8 ms·

Roguelikes: The Misnamed Genre (2011)

52 points by luu 5y ago

magicalhippo 5y ago
Never knew the term roguelike or similar until way after the fact, but I really enjoyed Castle of the Winds[1] when I stumbled upon it as a kid. Countless hours sunk into that game, and now I want to take another stab... Thankfully the author has released it into the public domain[2], awesome! Now to see if I can get it running on 64-bit Windows[3], it being a 16-bit Windows game. [1]: https://www.mobygames.com/game/castle-of-the-winds https://www.mobygames.com/game/castle-of-the-winds [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_the_Winds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_the_Winds [3]: https://github.com/otya128/winevdm https://github.com/otya128/winevdm
- swsieber 5y ago
  I ran it in the past couple of years, maybe with DOSBox; I can't remember exactly.
  - magicalhippo 5y ago
    Ah yes, that might work too, thanks for the reminder!
ldd 5y ago
As someone who is an indie dev loosely making a roguelite (that is more Slay the spire/ pokemon nuzlocke combo) I purposely avoid calling it a roguelike anywhere because some people are obsessively focused on keeping its traditional definition, which is probably linked to the Berlin interpretation definition of a roguelike. I think in general the term is changing, and in terms of how languages naturally shift it is an interesting case, but I also do not envy the author for the e-mails they are about to get.
algurithm 5y ago
I don't think there is a need to change the usual interpretation established through the genre's past. There is a bigger audience inspired by the genre and some of them seek to appropriate the roguelike word for another role which better suits their views, but should they be allowed that? Deviating the meaning of words is not a good habit of our society, especially when not even done for a noble cause. If the intent behind is better conformity to a wider audience, then it is a tyranny of the majority. Inevitably, it leads to a simple question: what is wrong with just accepting the "Roguelite" word and living on with it?
thriftwy 5y ago
ADOM is an advanced classical roguelike, very playable for beginners and available on Steam now with decent GUI. Can't recommend it more.
morelisp 5y ago
Thought this was going to be an article about Beneath Apple Manor. Oh well.
edem 5y ago
It is not misnamed, it is perfectly fine. You just have to do more research or...you know do something else.
hooby 5y ago
> I’ve defined a new genre of game. What do you think it should be called? My well-meaning tip: concentrate on building your game, and just forget about the genre. In the case that your game has so much impact that it actually becomes the basis of a new genre, the new genre will probably be named after your game, which is great. But if your game does not end up spawning it's very own genre - well then there will be no need for a name. Honestly, don't waste any thought and effort on the genre, but pour all of that into your game instead.
matrixcubed 5y ago
There’s a pretty clear (and intentionally vague) definition used by the greater 7DRL community. https://blog.roguetemple.com/what-is-a-traditional-roguelike/ https://blog.roguetemple.com/what-is-a-traditional-roguelike... 1. Permanent consequences 2. Character centric 3. Procedural content 4. Turn-based Check out some of the entries from past years, along with their “how roguelike is it?” scoring. https://itch.io/jam/7drl-challenge-2021 https://itch.io/jam/7drl-challenge-2021
- bhaak 5y ago
  Your link discusses classic or traditional roguelikes. OP's blog post is from 10 years so I can't blame them. But today "Roguelike" is usually something slightly different. A roguelike these days is a game that has (at least some) procedurally generated content and permadeath without meta progression. A roguelike purist would call these roguelites.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    I would be more forgiving to hand over the term "roguelike" to roguelites and other PGC-based games if I had a term to replace it. The problem is - what's a better term than "roguelike" to mean "more like Rogue than the other things which are (sometimes only very slightly) like Rogue"?
    - bhaak 5y ago
      What's wrong with "classical roguelike" or "traditional roguelike"? Definitions change over time, often you can't do anything about that. But I would expect those two not to deviate too much in the future (hopefully).
      - morelisp 5y ago
        "Classical roguelike" usually means "direct descendent of Hack/Angband/Larn/Moria" (Rogue itself produced very few descendents, I think). "Traditional" excludes several interesting categories which are uncontroversially roguelikes: games not part of the current 'body of practice' like Dungeon Hack; radically different PCG approaches like 868-HACK; and the Japanese design lineage in e.g. Shiren or Baroque which uses a very different approach to progression dynamics than today's roguelites.
hypertele-Xii 5y ago
> The term “Roguelike” is not a well-defined term. Ctrl+F "Berlin" no results. The author didn't even discover the Berlin interpretation in their research, which suggests there was none. Roguelike is a well-defined term, though there are multiple competing definitions. This article presents none of them. > Roguelikes are about complexity. Oh ok, I guess all RTS and 4X games are roguelikes now. Let's also include flight simulators and management tycoon games because they're complex too, right? > Roguelikes are about using an unpredictable toolkit with complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges. I.e. roguelikes are video games. Somebody call the press. > Super Smash Bros Brawl multiplayer is like a Roguelike! Yeah we've pretty much just abandoned all definitions at this point. All games are now roguelikes, according to this article.
