Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Announcements => Other Announcements => Topic started by: Slash on August 29, 2010, 05:15:30 PM
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Recent developments of the Serial Killer Roguelike hoax (http://www.roguetemple.com/2010/08/29/the-serial-killer-roguelike-hoax/) make me wonder what's required to draw such massive attention; there are lots of other project around, with people working hard on them yet the developers commonly die of lack of "Feedback Points"... is it required to explore such a dark theme in order to gather response from people?
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Dark, no. Original, yes. The idea was a new one, so people flocked to it.
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Trailers that people think are well done also apparently help in conjunction with an eye-catching idea.
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The GTA/Criminal style of games will always be popular. Oddly enough, the original GTA was roguelike in spirit.
Seeing full fledged games like Rogue Survivor get less response than fantasy SK is pretty sad though.
Anyways, I heard way too many people say they wanted to start their own similar project, but it'd be way better if people collaborated instead of starting up 5 separate unfinished projects.
I'm trying to gather up the potential authors....
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=64931.0
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It's the same reason Grand Theft Auto and Dwarf Fortress are so popular; it's the open-ended, high-interactivity that gets people. People like trying things out to see what crazy, unexpected things happen.
Well, that is what I'd like to think, unless people are really so... disturbed? Is that the right word?
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is it required to explore such a dark theme in order to gather response from people?
Not really, but what's wrong with dark themes anyway? The gameplay violence has been a subject for about too long, but there is no evidence that playing violent games makes you more violent than you are as a human being. If there was a common effect I think we would be all in the streets attacking other people like zombies.
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Say what you will about the theme, but what he showed was very solid (albeit fake).
The game concept was very original and well thought-out. First of all, it was, as others pointed out, not just another orc slasher. The focus was in the right places, with legal status and psychosis being conventions in the forefront. It was very intuitive and didn't seem to have any convoluted details.
The DF-like combat notations were awesome, and, thinking back now, that's where it really started looking too good to be true. His combat notes were quite a bit better than DF's, in that they looked like a human wrote them line by line.
Another reason why this got feedback where others don't? It had a great youtube video showcasing gameplay. I don't think enough can be said about how good the video made it look. In this context, as I'm making my own roguelike, it's a kick in the ass to make one myself.
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The problem with the argument that roguelikes must be original to attract attention is that people often reject completely original roguelikes. In fact, most of the popular roguelikes are fantasy themed. And in general fantasy themed roguelikes do much better than more original themes. There have been lots of experimental roguelikes over the years, and practically none of them survived.
I myself developed a fairly original roguelike that was based on the dreams, but no one cared. There's also Privateer Ascii Sector, Triangle Wizard, Prospector, Gearhead 2, Unrealworld and MegamanRL to list a few. All of which used highly original ideas, yet did fairly poorly in terms of attracting an audience and starting discussion. Also, keep in mind that Serial Killer RL's ideas were not original. There are many TV shows, movies, books and comics based around serial killers. JTHM and Dexter are two very popular ones, American Psycho is another.
The only reason why this project received as much feedback as it did was because of how shocking it was. It was the shock value, along with the "decent" graphics that caused all of this discussion. Even the other fake roguelike, MnemonicRL didn't attract as much attention because it wasn't as shocking.
Honestly, I don't know what the secret to attracting decent attention to your roguelike is. It seems graphics play a large part, as does how shocking the roguelike is, but beyond that I have no idea. Even many roguelikes with good graphics have failed to attract much attention.
I would also like to suggest that perhaps how complete and complicated a game looks plays a factor. Serial Killer RL looked like a fairly complex game with a lot of features that looked very close to complete. Perhaps this had an impact, too?
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And in general fantasy themed roguelikes do much better than more original themes
Theme doesn't make the game better or worse itself.
There have been lots of experimental roguelikes over the years, and practically none of them survived.
They sucked. I guess the reason is that you need really more than just the theme in small 7DRL type roguelike.
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What happened with the Slasher RL certainly has made me readdress the direction, and content of the rogue-like I am developing. Apart from encoraging me to dump the D&D/middle-earth genre, and go for something different, it also has made me more aware how better text description can enhance the game experience. It also made me aware of the huge appeal of open-world structure games, like dwarf-fortress, and how integral this seems to be to the "modern" gameplay experience for many people.
Mostly it went to show me how much more work I need to do, and put in, before I can expect anything more than a cursorary interest from the gamers.
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I've also been surprised about the amount of feedback this project (hoax) has gotten. I suspect the theme has to do with it, since other game projects are advertised rather well, too, (maybe not here but in other game developers forums) and get much less attention.
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It's not all bad. I didn't know about this site before, and now I do! And I'm really interested in playing some Roguelikes. So at least you've gotten some positive traffic from all of this :)
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There's also Privateer Ascii Sector, Triangle Wizard, Prospector, Gearhead 2, Unrealworld and MegamanRL to list a few.
All of these except MegamanRL I'd consider to be fairly well known for roguelikes (I've heard about them being discussed quite often myself).
All of which used highly original ideas, yet did fairly poorly in terms of attracting an audience and starting discussion. Also, keep in mind that Serial Killer RL's ideas were not original. There are many TV shows, movies, books and comics based around serial killers. JTHM and Dexter are two very popular ones, American Psycho is another.
It doesn't have to be original across all mediums of human communication, it's enough to be original as a roguelike. To take one of your examples, Privateer is just "EliteRL"*.
Another example is DoomRL, which for a roguelike is quite original and is one of the most popular roguelikes to come out in recent years.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_%28video_game%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_%28video_game%29), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Commander:_Privateer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Commander:_Privateer).
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It's not all bad. I didn't know about this site before, and now I do! And I'm really interested in playing some Roguelikes. So at least you've gotten some positive traffic from all of this :)
Yeah, that's a really possitive outcome :) welcome!
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Another example is DoomRL, which for a roguelike is quite original and is one of the most popular roguelikes to come out in recent years.
Well, except for two minor things: it's not a roguelike and it's not original.
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It really was all about the Shock Value. Generate some fluffy discussions and there you go.
It was also playing into the hands of two very troll heavy topics: Games as Art - how far can and should games go, as well as the violent games discussion. If that game had seen the light of day and some game-repressive countries media found out about it, it would have just been another nail to the coffin. Think Australia or Germany where politics are very eager to banhammer games.
Concerning the support of games, I've tried to do so in the past. I went on advertising rampages for some Roguelikes, I tried to be as active as possible in the respective forums, intentionally bumped release threads on other sites with sometimes really stupid questions, just to get it back up at the top for folks to see the game release/update. But alas, a single person can't generate enough "feedback points" to keep projects alive. And lately I've lost all my drive as well: Why bother with feedback in a community where the status quo seems paramount?
