Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Announcements => Other Announcements => Topic started by: Darren Grey on August 30, 2011, 02:44:21 AM
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A new roguelike podcast has been started, and the first episode released, with Cardinal Quest as the initial focus of attention. You can find it here:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/
Feedback is very welcome, since none of us have done this before :/
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Cool idea, will listen to it when at home.
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Congrats on getting a first ep going so speedily. :D
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Very nice idea indeed! Looking forward to listening.
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I played the demo of Cardinal Quest while listening to the podcast and pretty much everything you said was spot on.
Love the accents too, except that Australian-buggerised kiwi accent :)
Its great that 3 grown men can talk about roguelikes for over half an hour and stay on topic.
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(http://www.threadbombing.com/data/media/52/Kyle_Moar.jpg)
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Episode 4, ahoy!
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/09/episode-4-doomrl.html
Discussion this week is on DoomRL. I'm putting on fireproof gear in advance of the response...
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Hey just in response to the 3rd podcast comments. Mainly in the confusion of mine and Erez's like of the interface of Brogue. I probably overstated how good the graphics were, (and as podcasts are live it is difficult to always fully think out something before you say it) but I would very much stand by my statements that the game has a good interface/ controls. Particularly it bypassed some of the hardships of learning a new roguelike(hey, all items are used through just one button? And all the somewhat complicated items and monsters are explained through an easy to use tooltip!) and combined it with familiarity from other roguelikes (num pad movement? Oh boy!)
The thing is is that there is no one size fits all solution to UI, depending on your audience you need to use a different solution. Not every game is trying to draw in players from outside the genre (I would argue that very few actually do). For instance in the case with cardinal quest. I actually had more trouble (or at least annoyance) with the controls than I did with Brogue. Primarily because they were different than what I was used to. Even after I got used to those controls, I was still annoyed with how limited they were in some ways. Where I can fly through many games with more traditional controls, after several hours with cardinal quest I was playing about as fast as I was after the first 30 minutes figuring out the game. Obviously playing a game really fast isnt the best way to look at a ui, but not being able to play as fast as you would like becomes a problem and an annoyance after a while.
Now certainty cardinal quest has a UI and control scheme that is really nice for new players, and if that is your audience for the game then that is perfect. But saying all games should be designed for players of that level of familiarity of the genre is silly IMO.
What I would realy like to see more in roguelikes are more options for control schemes. Sure, make a newbie friendly control scheme default. But throw the hardcore roguelike fans a bone, add in a more traditional control scheme as well. They will look for it in your game (or at least I will).
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It's not really surprising that many of the ARRP games are less complete than 7DRL games. After all, the point of 7DRL is to create a complete roguelike, while ARRP is about just releasing what you have, regardless of the level of completion. ARRP gets a lot of the kind of people who have spent two years doing armchair planning, two months coding prototypes and architectures (only to tear them down again) and support libraries, and maybe two days making direct progress toward release.
I know because I'm one of them. :p (Except for the bit about actually releasing the game. Although I did end up putting the code in its current state on github simply because at least now I have a backup of it beyond my aging and often mishandled laptop's HD. I don't think I'm counting it as a release though because in its current state the code doesn't even compile...)
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Yeah, a lot of the ARRP releases have many months more coding than 7DRLs, but it's all focused on the engine and infrastructure - useless stuff when you don't have a game. The release party helps devs focus on forgetting the optimisations and so on in favour of doing what they're meant to be doing.
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I really think they hit the nail on the head with their critiques about doomrl. I feel the same way about most of the points they brought up.
Especially how the game almost seems to have changed too much since it's initial inception. The achievements/unlockables can be somewhat frustrating. They mostly seem to be geared towards veteran players. It took me some years to finally get enough silver badges to unlock the second tier of challenges which I would have rather been able to play from the get go. Some of the badges rely a bit too much on chance in my opinion.
The non-random levels can be frustrating as well. Especially since some of them are practically mandatory to get certain items that only appear in them. Like the backpack in the Wall level which is one of the most valuable items in the game I think, but it's kind of a pain to go through the wall in almost every play through because it's the only way to get it. Same with the spear weapon in the unholy cathedral when playing the melee challenge games.
I also agree with how the game seems too long. 25 levels, not counting the special levels, tends to get tiresome once you have gotten that far. Would be nice to see it knocked down a little bit.
The developer says that he plans on making doomrl 2, but with all the things added already since the early versions of the game, it almost seems like there is not much of a point in making a sequel that could really distinguish itself from the original.
At this point, they have added so much, it almost detracts from it's original charm.
Don't get me wrong. I still think it's a great game, but they made very valid points.
The only thing about the review is that they were not all up to date on the current version of the game. Some had only played earlier versions. Would have been better if they all had played both earlier versions and the latest.
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Keep up the good work!
Looking forwards to listen to the next episode about Frozen Depth.
Infra Arcana would also be Nice if you would cover.
Cheers!
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The only thing about the review is that they were not all up to date on the current version of the game. Some had only played earlier versions. Would have been better if they all had played both earlier versions and the latest.
Only one person hadn't played the latest version, and he kept himself out of judgements on the latest version, whilst also providing valuable comments about the genre as a whole. Having a mix of experiences also gave the discussion a more rounded feel, I think. It was especially interesting to see that the negative aspects I recognised in the game were the same as those who had played the earlier version first. It shows that it's not just some old fogies grumbling about change.
jacke: Infra Arcana is on my list to give attention to. However I also don't want the game to be prejudged based on an early version, so it might be best to let it round itself out a bit more before we cover it.
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Nice to hear that you're considering IA. I agree that it's a little early for this sort of review. I think at least monster spell casting should be expanded first, and there needs to be more unique monsters (these are my prios for next release).
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Latest release about Frozen Depths:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/09/episode-5-frozen-depths.html
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woot. Frozen depths is one of my favorites.
***EDIT***
Good show guys. Frozen depths is one of my favorite rl's.
I was a bit disappointed that you didn't cover the dungeon features more. Such as the alters that you can place items on, the corpses that you can loot for items, the pools with something shiny at the bottom that you can decide to try and retrieve. These are some of my favorite parts of the game.
I agree that the shopkeepers can be too expensive for such the small amount of gold that the player ever manages to find during the game.
The blacksmith as well is a cool idea, but requires far more gold and raw materials to make anything really useful than the player can manage to find.
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Yeah, this episode is very good. Many good points there.
Frozen Depths: I have played (and won) an early version, and I remember that I had a feeling that cold was dangerous, and I had to be careful about it. I had to wear roughly the best clothes to keep the cooling effect at a survivable level, and a single cursed clothes could cause trouble (IIRC curse halved the amount of warm up, so on later levels cursed cashmere would give only 2.5 instead of 5, which meant that you got 2.5 warmup less than recommended and cooled really fast). Also it was nice to do tricks to get good deals from sages (use only cheap ones and make them even cheaper using the wand of haggling). So I was happy with both how cooling and cash/id worked. I have not played newer versions, so I cannot say how it works now.