- DoItToMe81 5y ago
  Yeah, I'm with you on this one. "Roguelike" was, for more than twenty years, essentially defined as a game that is turn based and grid based in the vein of Rogue, centered around traversing procgen levels and usually with permadeath and dungeon crawling as key focuses. It wasn't until game journalism sites and their fans started going "um... roglik is when hard..." that use shifted, and the current use describes basically nothing. I think the Berlin interpretation puts too much weight on periphery aspects of the genre, but this shit is just ridiculous. If you use the standards these people do to define Roguelike with anything more popular, it becomes plainly obvious how absurd it is. You could call the Warhammer 40K tabletop a Doomlike because it has chainsaws, demons, the ability to be customized, scifi guns, the firing of said scifi guns and space marines, despite not even being a first person shooter or a video game.
  - prox 5y ago
    I started playing Project Zomboid, and for me as I learned it, Zomboid is rogue-like. Not sure if that is true, but I always equate it with permadeath. Not really sure how I picked that up.
    - Der_Einzige 5y ago
awakeasleep 5y ago
Not much logic or observation in this journal rant, but the fact that it reached the HN frontpage shows a (welcome!) renewed interest in the ideas of the roguelike game. If you are interested in the topic a quick google will yeild lots of good articles. I found this list of elements useful to organize my thinking: Rogue Like: High-value factors 1. Random environment generation 2. Permadeath 3. Turn-based 4. Grid-based 5. Non-modal 6. Complexity 7. Resource management 8. Hack n slash 9. Exploration or discovery Low-value factors 1. Single-player character 2. Monsters are similar to players 3. Tactical challenge 4. ASCII display 5. Dungeons 6. Numbers Via: https://www.nerdmuch.com/roguelike-vs-roguelite/ https://www.nerdmuch.com/roguelike-vs-roguelite/
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  Hm, considering X-COM, the only missing important piece is 5. Non-modal. Hack-n-slash and grid/turn-based are not inherent to the X-COM genre, and are broken only in geoscape anyway. There's also a bunch of low-value factors there: 2. Enemies are similar to players, 3. Tactical challenge, and perhaps 6. Numbers. This is something that hasn't clicked for me before.
  - usrusr 5y ago
    There's a "restart mission" button however which is the antithesis of permadeath. An optional "iron man" mode (I think recent games utilizing the XCOM brand have it?) is something that deserves to be discussed separately.
    - rhn_mk1 5y ago
      I think this restart ability counts the same way as saving/loading. I have forgotten that "iron man" mode is not universal, but indeed, some games are not balanced enough by default to play without saving and loading (UFO: Aftermath would have been very nice otherwise). So yes, the save/load facility is rather normal and a departure from roguelikes.
      - 5y ago
vmception 5y ago
Groundhog Day with an RNG edit: is that LiveJournal? Its still around and hijacks the back button?
GuB-42 5y ago
For me, roguelike = procedural generation + permadeath, that's all. Some people call these games "roguelites", and have a much stricter definition for "roguelike", but I still consider it one of the best defined genre. Procedural generation and permadeath are a perfect combination. Permadeath is a powerful mechanic, but by itself, it is very frustrating, because if you die, it forces you start over and redo everything you have done. Procedural generation solves the problem by making every game unique. We probably can add a form of character building and progression to the definition, otherwise death would be meaningless and it would be more like a traditional arcade game. There are other aspects to traditional roguelikes: turn-based, dungeon crawlers, resource management, hack-and-slash, etc... But none of these aspect synergize as well as procedural generation and permadeath, that's why I consider it the true defining feature.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  Same. People yelling about how it needs to be a turn based dungeon crawling RPG to count as a roguelike are like those dudes still mad about how eSports aren’t even actual sports.
- slightwinder 5y ago
  > For me, roguelike = procedural generation + permadeath So any game with a random map lacking a progress-system is rogue-like? Like Civilization, Sim City, Star Craft? No limit on the genre or type of interaction? > Some people call these games "roguelites" Rogue-lites have a progress-system that grows outside the sessions. So every run has meaning beyond the run itself.
  - usrusr 5y ago
    None of those have permadeath even close to their core, and a tacked-on "ironman mode" does not change that. Star craft was even centered around an authored linear story campaign.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    > Like Civilization, Sim City, Star Craft? Those games don't have permadeath. Permadeath means you can't recover from mistakes by loading a save file.
nihilest 5y ago
The article is highly misleading. Emergent gameplay is a key component but not the only component of roguelikes. There's already a term for what the article proposes. It's called systemic games. See this talk by Aleissia Laidacker [1] and also this fantastic GMTK video on systemic games [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gelpn4mksXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gelpn4mksXQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnpAAX9CkIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnpAAX9CkIc
- causi 5y ago
  It's a shame "being so wrong as to be misinformation" is not a flaggable offense under HN guidelines.