As a player, roguelike projects often look dead to me. There's a release, some short aftermath if you're lucky and the project then goes silent for several years. You don't hear anything, not even rumors. It's kinda like the Developer(s) fell off the earth. I never know whether its finished, abandoned or simply takes its healthy time for progress. On the flipside, too much progress in too short a time puts me off trying a rl because it gives me the feeling that by the time I'm done downloading, it's already outdated. But luckily that's just me. I don't know how others feel about this.
About DoomRL:
Oh dear. There it goes again.
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Concerning the support of games, I've tried to do so in the past. I went on advertising rampages for some Roguelikes, I tried to be as active as possible in the respective forums, intentionally bumped release threads on other sites with sometimes really stupid questions, just to get it back up at the top for folks to see the game release/update. But alas, a single person can't generate enough "feedback points" to keep projects alive. And lately I've lost all my drive as well: Why bother with feedback in a community where the status quo seems paramount?
As a player, roguelike projects often look dead to me. There's a release, some short aftermath if you're lucky and the project then goes silent for several years. You don't hear anything, not even rumors. It's kinda like the Developer(s) fell off the earth. I never know whether its finished, abandoned or simply takes its healthy time for progress. On the flipside, too much progress in too short a time puts me off trying a rl because it gives me the feeling that by the time I'm done downloading, it's already outdated. But luckily that's just me. I don't know how others feel about this.
Hang in there! 8)
I will agree that a sense of liveliness is PARAMOUNT for moving things forward attaining/regaining/maintaining the spotlight on a given project.
Ultimately, as things continue to spiral down/chaotically ( :( ) on my end, I'm pretty sure that the "status quo" is just a thing to make use of when possible, but otherwise ignore---what matters is the absolute progress of moving forward and having something better/different than what came before it. There's no telling what may happen on a given day that can turn a situation on its head entirely, so approaching things earnestly and with vigor might as well be the thing to do.
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It's not about the theme; it's about the mechanics. Giving a game a unique theme is just slapping a new coat of paint on the same old thing. Sure, some paint colors are more attractive than others, but it's still just a coat of paint.
This hoax was the closest thing that the community has come to an open-ended "roguelike" game like Dwarf Fortress' "adventure mode", which is far from complete enough to stand on its own.
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I really think the point about having a good Youtube video should not be understated in this case. Lots of roguelikes get released all the time with long text descriptions of the features, or maybe just a link to download and play it. It's much easier for people to watch a video and see the unique features of a game than to look through all the text or go to the trouble of installing the game. Youtube videos generate hype very easily, and I guess this is something we developers should remember well when making new releases.
Of course we've seen this level of hype crop up before, without videos even. I guess there are other social aspects involved, even as banal as making a post on a weekend when a lot of people happen to be reading a forum. In this case the post at Bay12 really grabbed a huge number of people's attentions straight away. Also, similar to the Shockfrost craze we've seen before this was presented as an unfinished game with a lot of potential. Everyone was very quick to jump in with their own ideas and suggestions, which further fuelled the attention and hype the game was getting.
As for the theme itself... well, I think the fact that it could be so easily stated as "serial killer roguelike" is a good way for it to advertise itself. A lot of games can't be summed up so easily, nor can they summon up such a wealth of potentials from just three words. It's an relatively untapped theme, and the simplicity of the idea got people thinking down all sorts of routes. The hoaxer was obviously fairly clever in many of the ways in which he applied the idea in his video.
All-in-all it was a pretty good hoax! There's certainly several things to learn from it for presenting ideas in future :)
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I got stoked on this project because the idea of an urban roguelike is fascinating. I'm kind of sick of fantasy roguelikes (okay, only kind of) and this sounded ingenious. The video definitely helped too. What I want to know is, in the last thread, someone said it wasn't a hoax; his wife made him stop. Why did they say that?
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It's not all bad. I didn't know about this site before, and now I do! And I'm really interested in playing some Roguelikes. So at least you've gotten some positive traffic from all of this :)
Same.
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They sucked. I guess the reason is that you need really more than just the theme in small 7DRL type roguelike.
Ouch, that's a mean thing to say to all those aspiring developers. That's also a very relative feeling, they didn't objectively suck. For instance, I find many of them quite good and play them regularly.
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Elig, they sucked. Leave Krice alone :D
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Ouch, that's a mean thing to say to all those aspiring developers.
I'm talking about games, not developers. I can understand this matter when I look at my own games, especially Teemu. It's a roguelike type game (vaguely), but it sucks. It doesn't help to make it a better game if I advertise it everywhere. Luckily I have ideas how to improve the gameplay, so it's not over yet!
I think it's important to realize basic stuff like DoomRL not being a roguelike. This scene is infested with small game projects that don't even try to be anything like roguelikes. What is worse, players are bombarded with these games and continuous minor releases. It's like the great shareware boom, if you remember that time (you might be too young). Suddenly you got zillions of games everywhere and the quality of game design is no longer there.
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I think it's important to realize basic stuff like DoomRL not being a roguelike. This scene is infested with small game projects that don't even try to be anything like roguelikes.
To be honest; i would call DoomRL much more a roguelike then many other games which are jump'n'runs and sort-of strategy games.
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To be honest; i would call DoomRL much more a roguelike
It's an ascii implementation of Doom. What was the original stuff in it? Or when a simple shooter becomes a roguelike?
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Roguelikes are meant to be original? Wow, we'd better tell the Nethack and *band and ADOM devs that they've been wasting their time for decades...
I do love originality in games (and I think DoomRL has several original features, at least in the roguelike scene) but they are not necessary. Sometimes it's nice to have existing game types done well. To be honest the whole roguelike definition is very stifling and to a large extent discourages originality.
Also I think the 7DRLs shouldn't be compared to the shareware days, since the mini-roguelikes (and roguelike-likes) are clearly advertised as one-off pet projects done for fun. Many are fun to play too, at least for a little while, but it's silly to think of them as major roguelike releases. They're more of interest to developers than players in my opinion, and that's reflected in how much attention they get in rgrd compared with elsewhere. They're not hugely advertised and generally don't deserve to be without some polish and a lot more content (which some do get).
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That's also a very relative feeling...
Feelings can't be objective.
Roguelikes are meant to be original? Wow, we'd better tell the Nethack and *band and ADOM devs that they've been wasting their time for decades...
If I'm not mistaken, Nethack, Angband, and ADoM are the originals; they just have plenty of imitators.
EDIT: Well, they had plenty of originality in them, anyway. This is the roguelike community, after all.