Food: I am happy that there was some critique of food. In ADOM food is a nuisance rather than a challenge (and so is gold: we have two sources of practically infinite gold, so you can consider everything you find in shops as yours). Of course you can do better, like Crawl does. Using some other interesting clock (freezing, corruption, torchlight, whatever) will make the game more interesting, and also more realistic, I think (should not a dragon have enough meat to make you happy for the rest of the game?)
Tactics: I disliked the tactics in ADOM. It was not that clever to switch to Berserker or Aggressive whenever fighting, and to Coward whenever doing anything else (in particular, mages would always cast spells on Coward; it would be better to have spellcasting affected by tactics too). I am trying to do something better in VoI (you distribute extra concentration points between your skills, and it takes some time to change the distributions), but this seems to be complicated, somehow.
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Strongly agree on the pointlessness of the tactics feature in ADOM. It's nearly always obvious what tactics are best to use (save some oddities like using aggressive tactics to train shields). And then, even worse, once you've conditioned yourself to do things like always mash f7 before running away from a fight, you get frustrated when other roguelikes don't let you power up your character so cheaply like that :(.
Madness/Featurecreeper (http://code.google.com/p/featurecreeper/) is a nice example of a game with a light clock, although one with the same problems as food clocks in most roguelikes: It's pretty tight early on, but later on you tend to have at least a torch if not a lamp available pretty much all of the time.
edit: On the portability of console roguelikes, is it not possible to just make platform-specific batch files that open a terminal window with the game in it? It's not pretty but I know that at least DoomRL's Linux version does that.
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Latest episode is now up, focussing on Dungeons of Dredmor:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/10/episode-6-dungeons-of-dredmor.html
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Special interview with Ido Yehieli:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/10/interview-with-ido-yehieli.html
Now that we've had a good few episodes and had a special interview I'm curious to get more feedback. Has the tone been right so far? Should we stop concentrating on specific games so much? What would you like to see change, or indeed stay the same?
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I think the show is great, no changes necessary. Just hope you keep it up. :)
Maybe some sort of summary at the end, what you think the game's strong points and weak points are.
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New episode on 100 Rogues:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/10/episode-7-100-rogues.html
We even convinced the developer of the game to join in the discussion :)
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New episode about character progression systems in roguelikes:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/10/episode-8-progression-systems.html
This goes into a fair amount of detail about the various systems found across the major roguelikes and some of the minors, and some of the positives and negatives about them.
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Technical: the mp3 download has incomplete tags, which is a bit annoying (hard to find the episode I want if they are all titled simply "Roguelike Radio" and the genre and album are "Unknown"). I have learned how to subscribe to the podcast from a music player (other than iTunes) and I see that the tags are assigned correctly when I download using this method.
POWDER: POWDER has skills.
ADOM: there are several instances where who you are influences what you find. As you said, mages get much more spellbooks than fighters, which makes a big difference. The manual says that bards have a "knack to stumble upon strange items", I don't know what exactly that means and whether it actually means anything for gameplay. There are talents to find more stuff. Corpse preservation, gemmology, and herbalism make it easier to find respective things in respective ways. A high perception value leaves more missiles lying around (at least according to 0.8.1 changelog), I would not be surprised if it also affected other item finds.
I think such things are OK only if they make sense from a logical point of view. Let's say I get a level with an ant hive (ADOM ants mine the walls), but skip it without killing the ants. Then I learn the gemmology skill, and go back to the ant hive. I would not find gems in this case, but I would find them if I learned the gemmology skill before the ants did their mining work. So this makes no logical sense and I would like it to be designed in a more logical way (it would be better if the gems did exist but did not show on the screen, and it would be nice if you could hire a dwarf to look for the gems for you). The concept of not all monsters leaving a corpse behind also makes no logical sense for me (it would be better if they all left a corpse, unless killed in some disintegrative way, but sometimes this corpse would not produce a desired effect when consumed).
Crawl: Well I don't understand why victory dance is ridiculous and why it was removed in the new versions of DCSS. Are all people who train in gyms or do homework ridiculous? Maybe the system was not perfect, but still, training by use is better than improving a skill for no reason IMO.
General: You seem to be strongly opposing "too much junk" in some games. Well, I believe junk items are useful for flavor, role playing, and logic/realism purposes. Crawl shows items that it considers useless for my character in black. I think that's a good design. Better than pretending that the useless items just don't exist (especially if they could become useful in specific circumstances). For a non-Troll giant clubs are useless, and for Trolls most of the armor is useless, but I would like them to be shown, so that I know what I am losing and what I am gaining by plaing a Troll.
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Crawl: Well I don't understand why victory dance is ridiculous and why it was removed in the new versions of DCSS. Are all people who train in gyms or do homework ridiculous? Maybe the system was not perfect, but still, training by use is better than improving a skill for no reason IMO.
Doing homework & going to the gym aren't fun (for me anyway) so I wouldn't add those to a game either ;)
At the end I think it's more important for games to be fun than to make sense (up to a point), and victory dancing wasn't much fun.
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Yes, making training really realistic would not be a good idea. Training should be very quick, otherwise it would become boring. IME the act in Crawl involved performing just a few times, the free XP pool got back to 0 very quickly. But it still makes more sense for me if training is done by performing (possibly even losing some resources*) rather than by choosing it from a menu. And it is fun for me. I need to relax after defeating a dangerous enemy.
* a quick idea for a skill training mechanics: you can use a ruby either to cast a fire spell, or to "train", which makes all the fire spells in the future stronger. Thus, you need to balance your rubies between casting and training.
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I noticed a couple new episodes that haven't been posted here yet.
One is an interview with the developer of Brogue
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/10/interview-brian-walker-aka-pender.html (http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/10/interview-brian-walker-aka-pender.html)
The other is about Powder
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/10/episode-9-powder.html (http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/10/episode-9-powder.html)
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Yeah, whoops, should keep up the links here. Another one today, an interview with Dungeons of Dredmor developers Gaslamp Games:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/10/interview-with-gaslamp-games-developers.html
Quite a funny interview overall.
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New episode talking about deity systems:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/11/episode-10-deity-systems.html
Just Jeff and I talking in this one, and on a fairly limited topic, but I think there's some interesting points covered for those interested in making a game with a prayer system.
