roguelike because it is complex in some way goes against the common use of the word. The author of the article should find a different name for what he means.

Re:What roguelikes are

[ZorbaTHut]

Did you read the part of the article where I say that I need a different name for this new concept? :P

Re:What roguelikes are

[cgomezr]

I did, but then the problem is not with the term "roguelike" or its name. You want to define a totally different concept, which is orthogonal to "roguelikeness". So the term "roguelike" is not a misnomer.

Re:What roguelikes are

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you understand why people are telling you that you have no idea what a roguelike really is?

Re:What roguelikes are

[ZorbaTHut]

I disagree. I'm defining a concept which, I believe, is what the people playing "roguelikes" are often actually in search of. It's the thing that ties Desktop Dungeons and Spelunky to the Roguelike world, and there are people claiming that those count as roguelikes. By the normal definition, they're not even close. Obviously, there's some disagreement about definitions.

What I'm saying is that my definition gets at the heart of the roguelike - the gameplay mechanics that make a roguelike familiar. I'm saying that, if you took a turn-based strategy game or a real-time strategy game or even an FPS, and built it around my definition, then people who enjoy roguelikes would find it strangely familiar.

Re:What roguelikes are

[ZorbaTHut]

Yeah, it's because they haven't read the article and noticed the point where I say that we need a new term.

Or, possibly, it's because they're *so* invested in their game of choice having all the classic roguelike trappings that they haven't stepped back and looked at why they enjoy the game, and not merely what the game tends to include.

We're talking about a bunch of people who have played classic FPSes, insisting that any new FPS needs a shotgun, because every FPS they've ever played has involved a shotgun and they believe a shotgun is absolutely mandatory to make a first-person shooter. But it isn't. You could make an FPS without a shotgun, and you could make something that felt like a roguelike without basing it off Rogue.

I have a better name

[joelville]

ToeJam&Earllike

That's funny

[Black Parrot]

Roguelikes are about using an unpredictable toolkit with complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges

I thought rouguelikes were for proving I had more of Teh Nerd than the next guy.

Re:That's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. All of the other definitions are just descriptions of Nethack.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's posted to the games section. If you can't figure out that the games section deals primarily with discussions about games then you're going to be way out of your league if you ever do happen across a science article. If you don't like games, log in and hide games in your preferences, sheesh.

Um, No

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that you think they are misnamed leads me to believe you don't really know what a Roguelike is. Freakin' kids.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong game.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares what *you* come to Slashdot for? This is exactly what *I* come to Slashdot for.

There's a new strategy!

[Hydian]

I've never had my pawns mine metal in chess before.

Re:There's a new strategy!

[Rizimar]

What? If you don't have your pawns mine metal, how are you going to enhance the shielding for your rooks, let alone construct steel crucifixes which are required to create churches to manufacture bishops? You must have an interesting chess strategy.

Re:There's a new strategy!

[Omestes]

Someone should really make an RTS ruleset for Chess now.

I remember, as a kid, me and a friend tried to combine Monopoly with Risk just so we could have "troops in the Baltic". It eventually spanned a full notebook, and got so convoluted that even we couldn't keep track of the rules.

Everytime you passed Go, you could collect up to 5 troops, or collect $200. When landing on a space you own you could place up to 5 troops, and you could have only 5 troops follow your piece. On landing on an occupied space (one with troops on it), you could either pay the price, or attack using Risk rules, if you win and kill all the troops there the owning player cedes the place and it remains "scorched earth" for a turn, and is available for purchase the next turn. Railroads can be used to move to any other owned railroad. It got complicated when we added supply lines and attrition. If you had a space with an army, but occupied no other tiles within a certain range you lost troops per turn due to supply lines, unless your within x tiles of an owned railroad.

Someone should totally give Chess the same treatment... "I'm not moving this pawn, it needs more lumber to I can built another rook (which, in turn, can spawn more pawns)"

Re:There's a new strategy!

[Rizimar]

I have to say, that Monopoly + Risk game sounds pretty awesome. You should implement it as an online game.

Re:There's a new strategy!

[ZzzzSleep]

While not exactly what you're asking for, have you tried Knightmare Chess?

Re:Nethack on handhelds

[Machtyn]

I have been rather disappointed with the lack of rogue-likes on handheld devices such as the Palm. Blackberry, Android, et al. The early reasoning was that there was not enough memory and processing power on a handheld to handle nethack. But that can't be true anymore today. I mean nethack is an old game, having been played on 486s. Handhelds today have a lot more power than that and more memory than my first 486's hard drive (especially when the handheld is paired with a flash memory card).

I've tried Dweller, and it's a nice, short, easily winnable, small feature set, but random levels game. I've tried some of the others and they aren't even up to Dweller's feature set. How hard would it really be to port nethack to these devices? (Hard enough I suppose, as it hasn't been done yet.)

Re:Seriously?

[Ackmo]

He's hallucinating.

