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Roguelikes: the Misnamed Genre

Posted by Soulskill on from the addictive-frustration dept.

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.'"

2 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. "Roguelike" means "like Rogue" by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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).

  2. Re:Nethack by Per+Abrahamsen · · Score: 5, Insightful

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