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A pity you have not mentioned IVAN, it might have the best deity system known to roguelikes. There are currently 15 deities, each of whom has their own personality, and each monster, item, and material is attached to some deity, so they are well tied to the gameplay. You can get various benefits by worshipping the gods (you can pray each 3 or 4 hours), and you can worship several gods at once, but they need to like each other, which depends on their alignments. So you could for example worship the three neutral gods (Silva, the goddess of nature, Loricatus, the god of smithing, and Mellis, the god of trade), or you could go slightly more lawful and worship Sophos, the god of knowledge (who is weakly lawful) instead of Mellis, who is slightly chaotic. Or you could try to worship all four, hoping that Sophos will like you for being friends with Loricatus and Silva, despite that you are also friends with Mellis (although this could be a bit more risky). There is a Wisdom stat, and a higher value would allow you to increase the range of gods that you are worshipping (so you could successfully worship 5 gods at once, for example).
ADOM: It is not true that the only way you know about the Paragon of Order challenge is by reading spoilers. There is a fortune cookie which says "They say that a paragon of Order must not violate his beliefs by any means", which is a big hint that there might be a reward for committing no chaotic acts*. I think that, in golden days of ADOM, many people have tried the challenge and get the reward, but they all failed due to another requirement, which was not hinted about anywhere and IMO is not well thought out: that no lawful being can die by any means. They all tried to approach the challenge in a logical way: start lawful and never do anything wrong -- which would cause all lawful beings to be enemies of your enemies, and it would be quite sure that a few dwarves and blink dogs would die. The truth was discovered later by unlawful techniques, and shortly after the challenge was won (actually both of these were done by me), and some time later there was another person who claimed to win some more difficult challenge which involved getting the Platinum Girdle. I don't know what happened later, as I have left the ADOM community (I understand that Darren has won).
General: the choice of subjects for the podcast seems biased towards commercial games (after the Binding of Isaac there will be 8 episodes about commercial games (two of which are semi-roguelikes) and 5 about non-commercial ones)... one thing I like about roguelikes is how such great games as NetHack, Angband, ADOM, and Crawl (I am not sure about Rogue itself) have been created by developers for themselves and people like them, not for the masses, and can be played for free, as the developers simply want people to play their creations (and if you want to thank them, you can donate, discuss the games, promote them, or release your own free roguelikes). Commercial bias goes the other way...
* I remember an opinion that you cannot win ADOM without spoilers, as there are lots of things you do not know about. IMO this is not true, as all the important things are covered by fortune cookies, Mad Minstrel songs, Ancient Dwarf's hints, and general logic.
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There will be more free roguelikes in the future, but basically the problem is that the major ones are too big to really do them justice.
For example, I might be able to say something about crawl but I haven't played any of the other big ones long enough to have a really educated opinion, and I think pretty much everyone on the team has played maybe 1 or 2 of the major ones for long enough to really know them well (and it's different games for each person).
With the binding of isaac (or 100 rogues, etc) I feel perfectly comfortable talking with some authority after playing the game for several days.
Moreover, the facts are that the commercial releases normally put much greater emphasis on easy to learn controls and interfaces and are a lot easier to get into (and therefor to play in time for the podcast).
That's probably a side effect of what you mentioned at the end of your comment, but honestly when you have to play a new game every week for many weeks straight you don't want a game that take a week just to get used to its quirks.
The best solution I can think of is to have anyone who is interested in joining us to post it here and we could integrate "experts" into specific episodes (e.g. you might be up in an episode about IVAN, someone else would join in for the nethack episode, etc).
Thoughts?
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I'd say if there gets to be a Religion II episode that gets into things like IVAN and others that are taking a crack at it, Triangle Wizard, now that the update is functional that introduced it, should probably get a mention on variety and some interesting quirks. Depending on how it goes, for instance, your deity can compel you to do some questing for them---sometimes rather "forcibly".
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Topics can certainly be returned to. It's hard to know about all games. Apparently Incursion has a complex deity system too, but I've not gotten past the character generator in it.
One significant influence on the coverage of commercial games is that we have been blessed with several new commercial roguelikes or roguelike-likes in the last few months. It's quite unprecedented, and it seems a shame not to cover them shortly after release. There's plenty of time to balance it out with free ones in future.
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Z: Cool to hear you've gotten the Paragon of Order in ADOM too. I thought maybe I was the only one to do it legitimately (the other person I know who did it was a player named Alex that abused the piety loop bug). My point about it being fairly secret was to contrast it with other behaviour encouragement systems like in Crawl or Powder, where they are much more explicit and have more of an effect on people's play.
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I don't particularly think the podcast needs a musical theme, or intro. I kinda like it bare-bones. Kinda like ascii only roguelikes. Bare-bones in presentation, but quality in content.
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Don't really see a point in those either.
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Forgot to post about episode 11, The Binding of Isaac:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/11/episode-11-binding-of-isaac.html
It includes some interesting discussion with Edmund McMillen, the developer, who talks about some of his inspirations behind the game and the work that went into it. Also some interesting talks on qualifying games as roguelikes, and why roguelikes aren't mainstream.
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And hot on Isaac's heels, episode 12, discussing roguelike features in other genres:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/11/episode-12-roguelikes-features-in-other.html
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Hey you guys are doing pretty well with that episode. Couldn't quite follow the the parts about 'these things aren't roguelike they are just inherent to good games' and the 'we shouldn't use genre designations'. Those bits fell a little dead because it becomes a semantic issue. Words have power, for sure, but arguing that games like Binding of Isaac, Spelunky or Diablo are following some tradition other than that started by Rogue (really Moria and Nethack) gets a little thin and useless.
I understand Ido's hesitation with labels though. I'm sure releasing a game and then getting criticism over fitting the genre can be frustrating. But labels are very important for understanding and simplification. The side effect of pigeon holing can be frustrating. Especially in this community of hyper nerdy developer purist types.
As far as having an intro song or whatever I do not see the point. The people listening are most likely hobby developers who do not really require music. I guess if you discovered that your radio broadcasts were gaining popularity outside of our weird little niche you might need to spice up the productions. But for now I'd just concentrate on the content. Unless of course one of you is a musician or someone really wants to write you a nice little theme. But hell most the games you are talking about lack sound, so...
Anyway I am a big fan of the broadcasts. I have listened to every one, sometimes more than once. The Binding of Isaac guy was fantastic. Reviewing a game with the developer seems like a winning formula to me.
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Episode 11 was awesome. Very inspiring to hear success stories like that.
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Episode 11 was awesome. Very inspiring to hear success stories like that.
+1
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As far as having an intro song or whatever I do not see the point. The people listening are most likely hobby developers who do not really require music. I guess if you discovered that your radio broadcasts were gaining popularity outside of our weird little niche you might need to spice up the productions. But for now I'd just concentrate on the content. Unless of course one of you is a musician or someone really wants to write you a nice little theme. But hell most the games you are talking about lack sound, so...
I do think that Nethack's in-game music would fit very well into the podcast. ;D j/k
Anyway I am a big fan of the broadcasts. I have listened to every one, sometimes more than once. The Binding of Isaac guy was fantastic. Reviewing a game with the developer seems like a winning formula to me.