52 points by luu 5y ago

Never knew the term roguelike or similar until way after the fact, but I really enjoyed Castle of the Winds[1] when I stumbled upon it as a kid. Countless hours sunk into that game, and now I want to take another stab... Thankfully the author has released it into the public domain[2], awesome! Now to see if I can get it running on 64-bit Windows[3], it being a 16-bit Windows game. [1]: https://www.mobygames.com/game/castle-of-the-winds https://www.mobygames.com/game/castle-of-the-winds [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_the_Winds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_the_Winds [3]: https://github.com/otya128/winevdm https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

swsieber 5y ago
I ran it in the past couple of years, maybe with DOSBox; I can't remember exactly.
- magicalhippo 5y ago
  Ah yes, that might work too, thanks for the reminder!

ldd 5y ago

As someone who is an indie dev loosely making a roguelite (that is more Slay the spire/ pokemon nuzlocke combo) I purposely avoid calling it a roguelike anywhere because some people are obsessively focused on keeping its traditional definition, which is probably linked to the Berlin interpretation definition of a roguelike. I think in general the term is changing, and in terms of how languages naturally shift it is an interesting case, but I also do not envy the author for the e-mails they are about to get.

algurithm 5y ago

I don't think there is a need to change the usual interpretation established through the genre's past. There is a bigger audience inspired by the genre and some of them seek to appropriate the roguelike word for another role which better suits their views, but should they be allowed that? Deviating the meaning of words is not a good habit of our society, especially when not even done for a noble cause. If the intent behind is better conformity to a wider audience, then it is a tyranny of the majority. Inevitably, it leads to a simple question: what is wrong with just accepting the "Roguelite" word and living on with it?

thriftwy 5y ago

ADOM is an advanced classical roguelike, very playable for beginners and available on Steam now with decent GUI. Can't recommend it more.

morelisp 5y ago

Thought this was going to be an article about Beneath Apple Manor. Oh well.