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That's also a very relative feeling...
Feelings can't be objective.
Roguelikes are meant to be original? Wow, we'd better tell the Nethack and *band and ADOM devs that they've been wasting their time for decades...
If I'm not mistaken, Nethack, Angband, and ADoM are the originals; they just have plenty of imitators.
EDIT: Well, they had plenty of originality in them, anyway. This is the roguelike community, after all.
I think he meant along the lines of the original "Hack" and Moria---ADoM is pretty well a thing unto itself proper though if memory serves. I agree in sentiment though that there's nothing wrong with flavourful revisions over time---lots of crazy stuff out there and currently being worked on at least intermittently in the *Band-world.
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Huh. As I read more into this, it does look like a troll attempt. Now, not all trolling is bad. The guy could have been trying to stir up moral guardians to get more publicity on roguelikes (all publicity is good publicity), and also to make people realize his game isn't making people kill anyone. However... it looks more like an attempt to get us to freak out at the concept. When more people were saying "Oh, cool mechanics!" than "Ew, gross theme", it looks like he gave up.
Could have been a good game. There didn't look to be much moral railroading; how the character behaves is up to the player. But... yeah. Overall, it's a disappointment that is was never in development. But hey, maybe we're more interested in cool mechanics for new roguelikes now.
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It's an ascii implementation of Doom.
The gameplay is markedly different than Doom's. Doom is an action/twitch game. DoomRL is turn based, so the speed of your reflexes does not make any difference.
You would also die very quickly if you do not apply some tactics & strategy, which is not the same as doom, where you just have to push forward and shoot everything you see.
What was the original stuff in it? Or when a simple shooter becomes a roguelike?
Your comments make me think you either never played doom or never played doomRL for more than the first couple of levels.
It is very much a roguelike in the doom universe. The interface and particularly the streamlined ranged combat are innovative, and although it sounds like a minor thing it enables a playing experience that is quite different than that of traditional RLs.
The leveling mechanism (no classes or attributes, just a skills tree that you build up when leveling) is also unusual and works much better in some respect than the traditional approaches IMO.
I would even say DoomRL is more similar to Rogue than many major roguelikes like Adom are.
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Really, the entire thing boils down to one thing:
(Please excuse the large amount of emphasis, it's kinda neccessary)
MARKETING
It doesn't matter how much you have done, or whether you have a Youtube video, or whether the concept is new and interesting. These things aid in making buzz for your project, but in the end are merely boosters for it.
If you want your project to survive, you need to know how to generate interest and buzz. Your main goal should be getting people to talk about it. With their friends, with others on the forums you post in.
Take what you have and work with it. Post on various forums - bay 12, roguetemple, other roguelike sites. Talk with friends and plug your game. Urge them if they think it's good to throw a link to some friends, and explain how that'd be _really_ helpful to you as you badly need interest and help.
Most importantly, _don't skimp out on demoes or what your project can do_. List off every interesting feature and explain them clearly and concisely. Make large feature lists of what you expect to be able to do. (Take a look at bay12's goals page - it's been trimmed down severely, but it's still very, very impressive to look at) Keep people updated with a coherent blog on your devschedule.
Pick up a book on advertising or marketing. The skills contained in the economic sector for that purpose are very similar to the ones you need to get people talking about your roguelike.
Serial Killer had a lot going for it. It had a very, very convicning demo (Although it was possibly done in Flash) that showed off the "features" of the "game" very well. Here's what it did right:
Lesson #1: Get a video demonstration of what the game is capable of. Get multiple ones, in fact, at different stages of the devcycle. (Every month or two, perhaps) This really gives people hope that they'll actually see a release - being able to see a physical game physically playing tends to get people talking, and shows off the game better than your words ever could.
Serial killer did this. It's videoes were very impressive and got people talking, and at two minutes each (if I remember correctly) anybody who wanted to know what the project was about could watch it and be informed. The video is your hook for new players.
Lesson #2: Don't skimp out on feature posts. Richly detail about what the game is capable of right now, and even more richly detail what you plan to do with it in the future.
Serial Killer did this too, obviously. Did you see that wall of features, almost all of which were interesting?
Lesson #3: Contribute to discussion you buzz up. Talk with people that ask you questions. If you seem a member of the community instead of a distant, unapproachable figure, you can stoke the community's interest even more.
Again, Serial Killer did this. The "author" constantly talked with people that raised questions and held discussions with them.
Lesson #4: Above all, advertise. Get multiple posts up in multiple places discussing the game. If possible, link them to a central forum or website you've set up, which contains your devlog (with the videoes mentioned in #1), your forum, possibly a shoutbox, a detailed feature list...
Serial killer didn't have a dedicated website, but it did end up getting multiple posts about it in multiple places, and even indie news coverage. This was primarily because of #1, as well as the theme of the subject helping catch reporter interest, although neither of those are strictly required. You don't neccessarily need a shocking or interesting theme to succeed, it just gives you a stepladder. One mistake SK made on the other hand was not posting itself - the Bay 12 topic was started by an interested fan. No need to rely on the community here: Do it yourself! :D
Lesson #5: Finally, effort. People like effort. People like knowing you have put effort into your project. Appear professional, even if you aren't. Show your work. Do research on the subject matter. USE PROPER ENGLISH, even if it takes you longer to type out than it would normally. I guarantee you a page full of instances where the author can't find the time to type out "y-o-u" doesn't inspire confidence, mainly because using "u" tells people "I don't care about what I'm writing, this is nothing more than a text message to me!" If English isn't your first language, post up a disclaimer saying so. Devote time, care and love into your project. The bottom line: Let people know you have your shit together.
Serial Killer, again. The interface was simplistic but extremely well done and looked like it was just dripping with information and ease of use. The author's posts were all intelligent and well written and considered. Even if the game itself was nonexistant, those two gameplay videoes were clearly a labor of love, and everyone who watched them could see that and realized it on some level. When they see a product like that, they think "Wow, someone put effort into this."
Hopefully that helps, all. Wow, this turned out to be a monster of a first post, didn't it? :D
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Marketing is for commercial games. Want success in roguelike scene? Just make a good game and watch it go skyrocket. The simple truth is that most of the new roguelikes are not that good. Games that are good will be found by the players who know what they want. You can't sell any crap to hardcore players! They are not going to buy it, no matter how hard you advertise it. One of the success stories is Dwarf Fortress and I remember how it appeared from nowhere. No marketing bullshit was ever needed to make it a hit for those people who were attracted to it.