I agree. I find myself listening to some episodes over and over again.
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I agree. I find myself listening to some episodes over and over again.
Nice to hear you like them that much!
Which are your favorite episodes?
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I agree. I find myself listening to some episodes over and over again.
Nice to hear you like them that much!
Which are your favorite episodes?
I really liked the brogue and DoomRL ones, and recently the one on POWDER. The non-game-specific ones, on progression and deity systems, were also very interesting and entertaining. *thumbs up*
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I also have been enjoying the episodes. The Isaac one was strong but I think that owes a lot to the creator's interesting motives and history. I think an hour is about the right length (just happened to be exactly the length of my commute in Osaka over the last few weeks!).
Some better equalisation of the voices of the different speakers would be welcome (I could rarely hear the @play guy over the train noise).
Good stuff, keep it up!
-flend
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I liked the ones that focus on a game and the ones that focus on a developer. Bonus when the developer shows up to talk about his own game. When the Binding of Isaac developer came on you could tell he was impressed by the questions. He's probably not used to our niche. Guys not afraid of permadeath are not your typical game interviewer I think.
I really like the guy that wrote Brogue. You could tell he wasn't a hardcore programmer type guy but his game shows such creative depth. Very inspiring.
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Well done with this podcast. Got me to try out Brogue, which was a good game.
And the episode on prayer mechanics gave me an idea that helped me complete the list of spells and enchantments in my game: A collectable Holy spell that fullfils the role of prayer - thus paying homage to the mechanic without making it a core element.
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We've had two episodes lately:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/11/episode-13-mystery-dungeon-2-shiren_23.html
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/11/episode-14-resource-management.html
Also The Binding of Isaac interview got featured on Rock, Paper, Shotgun a couple of weeks ago, which conveniently crashed our server due to the spike in traffic. All seems smooth now though :)
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Resource management is a very big subject, Episode 14 is mostly about food clocks and alternatives, which is just a part of resource management.
I actually think that Crawl does food really well. You need to care about food in order to win (I have never felt that food is meaningless like in e.g. ADOM... and when playing a Troll my food store was running out in the end and I knew that I need to finish the game soon). Also it is very immersive (food works very differently for Elf and Troll characters, and I think it is still different for small carnivores like Kobolds or large herbivores like Centaurs), contrary to extremely bland food systems of Rogue or Brogue.
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Scallywag: Lair of the Medusa had a decent such mechanic---finely controlled player light. When it is out, you are dead, but it can be finely tuned to be rather bright or super dim or anywhere in between. Considering that lower the light the less visual feedback you have on enemies in the area, yet conversely the greater the light the more you can engage at once----it is quite a thing to manage the needed shifting about while keeping a limited stock of oil refills on hand.
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I just wanted to say thank you to all the contributors to this splendid series of podcasts.
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You're very welcome. I quite enjoy it to be honest.
Two latest episodes:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/12/episode-15-quickband.html
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/12/episode-16-history-and-future-of.html
Next week we're talking about the Roguelike of the Year poll, after which we'll be taking a few weeks break over Christmas.
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man your podcasts are a real hit. At least with me.
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Unless I missed that the presenters were just talking about roguelikes, the repeated sentiment that we're going to see more randomness and more permadeath is the opposite of my experience.
If anything, the growing trend of checkpointism in games, an option in Mario on the Wii to autocomplete the level and smarter save points suggests that games as a whole are moving further away from permadeath. Personally, I thought that permadeath wasn't about any sort of masochistic difficulty setting, but about exploration and exposing the player to a breadth of content.
Same for randomness. It's not the bottom-up emergent randomness of roguelikes that's making it's way into the mainstream but the top-down designed randomness of graphics programming. I think a lot of indies are paving the way for bottom-up random, but there are still people who don't want that sort of game.
My boss for example hates randomness. I always wondered why he insisted that Zelda was an RPG, yet he hated RPGs. I recently figured it out: Zelda is an RPG with all the random elements removed.
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Since the last 'cast brought up the whole commercial vs. freeware controversy, let me add my 0.02$.
What worries me about the recent success of commercial roguelikes - which I don't oppose, just to be clear - is that we run the risk of confusing graphics with accessibility. Obviously, graphics are pretty much needed for a commercial game to be successful, because ASCII or amateurish tiles will scare many people away. The question I have been asking myself is, have they been successful because they are graphic or because they have an easier-to-use user interface (that includes controls) or because they have a shallower (less complex, but also easier and faster to get into) gameplay than most roguelikes, as some imply?
I think we can safely say that the third point doesn't apply - just look at Dredmor, I don't think that's shallow gameplay. Now compare Dredmor with Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. ::)
Now let's look at the two options that are left. What I've been trying to figure out is: Suppose we had two commercial roguelike games, one with stunning graphics, but crappy UI and one with crappy graphics, but wonderfully intuitive UI. Which one do you think would be more popular? I think the answer to that question is what worries me, because I think it would be the first one, although the second one sounds like the better game to me. :(
(I might sound like an idiot now, and maybe I am assessing the situation completely wrong. In this case, please show me where I am wrong. :P)
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Maybe I'm not hardcore enough, but personally I don't have a problem with graphical roguelikes. Indeed, I much prefer to play Dwarf Fortress (admittedly the only roguelike that I still play heavily) with a graphical tileset.
It by no means has to be pretty graphics, though. I think the problem isn't a graphics vs. UI intuitiveness issue, but that the problem occurs when bling takes precedence over good design in general. An intuitive UI is an integral part of a well designed game, and a well designed game pulls you in for the long haul. A pretty, blingy game that has too much focus on the art and not enough on the design pulls you in for a little while while you oogle at the pretties, but you master it too quickly, become bored, and quit playing.
I'd take the intuitive UI and crappy graphics. The horrid keymaps of Angband and Nethack are what turn me off. They may have great depth of play, if you can get past the klunky interface, but I posit that they're still /very poorly/ designed (or became that way through feature-creep evolution). I think DF could do with better mouse integration, but the menus are what make it (barely) intuitive enough for me to not get too aggrivated with. :P
We one or two-man hobby hacker teams just don't have the resources to sink enough man-hours into both art and design. I think design wins out in the long run, but gosh.... There are tons of public domain graphics out there and using them (and with mouse-driven context menus in addition to the keyboard even!) is easy with a good high level UI library. They're certainly not great graphics, but I think they're still more intuitive than an orange 'o' and a keymap that consumes the entire 7-bit ASCII space.
