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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.'"

5 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Nethack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    So vi and emacs are roguelike?

  2. "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).

    1. Re:"Roguelike" means "like Rogue" by arkenian · · Score: 5, Informative

      "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....)

  3. This is a SPAM submission by a_n_d_e_r_s · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Just saying it like it are.
  4. 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.