Re:Nethack on handhelds

[bhaak1]

There are several ports of NetHack on Android and iPhone. But in any case just search in the market places / app stores of your device. Don't expect an official version from the DevTeam.

But especially with NetHack the amount of keys normally used is a real problem for a good port. NetHack's interface isn't easily translated on a hand held device.

You might want to try POWDER for a NetHack inspired roguelike that has been designed specifically for running on consoles. Which made it much easier to port to handhelds and smartphones.

Roguelike? Huh?

[bickle]

Is it really a misnamed genre if no one has heard of it?

Nailing down the second argument of LIKE

[tepples]

"Like" implies "more or less". Don't you know SQL?

In SQL, LIKE is an infix operator that takes a pattern as its second argument. To continue your analogy, the article is about nailing down the pattern of what kinds of interactions are "like Rogue".

Re:Nethack on handhelds

[tehcyder]

I have been rather disappointed with the lack of rogue-likes on handheld devices such as the Palm. Blackberry, Android, et al. The early reasoning was that there was not enough memory and processing power on a handheld to handle nethack. But that can't be true anymore today. I mean nethack is an old game, having been played on 486s. Handhelds today have a lot more power than that and more memory than my first 486's hard drive (especially when the handheld is paired with a flash memory card). I've tried Dweller, and it's a nice, short, easily winnable, small feature set, but random levels game. I've tried some of the others and they aren't even up to Dweller's feature set. How hard would it really be to port nethack to these devices? (Hard enough I suppose, as it hasn't been done yet.)

Isn't the fact that handheld devices don't have proper (or any but software) keyboards somewhat of a drawback?

Cataclysm, an apocalyptic horror roguelike

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to take a moment to plug Cataclysm -- a zombie apocalypse survival horror roguelike. It features zombies, triffids, graboids, giant ants, hellmouths, giant bees, infectious fungus-man swarms, and even C.H.U.D.s in the subways!
  Loot the stores for supplies, but leave some time to board up windows, dig pits and trenches, and lay some traps before you go to sleep!

  It's got excellent combat dynamics, fun character generation, bionic upgrades, and NPC characters have just been reintroduced. The code's in heavy flux right now, but it's playable already; just remember to save often in case of crashes.

https://github.com/Whales/Cataclysm
http://cataclysmrl.blogspot.com/

(No, I am not associated with the project, though I've sent off a couple patches.)

Re:Nethack on handhelds

[kevinmenzel]

I dunno, the keyboard on my Blackberry is pretty darned decent...

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyday there seems to be another worthless post pondering something simple as symantics.

Re:Who cares?

[ConceptJunkie]

Or spelling. :-/

Re:Nethack on handhelds

[soupforare]

The best mobile port of nethack I've played is for the DS. Requires a flash cart, but it's really nice. Much better than the wince and ios ports, imo.
The DS is a pretty good platform for roguelikes. Shiren the Wanderer, Izuna, and the Pokemon Mystery Dungeons are commercial roguelikes. Shiren's probably closest to the form.

Making up your own definition...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't just redefine a word how you see fit, especially when it contrasts with how pretty much everyone else uses the term.

"Roguelike" means a game like Rogue. There is much debate about how similar to Rogue it should be to be called a Roguelike, but your definition is so broad as to be meaningless.

I consider a true roguelike to be a game that fits a few criteria:

• turn-based gameplay
• tile-based
• heavy use of randomness/procedural generation
• playing as a single character in a large, dangerous, unknown environment
• permadeath

I guarantee that people will disagree with parts of this, but it's not a radical redefinition of the term like you are attempting. Notice I never said anything about ASCII graphics--that is a traditional part of the genre, but not required, IMO. After all, plenty of the most popular roguelikes have graphical modes--surely they don't cease being a roguelike when that mode is enabled?

Also notice that this excludes games like Diablo, which is heavily inspired by roguelikes, but I consider "Diablo-like" as its own genre. I also don't consider Dwarf Fortress to be a true roguelike. DF is far more than a roguelike, although it is similar in many ways, and you could argue that it contains a roguelike (adventure mode).

Re:Nethack on handhelds

[ericrost]

The hardware keyboard on my LG Ally makes playing the android port of nethack rather pleasant. Both the GP and you have need of purchasing cluefullness.

rogue

[FoolishOwl]

Play rogue

If you play another game, and it seems a lot like rogue, then it's roguelike.

Re:Nethack on handhelds

[Vintermann]

> Don't expect an official version from the DevTeam.

Actually, don't expect anything from the nethack dev team. The last release was on 8. December 2003. It's as close to stone dead as a project that famous can reasonably get.

Re:Nethack on handhelds

[bhaak1]

> Don't expect an official version from the DevTeam.

Actually, don't expect anything from the nethack dev team. The last release was on 8. December 2003. It's as close to stone dead as a project that famous can reasonably get.

You don't have to tell me :-)

That's why I started that NetHack fork that is linked in my sig.

Re:Nethack on handhelds

[Vintermann]

Need to turn on sigs again.