A Discussion on Roguelikes

[schild]

Here's the old definition, from here:

High Value Factors

Random Environment Generation
The game world and its contents are mostly procedurally generated with each game.

Permafailure (including Permadeath)
You must pay for your mistakes and choices, sometimes at the cost of life. Restoring games is discouraged and only provided to allow continuing split games.

Turn Based Interaction
All entities in the game world are queued in an endless loop and get their independant discrete turn to act.

Single command set
You can access all game commands from any place into the game. There are no artificial restrictions on what actions are available in a given game situation

Freedom
Your game is not directly enrouted into a linear progression. You get to choose what you want to do, how and when

Middle Value Factors

Discovery mechanics
You must research or find out the nature and usages of the items into the world.

Single player
You control a lone character

Lots of content
There are lots of monsters, items, locations.

Complex non-trivial world and object interactions
Items have non-trivial usages, you can do some things which may not be obvious for the item nature.

Low Value Factors

High ramped difficulty
The game gets hard very quick and you are very unlikely to win until you have acquired enough experience.

Monsters are players
The nature of the monsters is similar to the player, they can have equipment, player-like stats, artificial intelligence and are subject to the same world rules.

Character-based display
The player interacts with the world via a user interface based on character symbols that represent UI artifacts and entities into the world.

Hack and Slash
Gameplay involves around killing things and acquiring treasure

And here's the new definition from September 2008 from IRDC:

=Preamble==
This definition of "Roguelike" was created at the International Roguelike Development Conference 2008 and is the product of a discussion between all who attended. The definition at http://www.roguetemple.com/roguelike-definition/  was used as the starting point for the discussions.

Most factors are newly phrased, new factors have been added, some factors have been removed.
==General Principles==
"Roguelike" refers to a genre, not merely "like-Rogue".  The genre is represented by its canon.  The canon for Roguelikes is ADOM, Angband, Crawl, Nethack, and Rogue.

This list can be used to determine how roguelike a game is.  Missing some points does not mean the game is not a roguelike.  Likewise, possessing some points does not mean the game is a roguelike.

The purpose of the definition is for the roguelike community to better understand what the community is studying.  It is not to place constraints on developers or games.

==High value factors==

====Random environment generation====
The game world is randomly generated in a way that increases replayability. Appearance and placement of items is random. Appearance of monsters is fixed, their placement is random. Fixed content (plots or puzzles or vaults) removes randomness.

====Permadeath====
You are not expected to win the game with your first character.  You start over from the first level when you die.  (It is possible to save games but the savefile is deleted upon loading.)  The random environment makes this enjoyable rather than punishing.

====Turn-based====
Each command corresponds to a single action/movement.  The game is not sensitive to time, you can take your time to choose your action.

====Grid-based====
The world is represented by a uniform grid of tiles.  Monsters (and the player) take up one tile, regardless of size.

====Non-modal====
Movement, battle and other actions take place in the same mode.  Every action should be available at any point of the game. Violations to this are ADOM's overworld or Angand's and Crawl's shops.

====Complexity====
The game has enough complexity to allow several solutions to common goals. This is obtained by providing enough item/monster and item/item interactions and is strongly connected to having just one mode.

====Resource management====
You have to manage your limited resources (e.g. food, healing potions) and find uses for the resources you receive.

====Hack'n'slash====
Even though there can be much more to the game, killing lots of monsters is a very important part of a roguelike.  The game is player- vs-world: there are no monster/monster relations (like enmities, or
diplomacy).

====Exploration and discovery====
The game requires careful exploration of the dungeon levels and discovery of the usage of unidentified items. This has to be done anew every time the player starts a new game.

==Low value factors==

====Single player character====
The player controls a single character. The game is player-centric, the world is viewed through that one character and that character's death is the end of the game.

====Monsters are similar to players====
Rules that apply to the player apply to monsters as well. They have inventories, equipment, use items, cast spells etc.