edem 5y ago

It is not misnamed, it is perfectly fine. You just have to do more research or...you know do something else.

hooby 5y ago

> I’ve defined a new genre of game. What do you think it should be called? My well-meaning tip: concentrate on building your game, and just forget about the genre. In the case that your game has so much impact that it actually becomes the basis of a new genre, the new genre will probably be named after your game, which is great. But if your game does not end up spawning it's very own genre - well then there will be no need for a name. Honestly, don't waste any thought and effort on the genre, but pour all of that into your game instead.

matrixcubed 5y ago

There’s a pretty clear (and intentionally vague) definition used by the greater 7DRL community. https://blog.roguetemple.com/what-is-a-traditional-roguelike/ https://blog.roguetemple.com/what-is-a-traditional-roguelike... 1. Permanent consequences 2. Character centric 3. Procedural content 4. Turn-based Check out some of the entries from past years, along with their “how roguelike is it?” scoring. https://itch.io/jam/7drl-challenge-2021 https://itch.io/jam/7drl-challenge-2021

bhaak 5y ago
Your link discusses classic or traditional roguelikes. OP's blog post is from 10 years so I can't blame them. But today "Roguelike" is usually something slightly different. A roguelike these days is a game that has (at least some) procedurally generated content and permadeath without meta progression. A roguelike purist would call these roguelites.
- morelisp 5y ago
  I would be more forgiving to hand over the term "roguelike" to roguelites and other PGC-based games if I had a term to replace it. The problem is - what's a better term than "roguelike" to mean "more like Rogue than the other things which are (sometimes only very slightly) like Rogue"?
  - bhaak 5y ago
    What's wrong with "classical roguelike" or "traditional roguelike"? Definitions change over time, often you can't do anything about that. But I would expect those two not to deviate too much in the future (hopefully).
    - morelisp 5y ago
      "Classical roguelike" usually means "direct descendent of Hack/Angband/Larn/Moria" (Rogue itself produced very few descendents, I think). "Traditional" excludes several interesting categories which are uncontroversially roguelikes: games not part of the current 'body of practice' like Dungeon Hack; radically different PCG approaches like 868-HACK; and the Japanese design lineage in e.g. Shiren or Baroque which uses a very different approach to progression dynamics than today's roguelites.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago

> The term “Roguelike” is not a well-defined term. Ctrl+F "Berlin" no results. The author didn't even discover the Berlin interpretation in their research, which suggests there was none. Roguelike is a well-defined term, though there are multiple competing definitions. This article presents none of them. > Roguelikes are about complexity. Oh ok, I guess all RTS and 4X games are roguelikes now. Let's also include flight simulators and management tycoon games because they're complex too, right? > Roguelikes are about using an unpredictable toolkit with complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges. I.e. roguelikes are video games. Somebody call the press. > Super Smash Bros Brawl multiplayer is like a Roguelike! Yeah we've pretty much just abandoned all definitions at this point. All games are now roguelikes, according to this article.

DoItToMe81 5y ago
Yeah, I'm with you on this one. "Roguelike" was, for more than twenty years, essentially defined as a game that is turn based and grid based in the vein of Rogue, centered around traversing procgen levels and usually with permadeath and dungeon crawling as key focuses. It wasn't until game journalism sites and their fans started going "um... roglik is when hard..." that use shifted, and the current use describes basically nothing. I think the Berlin interpretation puts too much weight on periphery aspects of the genre, but this shit is just ridiculous. If you use the standards these people do to define Roguelike with anything more popular, it becomes plainly obvious how absurd it is. You could call the Warhammer 40K tabletop a Doomlike because it has chainsaws, demons, the ability to be customized, scifi guns, the firing of said scifi guns and space marines, despite not even being a first person shooter or a video game.
- prox 5y ago
  I started playing Project Zomboid, and for me as I learned it, Zomboid is rogue-like. Not sure if that is true, but I always equate it with permadeath. Not really sure how I picked that up.
  - Der_Einzige 5y ago