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I will say again on the Internet (capitalised by the iPad) for the umpteenth time that graphics IS gameplay. You have to communicate to the player what is happening. Unless your game is purely sound based I doubt you can do that without graphics that effectively illustrate what's happening. Brogue for example. Great gameplay and graphics that communicate well to the audience. And it doesn't matter if a monkey could kill me or be my friend. Somehow I realise I'm still in control and I'm delighted to discover my new monkey friend. He's just a letter "m" but I get it, that's the style and the style has won me over with its charm. His humility is to be applauded. Come along and lets lay waste to this hostile lexicon before us...
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Now let's look at the two options that are left. What I've been trying to figure out is: Suppose we had two commercial roguelike games, one with stunning graphics, but crappy UI and one with crappy graphics, but wonderfully intuitive UI. Which one do you think would be more popular?
They will both be unsuccessful, like the vast majority of indie games.
You need both a good UI and decent aesthetics (which could also be done with very low-fi graphics, e.g. Cardinal Quest or Legends of Yore, or even Brogue).
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Now let's look at the two options that are left. What I've been trying to figure out is: Suppose we had two commercial roguelike games, one with stunning graphics, but crappy UI and one with crappy graphics, but wonderfully intuitive UI. Which one do you think would be more popular?
They will both be unsuccessful, like the vast majority of indie games.
You need both a good UI and decent aesthetics (which could also be done with very low-fi graphics, e.g. Cardinal Quest or Legends of Yore, or even Brogue).
+1 to this.
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Pure UI has to be recognised as an important thing. It's kind of funny that people moan about Dredmor only having 4-way movement, yet wasd control is part of its success. Could you imagine it with vi keys? *shudders*
As well as graphics I think sound shouldn't be underrated either. Cardinal Quest is good for this too. Not just music but appropriate sound effects that make one less reliant on reading a combat log.
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As well as graphics I think sound shouldn't be underrated either. Cardinal Quest is good for this too. Not just music but appropriate sound effects that make one less reliant on reading a combat log.
Did you know? Most of the sounds effects in Cardinal Quest were made with bfxr (http://www.bfxr.net/) and took no longer than ~1 minute per effect to produce.
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4 directional movement got on my tits in 100 rogues, especially with a hunger mechanic on top of that. But I have to admit that on the iPad the gameplay was very accessible and I only lament the sometimes clunkiness of the graphics programming (juddery panel movements and gaps between tiles as the level scrolls). All in all it's not perfect, but it's still a good game. (Though I wish they'd had a demo version instead of making me gamble - I've bought a number of shit games for the iPad now and demos really help stop that happening.)
The other roguelikes I've tried on the iPad have been pretty ropey to be fair. I dread to think what it would be like to play them on the iPhone. Though iNetHack had a rather good approach to interface with an inspectable menu for the myriad of controls and illuminated ascii letters as opposed to a dodgy tile set where you'd have to guess what the artist was trying to draw. It's free, go get it.
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Cavern for iDevices had a pretty good looking UI and whatnot from what I recall from videos, shame the main site is gone and all. No idea if it is even still available proper for the platform.
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Now let's look at the two options that are left. What I've been trying to figure out is: Suppose we had two commercial roguelike games, one with stunning graphics, but crappy UI and one with crappy graphics, but wonderfully intuitive UI. Which one do you think would be more popular?
They will both be unsuccessful, like the vast majority of indie games.
You need both a good UI and decent aesthetics (which could also be done with very low-fi graphics, e.g. Cardinal Quest or Legends of Yore, or even Brogue).
Yeah, I guess so... Again, my initial discomfort might have been a fair bit exaggerated. :-[
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We're back after teh Christmas break. For those that missed it here's the Roguelike of the Year episode:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/12/episode-17-roguelike-of-year-2011.html
And here's the latest episode, discussing the winner of the Roguelike of the Year, ToME4:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2012/01/episode-18-tome4.html
For those on iTunes, I'd be very grateful if you can leave reviews/ratings, as currently we don't have enough to be given an average score.
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We're back after teh Christmas break. For those that missed it here's the Roguelike of the Year episode:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/12/episode-17-roguelike-of-year-2011.html
And here's the latest episode, discussing the winner of the Roguelike of the Year, ToME4:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2012/01/episode-18-tome4.html
Great to see you discussing tome4 - I had some huge fun with that recently. Looking forward to hearing what you have to say!
For those on iTunes, I'd be very grateful if you can leave reviews/ratings, as currently we don't have enough to be given an average score.
I'll see what I can do! :)
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Two new eps! Interview with DarkGod, and interview with Whales / discussion of Cataclysm:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2012/01/episode-19-interview-with-darkgod.html
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2012/01/episode-20-cataclysm.html
Next week is Procedural Content.
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Both interviews were great. Looks like Cataclysm is the go to sandbox as well as the go to Post Apoc RL.
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I have not played ToME yet, but I share DarkGod's feelings about the consumables. There are lots of games where consumables are mostly junk (not powerful enough to care about, or available in a huge supply so they no longer work like consumables), like Angband variants and ADOM.
In general there are two kinds of consumables: temporary (offensive wands, potions of healing, speed) and permanent ones (potion of strength, scroll of identify). It's the temporary ones which cause problems. I don't remember using wands in ADOM, other than the wand of wishing (permanent), wand of cold (used for a special permanent purpose), and maybe wand of trap creation (permanent purpose). I tend to never or almost never use temporary consumables, in ADOM and other games. Especially in the games where the inventory is bounded, weak temporary consumables are often simply not worth it to carry.
That's why most wands and other magical items in my Vapors of Insanity are designed as items which charge themselves from a mana source (such as PC), except some of the more powerful ones (that would be permanents). To prevent abuse (carrying a huge backpack filled with charged powerful wands) the power is lost when not connected to a mana source. I still have temporary potions, but I don't like them, and I am thinking about replacing them with something better (I especially hate how illogical it is that you can magically create a potion of speed or whatever, but you cannot store it in a bottle). I have read somewhere an idea that potions should have an expiry date, this could work. It would be logical with herbs, which could have magical effects only shortly after picking.
But I think it is possible to do consumables correctly, too. Crawl has powerful potions of healing, but a limited number of them. A Crawl player finds potions of healing at some find rate, and uses them at use rate. The find rate is constant, but use rate depends on the player's skill. As a newbie, my use rate was higher than the find rate, so my supply of potions of healing was depleted, and, well, game over. As I got more and more skilled, my use rate finally became lower than the find rate, allowing me to win the game. Crawl also has some very powerful wands, which really help in hard fights, and similarly work as a tool whose find/use rate is used to decide when to allow the player to win.
I am also happy with how things work in my Hydra Slayer. Consumables are found in a limited quantity (a must for meaningful consumables), and there are some permanent, and some temporary ones. However, since health does not regenerate for free in Hydra Slayer, it becomes a permanent. A typical situation is that you can win a battle losing lots of health, or use a temporary consumable. In other words, you can trade your temporary consumable for a permanent health bonus (and your job is to find the right moment, when the health bonus will be the biggest). This makes them somewhat permanent themselves, and work as a real resource.