====Tactical challenge====
You have to learn about the tactics before you can make any significant progress.  This process repeats itself, i.e. early game knowledge is not enough to beat the late game.  (Due to random environments and permanent death, roguelikes are challenging to new players.)

The game's focus is on providing tactical challenges (as opposed to strategically working on the big picture, or solving puzzles).

====ASCII display====
The traditional display for roguelikes is to represent the tiled world by ASCII characters.

====Dungeons====
Roguelikes contain dungeons, such as levels composed of rooms and corridors.

====Numbers====
The numbers used to describe the character (hit points, attributes etc.) are deliberately shown.

I agree and disagree with some of these. Particularly things like the ASCII bit, shouldn't even have been included. The majority of meaningful Roguelike development comes out of Japan, and they're all graphical these days. Also, it would seem western development is obsessed with keeping it complex. I have further thoughts, but I'll say that the sweet spot is somewhere in-between Diablo and Rogue. Talk about Roguelikes!

[Cylus]

If you're looking for one, a friend here at work has been playing Shiren a bunch during lunch and has been recommending it *shrugs*

[schild]

Fushigi no Dungeon (Shiren, Mystery Dungeon) is the big one from Japan, yea. No, I'm not looking for that, i'm looking for a discussion on roguelikes. I know all the current ones available.

[lamaros]

I would consider my roguelike keys to be:

random
permafailure
turn based
freedom (a part of which is non-modal)
player vs world
complexity

the other things mentioned I think arise out of a combination of these aspects, they don't exist along side them.

for example, when you have a player vs world game which is turn based and complex then you're not really building the best platform for a co-op game. nor are you making the best platform for an easy game when it's random, permafailure and complex.

[Righ]

They decided this in Berlin. Probably in a bunker, while wearing jackboots.

[schild]

They decided this in Berlin. Probably in a bunker, while wearing jackboots.

Yes, I feel roguelikes can be unfair as well. Apparently, just like nazis.

[rattran]

Rogue-likes should not just HARD but I think UNFAIR is fine too. Having the random factors line up so that you die horribly on level 1 of the dungeon happened in Rogue, Hack, Nethack, Larn and others. And it's still fun.

The only fushigi no dungeon I've played was on the DS, and I wasn't that impressed vs Nethack. Sure, ascii/tiles suck, but few barely animated sprites aren't really better.


Rat the Tourist was killed by Mr Asidonhopo for shoplifting on level 16 of the Dungeon

[Zaljerem]

Rogue-likes should not just HARD but I think UNFAIR is fine too. Having the random factors line up so that you die horribly on level 1 of the dungeon happened in Rogue, Hack, Nethack, Larn and others. And it's still fun.

Rat the Tourist was killed by Mr Asidonhopo for shoplifting on level 16 of the Dungeon

I still play Rogue. To this day. Probably always will. Dwarf Fortress has been kicking my ass lately. But hey, there's a whole thread about that.

[ezrast]

I love me some ADoM. Haven't had the chance to sink much time into roguelikes recently though, as I've primarily been computing on my laptop that has no numpad, and trying to play without just isn't the same. Can't wait until my shiny new PC gets here and I can put all that processing horsepower to work displaying ASCII graphics.

Well, right after I'm done with Fallout 3 and Devil May Cry 4...

[Trippy]

Why is Single player character a low value factor? Was there a Rogue-like game of the same era as Rogue/Hack that was multi-character?

[Sky]

They decided this in Berlin. Probably in a bunker, while wearing jackboots.

You know they make good decisions there.

[schild]

Why is Single player character a low value factor? Was there a Rogue-like game of the same era as Rogue/Hack that was multi-character?

That was odd to me also. I can only assume that games like Etrian Odyssey made them want to add more characters, or it's something one of the Rogue "leaders" in the community wanted to be able to fudge for a future revision of their roguelike.

[Mrbloodworth]

I must not have the implied knowledge this topic assumes the reader has. Whats "Roguelikes", and why is it being defined?