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Commercial realities aside, Marketing also ties in well with Visibility/Awareness of a more timely fashion---while the hardcore playerbase indeed may find the game eventually, it is probably better for all involved parties feedback loop wise to have it be something they come across sooner than later, and it certainly comes in handy to have it out there in a variety of places to help along that happy stumbling upon.
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I really would need to think about this for a good length of time before I could come up with something that I'd feel comfortable saying. I know that the whole sudden influx of interest for an amoral power fantasy sim says a lot more about what tends to generate *interest* than what it says about how to generate interest for a *project* in general.... gonna have to mull this over for a while.
What I can say is that a good part of me is glad that the SK roguelike turned out to be a hoax. I'm not afraid of the subject matter, but the fact that the setting alone could attract such interest out of nowhere.... very Jungian.
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Apologies, I have a tendency to ramble, and may have failed to get the marketing link across. My point is, no, you're not marketing a commercial product, but many of the skills involved in marketing a commercial product are the same skills that are of great use to generate interest in your roguelike. Marketing has the same end goal: Get people talking about what you're providing.
I'd suggest this:
http://www.dummies.com/store/product/Small-Business-Marketing-For-Dummies-2nd-Edition.productCd-0764578391.html (http://www.dummies.com/store/product/Small-Business-Marketing-For-Dummies-2nd-Edition.productCd-0764578391.html)
Yes, it's entirely possible for a game to take off and succeed based purely on it's own merits. DF did that. Eventually, if you put out a good product, people will start talking, and it will snowball. However, this topic isn't about how to make a good game, it's about how to get people talking and feedbacking about your game. It takes time for games to be devved and get off the ground, and a single creator can be swamped with all the work. It's disheartening to think that your labor might go to waste - a community keeps you going. On top of that, the level of feedback, support and help a community can provide an indev game with is ridicoulously helpful.
What said "Marketing bullshit" is for is to accelerate this process and get you fans during early dev, when your game is still new, flawed, young and vulnerable. A strong community will help to build a strong game.
There is an art to getting interest in a product or service up, one that's been refined very much so over the past few centuries. It'd be foolish not to take advantage of it. You could stop and let things handle themselves, but that might mean your game will languish on the sidelines without any attention on it whatsoever, nobody to help hunt down bugs...
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But you have to realize that no matter how much you advertise your game it has to be good. Some people are more advertising types: they want to create a vision which often doesn't match with the reality. I want to do almost the opposite. Create incredible good games with modest phrases like "a gardening simulator" (Kaduria).
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The problem is that people have only limited time to try games. And I think they try those games first which they hear about first. So even if your game is very good, it might have a hard time to be discovered at all. Once the word spreads, you're good, basically other people then do the marketing for you. But if you are unlucky, this can take a very long time.
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The greatest thing is that I don't really care. I'm creating games mainly for myself! I don't care if other people even know about them. So I don't have to worry about advertising at all. It's a nice feeling. You should try that!
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Unfortunately this doesn't work so well for the more extroverted personality types. But I agree with the key point, that it is essential to work on things that one likes also, not so much on things which one assumes are liked by others. But this seems off topic to this thread ... it would more go into a "how to stay motivated with your project" discussion.
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Roguedevs (or any other class of indie developers) use MP (Motivations Points) as fuel.
There are several ways to acquire motivation points: players telling you how much they like your game is one of the most effective, but you can also trade dollars for motivation points (however, you need to give your supporters a channel to support you (damn Paypal Colombia)).
There's also a MP boost achieved with the joy of the creation itself (but to get there, you must have actually achieved implementation, which requires MP in a sort of vicious circle).
MP can also be generated by brute force using Willpower Points, an internal attribute which is pretty hard to develop (I think it's mostly acquired on birth)
Finally, each roguedev has a natural regen rate for Motivation Points, but it may be too low to achieve an effective release rate, thus delaying new versions by years and years.
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Sorry to stray off topic at hand, but the other thread was closed.
I don't understand why people are so disgusted by a Serial Killer Roguelike. People should understand that everyone has thought about how it felt to hurt someone else. Not because they wanted to do it, but just for the lulz. I mean, in your dreams, especially if you're lucid, you do stuff you wouldn't even dream about (figuratively).
I think video games are the best outlet to do whatever you want. I'm glad someone started to actually make this since the other one was a hoax.
Also, A BLOODY SERIAL KILLER GAME! AWESOME!
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I don't understand why people are so disgusted by a Serial Killer Roguelike. People should understand that everyone has thought about how it felt to hurt someone else. Not because they wanted to do it, but just for the lulz. I mean, in your dreams, especially if you're lucid, you do stuff you wouldn't even dream about (figuratively).
"You shouldn't be disgusted by the notion of a game about hurting innocent people because everyone fantasizes about hurting innocent people."
Your logic is flawed.
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Roguelikes are meant to be original? Wow, we'd better tell the Nethack and *band and ADOM devs that they've been wasting their time for decades...
If I'm not mistaken, Nethack, Angband, and ADoM are the originals; they just have plenty of imitators.
EDIT: Well, they had plenty of originality in them, anyway. This is the roguelike community, after all.
I don't mean they are not original works of creation, but they do lean heavily on a huge number of fantasy tropes, especially DnD stuff. Their content is mostly very unoriginal, their gameplay obviously derivative or previous titles, and especially after all these years they have little to offer in novel appeal. Not that this is a problem - I'm just pointing out that a game doesn't have to be original to be good, and new roguelikes most certainly do not have to be original.
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So I have thought for a while about all of this and am ready to ramble.
My earlier blurb basically said that certain things just have a base interest value that exceeds others. You kids mayen't remember, fast as you were to your mother's teats, but during the mid 90s internet boom there was a several year stretch of brilliant, high-production advertisements for websites. Each one played like a Superbowl commercial (for those of you out of the U.S., advertisers pay millions during the Superbowl for a 30 second spot - and they make the most of it.)
These commercials were all about generating a kind of punkish, irreverent buzz. They were great. I loved them. We all did. They didn't work. The reason they didn't work was that there wasn't enough "there" to justify the buzz. The dot-coms went bankrupt and advertising mostly returned to normal.
Serial Killer simulation is something that has not been done before - at least not well, at least not extensively. There's something there. It has a far higher base level of interest than a roguelike angband variant featuring bad guys from Star Trek. Now personally, I don't think that there's anything substantive to be explored in a game like that. You, what - chop up people to make sure that your chop-up meter doesn't overflow? How exactly does a story arc fit into that? It doesn't. It's a one-trick pony. So, by having something there, I guess I mean that it's got draw. Not necessarily subtance. In fact, it seems really substance-resistant to me.