Regarding Cataclysm and Curses... I used to be a follower of Curses (and similar ways of using the system console), but nowadays, libtcod becomes a new standard, and I am even myself helping to make it overcome its disadvantages (by adding the NotEye/streaming support, so we will be able to play libtcod games over network, not only for the Curses ones)... probably we should switch to it.
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I have a thought about consumables that I haven't seen used in roguelike games yet. It may be a good idea, or it may not.
The idea is that consumables are generated in limited quantities and not respawned, but last long enough that their effects are (usually) overlapping. That is, you quaff your potion of speed and it lasts a few thousand turns - during which time, if you're making progress, you're likely to find another potion that confers an equally large advantage and quaff that one too.
The effect is that they act as "power-ups." If you speed-run, you can remain buffed under several different simultaneous potion effects all the time, and some combinations can be awesome. But if you explore slowly, you'll usually have only one in effect at a time, and frequently none, which will make you weak compared to the speed-runners.
The result would be a game balanced for speed running; where you have to strive to go fast and uncover new territory (and new consumables) as quickly as you can in order to have a chance of beating what you meet there, and "grinding" behavior wouldn't keep you powered-up enough to deal with the later levels.
Bear
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Awesome idea actually. It would replace a food clock with a power push, which is much more fun for the player. It would have to be carefully balanced of course, so that there's no way to get too many of the things, and that grinding won't reward you with extra of them. Perhaps only bosses would drop them? Or maybe you only get a boost on level transfer, so you've got x turns with extra power.
You should come on the show some time by the way, Bear.
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@Bear - Sounds like a good 7DRL idea Bear. And yeah you should go on RR-Radio man.
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Generally I don't use too many consumables in Roguelikes, because I figure that if you have to rely on healing potions and buffs, then you're doing it wrong. :p
Naturally, a wizard who keeps casting things to buff himself makes sense, as they're physically weak.
But when I have a fighter type, I try to play in a way that will get me quick kills, without getting into battles of attrition, where I end up chugging potion after potion.
That way I do have a decent supply, just in case. But I can go through mostly on my own merits.
In ADoM, I never found consumables to be overly common. I mean, there is a decent supply of most things... usually. You could also have runs where you wouldn't find anything for ages. But I never found it get to the point where I just had so many potions and wands around that they were all in excess.
And depending on my character, I would make good use of wands in ADoM. Non-casters use them a lot, as they lack that magical punch that's sometimes needed, especially with monster rooms. Having that wand of fire or cold to zap across a half dozen monsters definitely helps.
Of course, mages could use wands and such as well to save their own PP and spell charges for more dire situations. With many casters, wands became almost my main attack form. Anything bigger than fodder met the end of a wand, as it was dangerous to try and go toe to toe with them.
Rather than an expiry date on items, I think an algorithm that affects drop rates would work well. Basically, you'd have your normal drop rate for items, and as the character collects more and more of them, the drop rate starts to lower, based on how many are currently kept.
So if say a potion has a 5% drop rate (just random example), say for every potion (of that type) that the character has, the drop rate falls by perhaps 0.1%. So once you're holding on to 10 healing potions, you've now only got a 4% chance of finding another.
Maybe make it a larger drop, but I think you get the idea.
Naturally it would have to be well balanced, so that the player can get a decent amount of them to keep themselves going if things are rough. But also a large enough reduction so that once they're at a certain point, they're just not going to find more (outside of things like shops and guaranteed events).
This means that they can use potions as needed, and still have a decent chance of getting more, but if they're doing well enough, then they don't really need more.
I don't mind the idea of wands using the player's mana to cast and such. The problem is, that means fighter types will generally get very little use of them. Though I suppose a fighter with wand focus type character could be designed for that purpose.
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Hmm, a few updates due in this thread:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2012/02/episode-21-procedural-generation.html
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2012/02/episode-22-infra-arcana.html
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2012/02/episode-23-interview-with-david-ploog.html
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2012/02/episode-24-themes-and-settings.html
Planning an interview with Kornel Kisielewicz next week, another game after that, an episode on Permadeath and then a month dedicated to 7DRLs - how to make them, previous highlights, and looking at some of the releases this year.
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Rather delayed, but here's our latest episode on Permadeath:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2012/03/episode-25-permadeath.html
Next ep on "How to Make a 7DRL" has already been recorded, and will be edited and posted up in the next few days.
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As I don't seem to be able to comment on the blog through OpenID or Wordpress (mostly it just doesn't seem to work on blogger blogs at all...), I'll just leave a comment here.
Firstly, congratulations on another great episode! I really enjoy listening everytime. It could as well have been two hours and longer without boring me, it seems. It's refreshing to hear such in-depth discussions of game mechanics. You don't really see that elsewhere, at least not that regularly. Keep the episodes coming, please. :)
Some words on topic: In general I love the idea of permadeath and failure in games in general. Actually since I discovered the "roguelike world", it has become somewhat hard to accept games without failure at all (though some of them are obviously pretty enjoyable). Some games though, especially when they're long and are based a lot on story, are just not supposed to have permadeath in my opinion. And there have to be some random elements obviously. Thinking of a game like Final Fantasy 13-2, which I actually enjoyed a lot recently. It just wouldn't make any sense to have permadeath in there.
To be honest I sometimes don't even like it in roguelikes, like ToME or ADOM (though I love them both and wouldn't play them without permadeath either). It's just that you explore the huge world for hours and hours and then reach a location you don't know yet, make just one little mistake maybe and BAM... that's probably it. And then you have to explore the (structurally same) world for hours again. That can be pretty frustrating at times or at least prevent from directly starting over. It works much better in smaller/shorter games, e.g. DoomRL or (B)rogue, I think. I pretty much aggree with John Harris here, who I think mentioned something similar before on the podcast. Like roguelikes should generally not be that long? I guess it was on the Dredmor episode if I remember correctly, when the hugeness of the Dredmor floors was discussed.
So, looking forward to the upcoming weeks and all the 7DRL stuff. ;)
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And here be the How to Make a 7DRL episode:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2012/03/episode-26-how-to-make-7drl.html
With special guests Jeff Lait, corremn and Joe Bradshaw (the guy that made Rogue: The Cardlike).
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Yay that's me! Cardlike for the win! I actually have the new version all designed but am bogged down in production right now. You know, building the cards, getting the graphics right and writing the text on the cards and what not. That project is on hold as I gear up for this year's 7DRL!
So pumped about this year's competition I can hardly deal with myself.