[Murgos]

I must not have the implied knowledge this topic assumes the reader has. Whats "Roguelikes", and why is it being defined?

A game that shares a similarity to Rogue is a Roguelike.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(computer_game)

The first program I ever typed into a computer was a version of Rogue for the Atari 800 that I got out of a magazine when I was around 12.

Edit: Also, Telengard, a Roguelike, was the first game I ever purchased.  Diablo (the original) is generally considered a decedent of Rogue if not actually a Roguelike.

[Ard]

Why is Single player character a low value factor? Was there a Rogue-like game of the same era as Rogue/Hack that was multi-character?

That was odd to me also. I can only assume that games like Etrian Odyssey made them want to add more characters, or it's something one of the Rogue "leaders" in the community wanted to be able to fudge for a future revision of their roguelike.

Etrian Odyssey isn't a roguelike though.  There's nothing random about it.  It's a Wizardy throwback.  The more recent Izuna and Pokemon roguelikes (god, why do I know these exist... and worse, why do I own them?) have multiple characters though, and they work fine.

[Yegolev]

Why is Single player character a low value factor? Was there a Rogue-like game of the same era as Rogue/Hack that was multi-character?

That was odd to me also. I can only assume that games like Etrian Odyssey made them want to add more characters, or it's something one of the Rogue "leaders" in the community wanted to be able to fudge for a future revision of their roguelike.

I don't see much difference in controlling a group versus controlling one person.  In the case of EO, since it was mentioned, the player controls the entire group as an entity while in the dungeon and I say that is functionally similar to controlling one charater.  The main difference would only be that you get four moves per turn instead of one.  It's still Entity vs Entity in the end.

[schild]

Why is Single player character a low value factor? Was there a Rogue-like game of the same era as Rogue/Hack that was multi-character?

That was odd to me also. I can only assume that games like Etrian Odyssey made them want to add more characters, or it's something one of the Rogue "leaders" in the community wanted to be able to fudge for a future revision of their roguelike.

Etrian Odyssey isn't a roguelike though.  There's nothing random about it.  It's a Wizardy throwback.  The more recent Izuna and Pokemon roguelikes (god, why do I know these exist... and worse, why do I own them?) have multiple characters though, and they work fine.

Chunsoft makes a shitload of money off Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

Also, I didn't say Etrian Odyssey was a roguelike. I'm saying it's the type of game a neckbeardy rogue developer would play and would in turn be influenced by. Heh. Sorry for the confusion.

[Yegolev]

I'd also like to say that I'm somewhat excited by the circumstances that I imagine led to the creation of this thread.

[Tebonas]

Problem with multiple character is that the paradigm would break down. One action per turn and one game mode doesn't allow for multiple characters in the party. You would need a separate combat mode to give them their orders.

[Mrbloodworth]

I must not have the implied knowledge this topic assumes the reader has. Whats "Roguelikes", and why is it being defined?

A game that shares a similarity to Rogue is a Roguelike.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(computer_game)

The first program I ever typed into a computer was a version of Rogue for the Atari 800 that I got out of a magazine when I was around 12.

Edit: Also, Telengard, a Roguelike, was the first game I ever purchased.  Diablo (the original) is generally considered a decedent of Rogue if not actually a Roguelike.

Thank you. So, why would i play a game bound by this definition, rather than say...something not? I guess i am struggling to see why this is appealing in the modern day.

[Ard]

Chunsoft makes a shitload of money off Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

Also, I didn't say Etrian Odyssey was a roguelike. I'm saying it's the type of game a neckbeardy rogue developer would play and would in turn be influenced by. Heh. Sorry for the confusion.

Fair enough, I wasn't sure how Etrian Odyssey was even entering the picture there.  And as far as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon goes... sigh... it was the only possible way they could have gotten me to buy a pokemon game, and they went and made it.  Dammit.

That said, I still prefer ADOM as my king of the roguelike pile, personally.  It's a really fine line mix of static plus random elements that works better for me than Nethack ever did.