But that doesn't matter at this stage of development, because the game does have draw, and in the dev stage that's all you need. I'll give you another example. In the wake of GTA, Rockstar developed a "Riot Simulator" called State of Emergency. Huge draw - who hasn't fantasized about breaking windows and taking things? Game sold like hotcakes, then everyone realized that the game sucked. The whole experience consisted of running around, breaking windows, and hitting people as they frenetically dashed for safety and/or TVs. The draw was there, so people bought it, but the game wasn't there, so it faded fast.
That's really the main thing. It's not so much a question of quality as a question of "draw." Have you ever opened up a car brochure? I open the fuckers up every day because I'm selling cars over the net. They are complete bullshit. And that's what sells. People are sold on vague possibilities: "An experience like none other." "Get behind the wheel of your life."
I think that's one of the reasons that folks sometimes look for "indie" scenes, because part of them is nauseated by the whole marketing process, the way it appeals to the subliminal, or it id, or whatever. And I think that's why we're seeing an emerging debate in this thread - for some folks it's a question of what sells, and for others it's not so much a question of what sells, but whether the usual method of selling a game (or anything) is morally repugnant these days.
So yep. That's my 7 cents. Glad that SK roguelike was a hoax, but I'd totally play a medival vampire sim.
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who hasn't fantasized about breaking windows and taking things?
That would be me.
In the end, it doesn't really matter. If it was the "shock factor", it sure as Hel won't make a difference to me, since I wouldn't make a serial-killer simulation anyway. If it was anything else, it isn't news to us, since we know that originality and skilled marketing are good, or, at least, they don't hurt.
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Marketing is for commercial games. Want success in roguelike scene? Just make a good game and watch it go skyrocket. The simple truth is that most of the new roguelikes are not that good. Games that are good will be found by the players who know what they want. You can't sell any crap to hardcore players! They are not going to buy it, no matter how hard you advertise it. One of the success stories is Dwarf Fortress and I remember how it appeared from nowhere. No marketing bullshit was ever needed to make it a hit for those people who were attracted to it.
I fully agree.
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I don't think that game quality is one of the main aspects of a game being successful.
I can make the most original and fun roguelike ever made, if I only tell my friends about it, there will be hardly any feedback.
The opposite also exists, I can make a rather average roguelike but advertise it like crazy and it will become rather successful.
Alone a roguelike being released on let's say XBLA, would make it a lot more popular than if the same roguelike was released for PC.
I mean there are hundreds of really amazing games that everyone who played them liked and that are still rather unknown.
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about the serial killer roguelike (the other topic was locked)
Some people over at the bay12 forums have in response decided to start a project that's somewhat similar, only a general crime game
http://sourceforge.net/projects/crimelike/
http://crimelike.blogspot.com/
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In my opinion, books and movies may need advertising because: a- there are already a lot of books and movies; b- there is a lot of money involved in books and movies (in creating and selling them).
So it is possible for a very awesome book or film to be ignored just because of an insufficent marketing tactic.
But roguelikes are different: almost no money involved, no big competition, no many releases every month.. so a good roguelike will always hit the audience.
Sure, there are still some nice games not much talked about.. but have you ever seen Thomas Biskup advertising Adom? or someone advertising Angband, Nethack, Dwarf Fortress?
Kick ass roguelikes don't need marketing that much in my opinion.
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But roguelikes are different: almost no money involved, no big competition, no many releases every month..
The cost is the same as with most books - the author's time + the cost of a computer.
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I dunno. I'd say that most retail roguelikes are quite more popular than Nethack/Angband/Crawl, even though they aren't better.
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I vaguely thought of this when I first watched the Serial Killer Roguelike character generation video, but it was this Expedition (http://slashie.net/page.php?27) video here that really brought it home:
When you're advertising a roguelike, you want people to want to play it for the first time. It's good to have something going on that makes people expect they would want to keep playing, but the only thing you can do to the vast majority of your potential audience is to get them to play for the first time.
Watching the Expedition video, I felt that if I put some work into that game I could really enjoy it. Finding just the right optima between risk management and growth potential, learning how to navigate reliably, exploring interesting new lands, squeezing out the most gold that I can, what's not to like? It seemed like it could be a great game on the tenth session, and I would have liked to play my tenth game of Expedition. But I don't want to play my first game of Expedition. Or the second or, perhaps, even the third. I don't want to play them because based on what I saw in the video, they'd just end up with me choosing some poor balance of resources and dying ignominiously before I get to anywhere interesting.
Compare to SKrl. In SKrl, I could choose a character with high stats and mild or no disorders (assuming that the game's challenge level is not affected by the stats you choose, effectively making your stat choices a reverse difficulty setting), and the game would dump me somewhere where I could go and kill people. The videos made me want to play SKrl for the first time - even if the game could turn out very difficult, it never seemed overwhelming. And even better, the video let you see enough that you knew you would likely still want to play another game, and another, down to trying to survive with an all-minimum-stats and heavily-messed-up-in-the-head runt.
To see how the SKrl videos went right about this, consider how they could have gone wrong. Suppose the game had had the precise same feature set, except that instead of just choosing your stats, you would have had options like "go to gym for strength training", "play ball games for perception and agility training", etc.. Each with a dollar cost, of course. Oh, and for play balance, a "have traumatic experience" option that would give you a negative trait but refund you a certain amount of dollars. All of that would have seemed... pretty overwhelming and pointless. And it would have annoyed those who haven't yet reached enlightenment on the realism vs. gameplay issue :p. (And if you tried to bring it closer to the "pick your difficulty level by picking your character's level of capability" by letting the player choose how much money they start with, well, that would just have exacerbated the pointlessness)
As a final illustration of the point I'm making... if SKrl is "good" and Expedition is "bad" in the I-want-to-play-this-game-for-the-first-time sense, Prospector is a pretty good example of a game that's "eh, close enough". The ship choice menu has an obvious choice for the first play, based just on the name of the game (you probably would want to prospect with a scoutship!), but also shows based on what kinds of ships are available that there's more to do in the game than just prospect. The amount of money it gives you is enough to make some interesting choices at the first station once you're more familiar with the game, but small enough not to feel like much, like you could mess up your first try by not buying something essential. You don't have to worry about fuel before you've left the station, you don't have to worry about how to repair your ship before it's actually been damaged. In short, Prospector doesn't feel too overwhelming, and a lot of the things it does do say "I have potential!" to the player. It's just that the SKrl videos did the same sort of things even better. Killing people as a horrifyingly ugly and clumsy schizophrenic, for instance, just sounds like a more interesting challenge to eventually get to than going from prospecting planets to trading contraband does.
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Roguedevs (or any other class of indie developers) use MP (Motivations Points) as fuel.