This was a pretty good episode Darren. And I don't just say that because I was on it. Well maybe...but still. Solid episode. It'll blow you mind. :D
-Jo
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Continuing our 7DRL month, here's an episode looking back on the 7DRLs of Yesteryear:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2012/03/episode-27-7drls-of-yesteryear.html
Hopefully should prove a light distraction to those in code hell ;)
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I'm having a lot of fun with my project. Makes me wonder why I ever quit coding in the first place. Maybe I just needed the break?
So no coding hell here. Coding bliss? That just sounds wrong....:-)
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I'm having a lot of fun with my project. Makes me wonder why I ever quit coding in the first place. Maybe I just needed the break?
So no coding hell here. Coding bliss? That just sounds wrong....:-)
You, my friend, are in the Coding Zone. Relish it.
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I'm having a lot of fun with my project. Makes me wonder why I ever quit coding in the first place. Maybe I just needed the break?
So no coding hell here. Coding bliss? That just sounds wrong....:-)
You, my friend, are in the Coding Zone. Relish it.
Likewise, it feels good to program a game rather than engine stuff. 7DRL always brings the coding bug back.
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Here's part 1 of a feature on this year's 7DRLs:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/episode-28-7drls-2012-part-1.html
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And part 2 at last:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/episode-29-7drls-2012-part-2.html
Which finishes our coverage of 7DRLs for this year.
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Couple more episodes, including a biggie:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/episode-30-identification-systems.html
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/episode-31-rogue-with-co-creator-glenn.html
The most recent is an episode about the original Rogue, and we had one of the game's co-creators, Glenn Wichman, on the show answering a lot of questions in depth. Definitely one to check out for anyone in the genre.
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It was awesome. This guy seriously created an entire game genre, or several depending on your point of view. He did it with his buddy in college. A buddy he still talks to. It's awesome. He's never beaten Rogue either. So I don't feel so bad that I've never gotten past level 12 (in a speed dive...).
EDIT: In case you guys didn't understand the game idea he was pitching, it's awesome. I'd play it. It's a social RL where you dungeon dive to retrieve ingredients and materials for things. Come back to a central location where you can craft, buy and sell gear. Rinse and repeat. I play the hell out of a game like that. You could make a ton of money at it by charging for extra characters beyond the first couple and also allowed people to buy ingame currency/gold and or you took a cut of any real world money for gear exchanges.
-Jo
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And here's another episode, this time a general discussion of Combat Mechanics:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/episode-32-combat-mechanics.html
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And finally (I've been wanting this for a while) we've interviewed Thomas Biskup, creator of ADOM:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/episode-33-interview-with-thomas-biskup.html
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I am pretty excited for this weeks and next weeks with Red Rogue.
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It was pretty exhausting really. Felt like I was being chewed out for daring to make a hobby-game at times and I think my skype connection was really bad (I don't have great internet).
Be interesting to see if being requested to turn the game into Sonic the Hedgehog makes it in.
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I'm not sure some of the others really got the game. Some of the ideas suggested were just outright bad.
Episode should be edited and up tomorrow.
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It is a messy game though. I don't call it the Chaos Dungeon for nothing.
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I don't think anyone meant to "chew you out", we were just trying to understand you and the game - it was a discussion not a critique.
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New episode is now out! Red Rogue, with Aaron Steed on board:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/episode-34-red-rogue-with-creator-aaron.html
An yes, the bottom of the post does read right - next week we're covering Diablo. Be ready to boo and hiss :)
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It was pretty exhausting really. Felt like I was being chewed out for daring to make a hobby-game at times
I just listened to this ep and didn't take that away from it at all. Sounded like a discussion to me, but I can understand how you might see things differently from a creator's POV.
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I could only hear 50% of what was said over Skype so I was on my back foot all the time. That and the unfinished state tends to make design discussions seem like requests to me.
The amount of work I instantly saw required for charging attacks (animation, UI, AI graph restructuring, physics overhaul, complementary level design) left me stunned.
Overall it was a useful discussion and I've just implemented shuffling the order that content is introduced in each zone as a result. There's a lot of content that do weird and wonderful things I've put in and the impression I was getting was that people weren't seeing these things and finding new ways to play. I originally thought I had to introduce elements one at a time, which is right, but I was wrong that the order had to be static. And I think it's much more fun to replay now.
Also put in gas traps in the shape of mushrooms in the Sewers, you know, for fun.
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It seemed a bit more critical than usual. Especially with a developer on the line. Seemed like you were on the defense quite a bit. It didn't seem super bad, but if you compare it to the 'discussions' with the creators and developers of Adom, Rogue, Crawl, Infra Arcana, Cataclysm, ToME, Binding, Dredmore, Powder, Brogue and so on, it just seemed more harsh.
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Diablo episode (http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2012/05/episode-35-diablo.html) is published!
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You're doing a very good job guys.. congratulations!
Here's my request: an interview with Wouter van den Wollenberg, developer of Triangle Wizard.
Keep going!
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I really like graphs...I'll just drop this here:
(http://kraflab.com/rlr_comments.png)
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Andrew betted before the episode that we'd end up breaking past 50 comments...
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Hmm, and if you like stats:
(http://sites.google.com/site/darrenjohngrey/stuff/rlr-stats1-may.png)
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As another interesting stat, only 5% of users view our page through IE. We get more Opera users than that! And that's in a 74% Windows audience.
Also, new episode up on coffeebreak roguelikes! And a cool new banner by Dan Earnshaw!
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/episode-36-coffeebreak-roguelikes.html
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Hmm, and if you like stats:
This just in: according to an independent survey by "Roguelike Radio", Cardinal Quest is more popular than Diablo!
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Andrew betted before the episode that we'd end up breaking past 50 comments...
Yeah I mentioned it somewhere in the comments, maybe in the episode before.
EDIT: Congrats Ido!!!
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For those missing out, here's an ep with 12 of the people at IRDC today:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/episode-27-irdc-london-2012-day-1.html
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I am very surprised Thomas Biskup interview didn't showed up among the most popular episodes.
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I am very surprised Thomas Biskup interview didn't showed up among the most popular episodes.
The stats are only since the podcast began and all his fans are from 1995...
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Then why did JADE get such a very high place at ROTY 2011 despite being not playable yet at that time (IIRC)? Fans of Thomas Biskup are still numerous and very powerful. Maybe the interview was not advertised on ADOM-related sites?
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It was - I posted on the ADOM forums, TB posted on his blog and his Facebook status. Perhaps it shows that the RotY results were heavily skewed by some persistent pollers.
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Love the show. I've been wanting to post this for a while but I've always thought better of it because I don't want to be a downer. But I have to do it. Your show is way to good to have such bad audio quality! I listen to over 20 podcasts, and while you guys have amazing content you easily have the worst sound ever. I honestly can't understand what you guys are saying sometimes.
Again, sorry to be a bummer. I really do dig the show.
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Yeah, we know, sorry :( Skyping across 4 continents is pretty bad for the audio, and everyone has different mic qualities.
