I've never cared much for the berlin interpretation (it focuses too much on the specific mechanics rather than the more abstract design principles than one woul

I've never cared much for the berlin interpretation (it focuses too much on the specific mechanics rather than the more abstract design principles than one would naturally associate with a genre), but this article's definition definitely bends far too strongly into its abstractions... to the point that almost every game is defined under his new term, and games that no one would put together... are put together. IMO a roguelike's defining feature is the "fairness" of its simulation (most of the world's rules are equally applied to all its denizens.. though some may be more equal than others with custom spells/abilities/etc), in combination with the inevitable ADnD dungeon-crawling and RPG elements. The grid-based, turn-based, modality, procedural generation, etc of the berlin are too pointed to be relevant IMO. Though procedural generation is a little interesting because I feel like it inevitably falls out of any game targeting a "fair" simulation -- how much good is a hand-rolled map design if you can't also hand-design the mechanics and interactions with the entities in the map? So it naturally lends itself to ceding control over the world generation itself.. and of course if your rules are fair and sane enough that the player can use them with their uncontrolled and arbitrary strategies and combinations.. then they're probably good enough to randomly smash together by the machine. So the monsters gain their flexibility, and everything just works -- so why not. The only issue is leaving the AI flexible enough to deal with the fact. And permadeath kind of just falls out of the procedural generation mechanics as well Thus its not that roguelikes are an endless interaction with complexity.. its that the game-universe itself operates more closely to a proper simulation of the universe (not a detailed sim, mind you, but not a sim that simply revolves around the player(s) ala megaman), and complexity of the interactions are a natural outcome. And then differentiating between say a colony-sim (DF), a 4X and a roguelike is largely on the basis of the scale at which the player interacts with the simulation (colony, country, individual, respectively). [Note: you also have actual simulators, but they're clearly a different kind of interaction -- In DF the simulation is in the backseat, whereas in EURO TRUCK SIMULATOR 2 the simulation is the main point] Of course you could probably differentiate even more within that.. but there are so few games that actually make a real effort at any kind of "fair" simulation that the game name alone is sufficient. Which is also why Noita feels like it belongs with the other roguelikes, despite violating most of the berlin interpreation -- it implements a "fair" simulation. There's probably a better term for "fair".