...more stuff here...
Great post, and quite true at that as far as I'm concerned.
Personally, I don't care about an SK roguelike. It did have decent marketing which caused a hype.
People predictably flourish around controversy.
Lets all make Roguelikes about eating babies? Oh wait, Jonathan Swift beat me to it. (1729)
Back to orcs I suppose.
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On originality:
I sometimes get accused of being original, in this very thread even! Yet i stole 90% of the gameplay from Starfight, and the remaining 10% from Traveller!
The thing is "Orcs & Dragons != Original game" is a rather superficial way of looking at it.
If your "Purple furry man eating Mango" is something that wants to kill you, has no special abilites and is of low to medium danger, it is an Orc in a Mango Suit.
But it has a disadvantage over the Orc: As a new player I have no Idea what it does. For the first few games It will be all exciting and new, but soon i will learn PFMEM is another word for "Orc".
Its just a cheap thrill, no substance. Might as well call them orcs and benefit from the fact that the player already knows Ogres will be tougher.
Now when it comes to generate interest, i will propably be more successful if I say "In my game you kill PFMEMs" than if i said "In my game you kill orcs" But only until the player found out its actually an orc in a mango suit.
You need to tell people what is unique. Frozen depth doesn't advertise "You get to kill Cave Kanagaroos". It says "No magic!" it says "You can die from cold exposure" It says "Get your custom items crafted"
Actually, i would enjoy FD more if I could kill orcs instead of cave kanagaroos (wouldnt they bump their head pretty often?) The name of the critter you kill really doesn't matter.
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I dunno. I think that "originality" is more or less a natural consequence of doing what you really enjoy. If there's some aspect of gameplay that really appeals to you, and you spend a lot of time developing it, then sooner or later you'll start implementing features that no one else has.
For example, I really like individual, differentiated items. So I sit around thinking up different items, or magic items, or ways to introduce slightly different versions of standard items, and I stick them into the data file (or the idea file) and grin, imagining someone finding them and the process of figuring out how to use them.
Somebody somewhere is probably going to accuse me of originality, just because they found a fireball wand that has a slightly longer range than most fireball wands, or a damaged magic carpet that still works but can only go straight or turn left, or an Axe of Contrition that does massive damage and then apologizes to whomever it hit, or an Unnatural Axe with a huge variety of obscene funny messages, or notices that if they toss an overcharged fireball wand into a bag with an overcharged ice wand they'll explode a minute later, or discovers that "Ogrish Love Pottery" can be sold to Ogres, or used to make friends with them by giving it to them, or finds a book of "Goblin Love Poetry" or whatever.
But that stuff isn't happening because I'm striving for originality. It is happening because it makes me giggle and doing it is fun for me. ;D
So, here's my thoughts on originality. Do something that makes you giggle and is fun for you. And keep doing it. And develop new content in that direction whenever you think of it, and enjoy yourself. Before you know it, someone will accuse you of being original.
Bear
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I think the prime reason that serial killer roguelike got so much interest is :
1: Awesome video
2: Video at least seems very original
3: Original/Awesome concept -
[
The awesomeness is perhaps compounded with all the too small roguelikes or clone roguelikes and because of various forum feedback which portrays a message of total reluctance to anyone who trys to break the mold of the traditional RL model - then theres the other extremes where a Developer will make lots of over the top changes that break to much with tradition and drag the game down. It seems like a balancing act and so much gets compared to traditional roguelike rules BUT the serial killer roguelike concept broke all these rules and luckily got away with it, unfortunately I would not be surprised , if for ever 200 rogues 1 roguelike gets away with that.
I can understand what may be slight disillusionment of the developers who are dealing with the reality of implementation and who see this as another concept thats probably not going to see the light of day but on the bright side I have a friend who I have been trying to get into roguelikes for 2 years now and this serial killer roguelike has made him go and try some.
]
I have to admit, lately I have implemented proof of concept for various, roguelike tough implementation areas that I have decided to have a go at coding a somewhat similiar theme but on a much smaller scale for my own use. (I would not release a game until I am confident my code is refined/clean enough but perhaps thats the wrong attitude) I shall be attempting this in the Summer as busy as hell at University but I did take note of the link which is so a bunch of people can collaborate.
If anything I would say the best thing people can take from it is to do development based on an enjoyable concept and if something has been cloned over 3 times before then think hard before you go hoping to release it to the public in the hope of making it a big roguelike. I dont dislike doom the rl as an example but its by far not the best in my eyes however people love it , why do you think that is? (I think what I have written covers that questions as well!)
Marketting may be essential in a commercial project but where roguelikes are concerned the majority are mainly hardcore/geeky people(Thats a compliment in my book for the record, I class myself as one, maybe both of those) who are always on the net looking for games, new projects, reading whenever it is possible and they will be looking first and foremost for a good concept before they waste their time looking through rogue clone 55b , all the more modern succesful games such as :
Elona
Dwarf Fortress
Are orginal in some ways OR they take the genre to new heights.
Food for thought I hope :), Also apologies if this post is not written well , the main reason being that when you right a couple of paragraphs on this forum the scroll system screws up.
Finally, Slash! I like that motivation points post, lol I may put it on my wall to give me motivation while coding haha
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This is beating a dead horse.
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With respect, it may seem that way to you but I am short on time at the momment and hence this has relevance because I am only on these forums once in a while, my point being that they are new topics to me even if they are not to yourself.
If its an old thread and no use it should be locked, I have never believed it's my job to date check threads which are sitting with massive views and at the top of the forum listing. (The old admin/user whining about a necro thread or somesuch but really its a crazy mentality since its not rocket science to have a script that locks posts that are a certain age , this would mean one less triviality on the forums at large)
I am crazy for justifying answering a post on a forum anyway but never the less owing to being busy both myself and one of my friends only found out about that serial killer rouguelike but a week ago and we both really like the concept, albeit a fake.
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With respect, it may seem that way to you but I am short on time at the momment and hence this has relevance because I am only on these forums once in a while, my point being that they are new topics to me even if they are not to yourself.
Your late arrival doesn't make the horse less dead.
If its an old thread and no use it should be locked, I have never believed it's my job to date check threads which are sitting with massive views and at the top of the forum listing. (The old admin/user whining about a necro thread or somesuch but really its a crazy mentality since its not rocket science to have a script that locks posts that are a certain age , this would mean one less triviality on the forums at large)
I'm not talking about the age of the thread. "Beating a dead horse" means "a particular request or line of conversation is already foreclosed or otherwise resolved, and any attempt to continue it is futile; or that to continue in any endeavour (physical, mental, etc.) is a waste of time as the outcome is already decided." Nothing more can be had from this discussion, and all you have told us is that the Serial Killer Roguelike hoax was successful because it was original and awesome. Far too vague to be of any use.