awakeasleep 5y ago

Not much logic or observation in this journal rant, but the fact that it reached the HN frontpage shows a (welcome!) renewed interest in the ideas of the roguelike game. If you are interested in the topic a quick google will yeild lots of good articles. I found this list of elements useful to organize my thinking: Rogue Like: High-value factors 1. Random environment generation 2. Permadeath 3. Turn-based 4. Grid-based 5. Non-modal 6. Complexity 7. Resource management 8. Hack n slash 9. Exploration or discovery Low-value factors 1. Single-player character 2. Monsters are similar to players 3. Tactical challenge 4. ASCII display 5. Dungeons 6. Numbers Via: https://www.nerdmuch.com/roguelike-vs-roguelite/ https://www.nerdmuch.com/roguelike-vs-roguelite/

rhn_mk1 5y ago
Hm, considering X-COM, the only missing important piece is 5. Non-modal. Hack-n-slash and grid/turn-based are not inherent to the X-COM genre, and are broken only in geoscape anyway. There's also a bunch of low-value factors there: 2. Enemies are similar to players, 3. Tactical challenge, and perhaps 6. Numbers. This is something that hasn't clicked for me before.
- usrusr 5y ago
  There's a "restart mission" button however which is the antithesis of permadeath. An optional "iron man" mode (I think recent games utilizing the XCOM brand have it?) is something that deserves to be discussed separately.
  - rhn_mk1 5y ago
    I think this restart ability counts the same way as saving/loading. I have forgotten that "iron man" mode is not universal, but indeed, some games are not balanced enough by default to play without saving and loading (UFO: Aftermath would have been very nice otherwise). So yes, the save/load facility is rather normal and a departure from roguelikes.
    - 5y ago

vmception 5y ago

Groundhog Day with an RNG edit: is that LiveJournal? Its still around and hijacks the back button?

GuB-42 5y ago

For me, roguelike = procedural generation + permadeath, that's all. Some people call these games "roguelites", and have a much stricter definition for "roguelike", but I still consider it one of the best defined genre. Procedural generation and permadeath are a perfect combination. Permadeath is a powerful mechanic, but by itself, it is very frustrating, because if you die, it forces you start over and redo everything you have done. Procedural generation solves the problem by making every game unique. We probably can add a form of character building and progression to the definition, otherwise death would be meaningless and it would be more like a traditional arcade game. There are other aspects to traditional roguelikes: turn-based, dungeon crawlers, resource management, hack-and-slash, etc... But none of these aspect synergize as well as procedural generation and permadeath, that's why I consider it the true defining feature.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
Same. People yelling about how it needs to be a turn based dungeon crawling RPG to count as a roguelike are like those dudes still mad about how eSports aren’t even actual sports.
slightwinder 5y ago
> For me, roguelike = procedural generation + permadeath So any game with a random map lacking a progress-system is rogue-like? Like Civilization, Sim City, Star Craft? No limit on the genre or type of interaction? > Some people call these games "roguelites" Rogue-lites have a progress-system that grows outside the sessions. So every run has meaning beyond the run itself.
- usrusr 5y ago
  None of those have permadeath even close to their core, and a tacked-on "ironman mode" does not change that. Star craft was even centered around an authored linear story campaign.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  > Like Civilization, Sim City, Star Craft? Those games don't have permadeath. Permadeath means you can't recover from mistakes by loading a save file.

nihilest 5y ago

The article is highly misleading. Emergent gameplay is a key component but not the only component of roguelikes. There's already a term for what the article proposes. It's called systemic games. See this talk by Aleissia Laidacker [1] and also this fantastic GMTK video on systemic games [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gelpn4mksXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gelpn4mksXQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnpAAX9CkIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnpAAX9CkIc

causi 5y ago
It's a shame "being so wrong as to be misinformation" is not a flaggable offense under HN guidelines.