Problem with multiple character is that the paradigm would break down. One action per turn and one game mode doesn't allow for multiple characters in the party. You would need a separate combat mode to give them their orders.

On this, this is what Pokemon Mystery Dungeon does, or at least the more recent sequel.  I thankfully never heard of the series until then.  You directly control one character, and the other 3 follow you around and act as a slightly more intelligent AI.  It does work, but it's a bit awkward at time.  Izuna 2 (possibly also 1, but I haven't played it) also has a second character that follows you around, but you pretty much only use them to swap control to as the main character as needed, as far as I remember.

[Tebonas]

Like the pets in Nethack and Companions in Adom. But directly controlling more characters would be a problem. You can shout commands in Roguelikes as well, it just would be your action for that turn.

[tazelbain]

Thank you. So, why would i play a game bound by this definition, rather than say...something not? I guess i am struggling to see why this is appealing in the modern day.

The same reason you play any game.  This is just the fans of a sub-genre trying to articulate what they feel typifies the sub-genre.

[Murgos]

Thank you. So, why would i play a game bound by this definition, rather than say...something not? I guess i am struggling to see why this is appealing in the modern day.

Why should you play something that fits the strict definition of 'Roguelike' that these uber-nerds concocted over something else?

Metaphysics? I guess you could make an argument that a Roguelike is a game that is 'natural' to a computer, having been one of the first successful attempts.

Purity?   Lots of people will tell you that there is a depth of play and open-endedness to Roguelikes that comes from from sticking very closely to the definition above.  There certainly can be something very addictive about a good Roguelike.  There are old nerds around who have been playing NetHack for a very long time.

Experience?  Like I said, they have been around a long time and they have gone through a lot of iterating and polishing. Lots of modern games have bits and pieces of ideas that come down through the Roguelikes, particularly MMO's.  You might be able to even draw a pretty straight line from Rogue and Roguelikes to MUD's to MMOs.  It's actually a really short line to go from Roguelikes to the Ultima Series to Ultima Online.

[sidereal]

My roguelike experience is almost exclusively Angband (and variants, primarily OAnband and Zangband.  Plus I wrote partyband, which gives you a part of NPCs that follow you around using the Angband Bot AI code).  Plus a little ADOM.  I hated Nethack.

I think the best part of the experience was the discovery element, especially with Randarts (random artifacts) turned on.  You never knew going in what sort of items you'd come up with, and they led to massively different experiences.  It wasn't just Diablo's crappy "is it +1 or +5?  Does it do Frost damage or lightning damage?" variety.  Having telepathy made a huge difference in the gameplay. 

[schild]

I think the best part of the experience was the discovery element, especially with Randarts (random artifacts) turned on.  You never knew going in what sort of items you'd come up with, and they led to massively different experiences.  It wasn't just Diablo's crappy "is it +1 or +5?  Does it do Frost damage or lightning damage?" variety.  Having telepathy made a huge difference in the gameplay. 

What did random artifacts do exactly?

[sidereal]

It randomly generated the artifacts.

Edit, for nondouchey explication! :

Angband was a Tolkien-themed roguelike and vanilla Angband used pregenerated Tolkieny artifacts like the Phial of Galadriel, which had certain combinations of something like 50 potential powers plus statistical bonuses.  Randart code replaces the vanilla artifacts and just generates artifacts.  So you might pick up a dagger and use it constructively for a while, then find out later that it can teleport you, gives you infravision, does triple damage to demons, and lets you cast fireball once every thousand turns.

Or you might get a dagger that drops your strength to 3!  Who knows?

[schild]

That's not quite what I meant. How random, give ranges, examples, details. Plz.

[sidereal]

I edited in the more detail above, to break the conversational flow.
Wiki here.

The code's actually here if you want to dig through it.

[Yegolev]

Izuna 2 (possibly also 1, but I haven't played it) also has a second character that follows you around, but you pretty much only use them to swap control to as the main character as needed, as far as I remember.

Correct, Izuna 2 had two characters at a time in the dungeon, but you swapped them out and could only take one action per turn.