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You know, though, it makes for an interesting topic. It really does. I'm just not sure that we're fit as a community to be having the discussion. We're just too strange and OCD to be relied upon to dissect the fine line between art and trash... it's not that we're stupid, it's just that we're maybe a little myopic. You really need to take in the world (or at least a medium) with a wide-angle lens before you're fit to offer meaningful commentary on an artistic submission. I don't know if that's us, guys...
Take the film Fight Club, for instance. That was a watershed moment for film criticism. The movie was almost intrinsically good, and critics in turn revealed not the movie but themselves as intelligent or otherwise through their appreciation for or hatred of the film.
I think that the hoax offers up some of that same potential - though in the opposite fashion. I personally believe that the SKR was essentially empty of spirit, reveling in evil, and that those who appreciate "what it has to offer" are completely off-base in terms of what they like about gaming, maybe even about life. But unfortunately a meaningful inquiry into whether I'm right or wrong is very hard b/c, as mentioned above, we're as a group extremely eccentric, and no-one outside the roguelike community gives much of a shit.
Jimbo turns away, hastily scrawls something on a cartoonishly oversized signpost, and holds it up for Fenrir to see. It reads: "Sorry dude.... it's a slow day at work." Jimbo then flies away on rocket boots to go fight crime.
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Fenrir sternly watches Jimbo go sailing off into the skies with flying footwear.
You know...
The great wolf pauses to watch Jimbo fade out of sight.
...few things are so puzzling as being mocked and not fully understanding how.
A rear paw shoots up to Fenrir's left ear and scratches lightly.
I did understand the part where he said that, because we have unusual taste, our opinions about art don't matter. No such thing as objective art, as far as I know, so it's not like we can be wrong about it, can we? Fenrir lowers his leg and heaves a heavy sigh. Not like I would know anything about that. Bah, now I'm beating the dead horse.
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Jimbo soars overhead, calling downward.
I wouldn't hazard to mock you, Fenrir - you're probably smarter than me and I have a fragile ego.
Actually, what I was thinking of was this feminist 20th century lit&film criticism class that I took in junior college about 8-9 years ago. They looked at a lot of wonderful, classic stories: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next, Mean Streets, Metropolis, Catcher in the Rye among others, and of course had to throw in The Beantrees and My Big Fat Greek Wedding...
Now, at the top of the list are some of the most powerful stories around. Feminist criticism mostly wants to say that they devalue women. The bulk of the writing done on these gendered stories is an exploration of precisely how they devalue women and speculates as to the far-reaching effects of that devaluation. And while it's true that the last 2000 years or so have generally been pretty sexist, and while it's also true that one of the core goals of feminist criticism is to deconstruct and thereby weaken the misogynist stranglehold that exists over the public imagination, to spend hour after hour of class time focusing on the moral flaws of artistic submissions, ignoring their virtues, distorts the imagination of the students being taught - it fosters myopia and renders meaningful contributions to the critical arena at large (where they don't really have to give a shit about feminist tenets) problematic at best. The lens is too narrow; it becomes polemic.
And I think we're guilty of something like that here. We need to be wearing an amulet of the gourmand as we take in these games if we want our opinions on them to illuminate (however humbly) the whole art v trash discussion. "Original" doesn't mean good - and I dispute that there's anything original about SKR: don't you have to kill a farmer in ADOM to get the ultra ending? Likewise, "depraved" doesn't mean bad - see Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
I would like to see an earnest exploration of the minor SKR hoax phenomenon... I just don't think we have it in us. Prove me wrong, Fido!
Jimbo's boots run out of fuel and he plummets over the edge of a cliff, letting loose with a "Yah-hoo-hoo-hoo-hooooooo" ala Goofy.
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I don't necessarily disagree with your main point, but I would like to point out that the "witty" flavor text was getting a bit old in the tooth when it was only Fenrir doing it, I don't think we'd really lose anything if it remain his shtick exclusively.
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Point taken.
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Point taken as well, Ido.
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Hmm nice community perspective here, I get blatently trolled for posting in an active post, you guys see it as okay to go blatently offtopic, point is no matter the semnatics you put on it I dont care what you think so please refrain from posting your offtopic trash Fenrir, nice post degradation, I'm sure thats satisified you.(Best real help to the community is if you dont like a topic or dont agree with it, go and speak to an Admin in private or just don't answer it, not adhering to this just makes you come across bad and that is putting it politely, I can't believe whats happened to this topic, is it jealousy perhaps that a mere concept is netting a massive amount of interest?)
If the Admin wants to lock the thread feel free but I respectively ask you to only answer me with on topic stuff Fenrir as I am not intersted in whether you think I'm beating a dead horse; I can see you are a pretentious twat as well, owing to the fact you start clarifying what "beating a dead horse means"
Start picking up spelling mistakes next and you fit the profile of a real asshole.
I will treat the final posts with the contempt they deserve since its clearly a case of the "me to!" mentality If you don't follow the point of that go use google.
Your post counts dont impress me either but I can see this community is going the same way as many on the web. I come here for some light discussion and to speak about, as well as participate in Development. I really detest what you represent Fenrir, you are the typical example of what is in essence the catalyst for communities going bad long term, however I am sure it will be myself who gets the most hassle for this since for most, respect is governed by post count. I believe respect is earned not demanded. (Silly troll, go pester someone else who cares, high five if you or one of your alt accounts doesnt answer this though!)
Thats all your getting though, I have just wasted 5 mins or so of my life reading this trash! Enjoy yourself in your herd, safe in the knowledge that you managed to drop a community member in the crap who could not be done with the trviality of your comments, also be proud that you have derailed a post and you and your buddys can wallow in group stupidity now until the Admin has to lock this thread. (In future maybe let an Admin deal with forum affairs you jobsworth - only you dont work here do you? Else that description would fit well)
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all the more modern succesful games such as :
Elona
Dwarf Fortress
Are orginal in some ways OR they take the genre to new heights.
Both guesses wrong. DF and Elona are popular, because they have a lot of gameplay content. In other words they are "large scale", something that -most- new roguelike projects are not. Games like ADOM are not original, but ADOM has its fans, because the size of the game. Sometimes original ideas are ok, but as we can see from some 7DRLs (that have a somewhat original idea) the idea itself is not really that important if there is not much to play.
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DF and Elona are popular, because they have a lot of gameplay content.
This is not the only cause. The game can have very much content, but people won't see all these stories, locations, collectible items, if the gameplay process itself isn't fun.
So the original idea isn't enough for great game, but a "large-scality" isn't enough too. You need both.
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Let us please remember the codex of the temple (paragraph 1.2).
Let's also become on-topic again, and live happily.... :)
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So the original idea isn't enough for great game, but a "large-scality" isn't enough too. You need both.
Well, there are lots of popular games without an original idea. Roguelikes have long been connected to D&D which I have always thought limiting and poor gameplay system, possibly more suitable for tabletops where it was invented. Actually, not a single one of major five is original. Just think about that.
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It will be so easy to think that one should just add a lot of content to his game and it will be popular (and he'll acquire a lot of feedback for it), but sadly it isn't so.
Well, I agree with you that originality isn't required for being popular roguelike. But i can't agree that being "large-scale" is the only cause of popularity for such games as Elona.
They are fun to play - and a size of a game's world or number of ways you can choose isn't the only cause of this.
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http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/11/30/wot-i-think-beautiful-escape-dungeoneer/
Somewhat related to the original gist of things.
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Both guesses wrong. DF and Elona are popular, because they have a lot of gameplay content. In other words they are "large scale", something that -most- new roguelike projects are not. Games like ADOM are not original, but ADOM has its fans, because the size of the game. Sometimes original ideas are ok, but as we can see from some 7DRLs (that have a somewhat original idea) the idea itself is not really that important if there is not much to play.
While its a completely common ressponse to say our comments pertaining to such things are very subjective, I do understand the points you make.
With regards to taking the genre to new heights I still do think I am correct in that Elona achieves this via quite massive scope in terms or quests and world, and this certainly has an appeal, also Elona , in my eyes anyway does well in the graphics department whilst still maintaining the fact its a roguelike. (If it doesnt take the game to new heights I would hope thats because such games have already been done to such a standard and beyond; if this were the case please enlighten me ;) )
Thanks for the link Getter, my enthusiasm for this concept stems from the fact it has the potential to bring people into the roguelike community, I have been trying to get my group of Uni friends to play for over 2 years then we find out about this and instead of me trying to brainwash them into playing they mention to myself about trying one! While I can see both sides of the coin regarding how people could love or loathe this fake concept it is actually bringing new people into the roguelike community(Slight deviation getter but I believe you may have helped me with ai code in the past or given me advice, I didnt get it but I have nailed it now and I am just about complete with regards to makng a space invaders game in j2me, for a while there I thought I had got to a point where I would not be able to improve my coding so very pleased the obssesiveness has paid off! - see other post about that if you havent spotted it already)
Large scale does play a part in Elona I agree but while that be a valid point I personally think Elona does break the mold a touch since roguelikes generally dont have storys , LOTS of quests and graphics as well as custom save systems, genetic engineering and what I see as very original game subsystems. Dont get me wrong Im not saying its some perfect game but its clear to see the affort thats went into it and players who get this impression are going to more willingly invest time, additionally scope as a sole quality is actually many times a negative since people just see it as a grind fest. I think the roguelikes must feel alive so to speak for them to not be more than a flash in the pan. (I really hope someone can point me in he direction of some really nice roguelikes which are original and better than Elona if Im seen as incorrect by most; this is fine btw, just saying :) )
Perhaps I should have stated that some of Elonas subsystems were original and been a bit clearer in my initial attempt to share my views on the said games.
Im kinda in shock this is back on topic though, thank you all and Slash, I will go re-read the rules, cheers :)
Just to finalise and be on topic, I shall just mention the fact that what I state about friends doesnt even cover the other aspect of how many new projects that concept is going to generate/IS generating! Now it is still possible to look at the negative side that many people undertaking such a project wont have the ability to follow it through but on the positive side , so many people and/or teams working on such a project, as time passes must surely yield some new games in the future which pertain to this concept?
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and a size of a game's world or number of ways you can choose isn't the only cause of this.
Size is a big factor since players compare games to major roguelikes. I know I do. I want a roguelike game to have complexity and size.
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Mrrph. It's hard to articulate what I want to say about this.
Some ideas are more generative than others. The word "generative" is hard to define exactly, but when a relatively simple idea gives rise to a huge variety of interesting and different effects, we say that the idea is generative. Go and Life and Chess for example have some simple but highly generative ideas.
I think that, for most people, games are fun while they generate new experiences or new problems to solve. A new idea, ipso facto, creates a set of new experiences or new problems, so it makes a game fun -- for a while. But most ideas aren't all that generative, so after a while the player has experienced whatever it is the new idea can produce, and after that the game gets less fun.
A good roguelike uses a combination of several different relatively simple ideas to generatively provide a huge variety of tactically different experiences or problems to solve. Different attack forms, different monsters, different equipment, different buffs, line of sight/targeting, speed, hunger, healing, resource management, etc... These things are not little subgames of their own, these are all interlocked. They are generative because each can change the meanings of the others. Each of these types of content provides gameplay (that is, new experiences and new problems to solve) proportional to the product of all the rest.
A new idea in a roguelike game, IMO, has to be evaluated in terms of this type of generativity. If the idea is generative, then it provides content proportional to all the other content that already exists. An idea that isn't generative may add content, but never multiplies it.
And that brings us back to 7DRL's. Some of these games have fun ideas. But sometimes the fun idea wouldn't be generative with the rest of the elements of the roguelike. Some of these games have original ideas. But sometimes the original ideas aren't as generative as the ideas that get left out, so we wind up with a "flatter" gaming experience. If the final combination of ideas is generative as a whole, then the game gets deeper and more interesting the more content is added. If the final combination of ideas isn't very generative, then it may be fun for a little while but no matter how much content you add people will eventually get bored of it.
Bear
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Nice post bear, if Im being honest I do see there being danger with regards to the initial concept becoming boring, owing to the fact that it lacks the other diverse features in other roguelikes.
The above said, I would hope that if such a game were made that it would encompass things such as leveling, fighting(with cops etc) , (Maybe even some unique form of questing?)
It is hard to know how good such a game is in the game playing sense, until some good coders have brought such a theme to fruition. I guess the reason this fake theme got so much interest is reminiscent of the fact theres many older gamers out there looking for something differant/unique that is going to hold their interest for longer than 2 hours to 1 week .
The following applys not so much to the roguelike crowd but more so to gamers at large:
- Many of them want a game which has a pull to it and they upon stopping a play session cant wait to play again and are wandering what has to happen next!
In my view one of the main reasons ADOM did so well is it was one of an extreme minority which had the feel of being in a properly done bustling world where quests you partake in could effect that world. (Granted that was not the only reason and that differant people may well not see it this way)