[Ard]

Edit:  Oh god, this was a big long drunken ramble.  Slap me next time I do a stream of conciousness style monologue.  The takeaway is that the newer games do not have the emergent gameplay styles of the older ones.

All I really know is, so far, the Japanese and all their graphical roguelikes have a LONG ways to go to have the depth of the ascii ones of yore.  The lack of depth kinda makes me sad.  Even Azure Dreams, for the PS1, way back, with it's shitty dating sim tacked on, has more depth than any of the mystery dungeon games I've played.  The big caveat here is that I haven't played Shiren, but I've played most of the rest, or at least, their sequels, which should be more refined than the originals anyhow.

Pokemon sorta has it, in that there are a bajillion of them, and they all have different abilities, but it's pokemon.  There's no real item diversity or dungeon diversity though.  Even the shops in the dungeons kinda felt tacked on and pointless.

Baroque kinda came close, but it gets repetitive, and a bit tedious.  Not to mention that dying in that game can really screw you up, since while dying is part of it, it's also part of character progression, and dying with important gear on you can basically fuck you and set you back hours of real time if you're not careful, although it starts getting really hard to die once you get powered up.

Nothing really comes down to the game changing shit that you run into randomly in Nethack or ADOM, or most of the other ascii roguelikes.  You can't really trip across something that completely changes your gameplay in most of the modern ones.  Shit, running into certain pieces of equipment (enchanted whips, adamantine shields, any wish items, most artifacts, etc) in ADOM immediately can bring a halt to my current game plan, because they massively raise your survivability if you find and use one. 

Diablo 1 had this effect with certain unique weapons.  Diablo 2, not so much, because you tended to quickly out-level anything you found's usefulness well before you were done playing.  Yes, there are exceptions, some things people used for 'endgame' builds, but they tended to be the targets of the build, versus something you found randomly that changed your gameplay.

Anyhow, I guess I'm just trying to say that Japan has a long ways to go to catch up to the older games, and what made them fun, and a different game to play every single time you picked it up.

[Yegolev]

I submit that most people desire consistent gameplay, and that is one of the reasons roguelikes remain a niche product.  Hell, they aren't even commercially viable.  Most people are also not accustomed to the idea that you will just outright die a lot in, say, Nethack and that is part of the fun.  Some people don't find that fun.  An average person would possibly get to level 2 and starve to death, at which point they will think "Jeez, this game sucks".  The modern expectation is of a difficulty ramp-up, with most games containing a tutorial of some sort.

You could put these sorts of game-changing items in but I think most people would complain that a wand of wishes "broke the game, made it too easy so I quit, they should have thought about that during QA" and so on.  These are real complaints I read in reviews of mainstream games.

[Ard]

You could put these sorts of game-changing items in but I think most people would complain that a wand of wishes "broke the game, made it too easy so I quit, they should have thought about that during QA" and so on.  These are real complaints I read in reviews of mainstream games.

Can't really argue with that at all.  I've never personally claimed that roguelikes were anything BUT niche.  The bigger issue is that the last wave of them haven't played into the niche, but have instead played towards attracting the mainstream, but in doing so, they watered it down so much that it's a mediocre jrpg instead of a good roguelike.  The worse part is, by doing this, they also change the perception of roguelikes, and the inadvertently remove the "oops, died, time to restart and see what I find this time" gameplay of the predecessors, which included all the utterly broken items and utterly overpowered monsters that you have to run away from screaming, that also caused the emergent gameplay style present in them.

These games are never going to be mainstream though, and the way they're going is a dead end, because they're mediocre and repetitive, having removed the actual tension and enjoyment.

[Ingmar]

Meh, I can't see EO and related JRPGish games as roguelikes. EO is a (hard) Wizardy-like.

[Sky]

The takeaway is that the newer games do not have the emergent gameplay styles of the older ones.

Civ4:FfH2 We were just talking about the emergent stuff in that game in the Merry Christmas... thread.