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We can try mumble and see if it helps.
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I tried getting mumble set up but wasn't able to get the server working on Windows. Whole programme is set up towards Linux users it seems.
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oh we already have a server set-up for the roguelike dev chat channel, we can add a room just for us there.
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Well hot damn, let's do that then. You want to sort it out?
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it's all sorted, we can use this for tonight's episode.
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Maybe you can do a pledge drive to buy better microphones or something ;D
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Given the depressing gender ratio mentioned at the beginning of the new episode, I think it would be cool to try and round up some female panelists to talk about women and roguelikes. I don't recall there ever being a female guest on the show, and it would certainly be a shame if the "show about girl gamers" was the only occasion for such, but it wouldn't be a bad place to start.
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Yargh, so there be a new ep:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/episode-40-designing-for-non.html
Topic is designing for non-roguelikers, relating to a recent thread on RGRD.
Also I forgot to post in this thread about these previous eps:
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/episode-38-zaga-33-and-microgue.html
http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/episode-39-irdc-2012-retrospective.html
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New ep ahoy! I've just interviewed Thomas Biskup and Jochen Terstiege about the ADOM IndieGoGo campaign:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/07/special-on-adom-indiegogo-campaign.html
(Does the in-browser player work for people? Seems to have broken for me, but the mp3 download works.)
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In-browser works for me.
Chrome.
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Doesn't work, Firefox 13.0.1 (player disappears upon clicking play-button)
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Yeah, I get the same disappearing thing on my Firefox. Yet at work, on an older version of Firefox, it runs fine. Also doesn't work on my Android phone.
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Same issue here. Downloading works fine.
Firefox. Vista (YAY!). America (Um, like, yay?) and shit connection. :-)
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New episode! This time about score systems:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/07/episode-41-score-systems.html
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Uh, is this a weirdly clever bot...?
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Seemingly, about to be purged though.
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We'll maybe be doing an episode on Roguelike Elitism in the next few days. Since most of us that talk on the show are fairly progressive in thought, is there anyone with a more traditional viewpoint that would be interested in standing up for what some term elitist views?
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Or, alternatively, someone who likes Diablo and can explain why we were being elitist by hating on it :P
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Hard to think of any case where I have encountered any roguelike elitism. Most people on the forum don't really give off that vibe. In my personal life, others generally look down their nose at me for playing roguelikes. Mostly cause they just don't understand the appeal and usually can't get passed the lack of graphics.
About the closest thing I can think of would be sometimes on the Doomrl forum, some people there sometimes have a twinge of an elitist attitude, but mostly pertaining to that specific rl.
I think Elitism in Roguelike community is pretty rare. Nothing like the people I know who act like music, art, or modern gaming elitists. Those guys get on my nerves. :p
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Hang out on Reddit more then ;) It's not as bad as other subcultures, mind, and it has gotten a lot better in recent years. Though at the same time there are many who are quite defensive about the evolution of the genre and want it to retain its conservative roots.
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You could post on reddit that you'd cured all forms of cancer and you'd still get about 19 downvotes.
Rogue has the rule baggage from RPGs and then dumps a load more exploration rules on top. I quite like "world" rules on top personally. It's more immersive than it being boiled down to a game of chess.
But rules beget dogma.
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Looking forward to it! Sounds like a cool topic :) I would find a discussion on immersion vs visible mechanics quite interesting as a future topic, or a talk on more programming related things, like how people architect their games, from a code perspective. Very much game design focus so far, which I really love and is definitely the most important aspect to cover no doubt... still would be interesting :) Why not an episode on the T-Engine?
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I personally think a talk on programming would be a waste. However, a talk about available engines made for roguelikes (t-engine and libtcod) might be interesting. Of course information about these things, like with programming, is so readily available that I still think episodes dedicated to lesser-known games or to discussions on design are much more interesting and useful.
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Or, alternatively, someone who likes Diablo and can explain why we were being elitist by hating on it :P
Since most of us that talk on the show are fairly progressive in thought, is there anyone with a more traditional viewpoint that would be interested in standing up for what some term elitist views?
I think these two are different kinds of elitism, in Diablo episode it was like "this game is so badly designed compared to our games" (I think that Keith Burgun often makes similar statements), but as far as I understand you want someone who is like "VI keys are clearly the best control system and ASCII is clearly the best UI, so other options are a waste of time" (why not find the threads where such people discuss?). Krice seems elitist about what can be considered a roguelike, but I am not sure whether this is what you want (although saying that 4-directional is not a roguelike would probably count).
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We've done the episode, just waiting for the edit. But yeah, both types of elitism were discussed.
Regarding the episode ideas, T-Engine and libtcod are both planned for the future, as I think it's worth discussing their strengths and weaknesses. More code detailed ones are difficult though I think - it doesn't lend itself well to discussion, and is better expressed through blog or wiki posts in my opinion.
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Well here's the episode:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/07/episode-42-elitism.html
Not re-listened to it myself yet. It was a bit messy to record as Ido kept losing his connection. Also I think we both wanted to talk about different things at various points, which made it a little incongruous. Hope it's enjoyable regardless!
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Hmm, now the on page player is broken for me in chrome as well :)
Listening to the mp3.
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Got this last night, looking forward to listening to it today! An episode on Spelunky sounds awesome too!
Edit: Another great episode, though it was a bit short for my walk... Sounds like I have to go and read up on the Diablo episode comments now ;D
Loved Ido's "..but is it a roguelike?" at the end!
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Darren sounds exactly like Hugh Grant. Wait.. what if he is Hugh Grant?!
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Hugh Grant?!?! I'm not pleased :(
Regarding your blog post, Krice, I do agree that the RL community is generally better than most when it comes to elitism. But open source can lead to its own elitism (see debate about OpenLeft etc, or the attitudes to Thomas Biskup for being closed source). And about accessibility, it's about ease of approach not making the game easier. A game can be very complex and challenging and still be accessible. Much of it is about conforming to modern interface standards, not just in-genre standards.
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Hugh Grant?!?! I'm not pleased :(
Don't be sorry. You have nice voice, you should really be on radio.
Much of it is about conforming to modern interface standards
Modern doesn't equal better. When I think of command per key it's a good way to handle commands, even it means the player has to memorize more keyboard commands. Or rather it's just another way to do it. However I think less used commands should be placed in a menu (like save/load game etc.) It's possible to improve user interface, but do it with style.
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Wouldn't a modernization entail having mouse-interface AND keyboard-shortcuts though? You'd ease players into the game with the mouse-interface, but ultimately to play the game efficiently you'd want to use the keyboard shortcuts? So perhaps the key per command doesn't suffer that much from modernization of the UI?
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A good interface should probably reflect the developer's preferences. (Even though, of course, developers have their blind spots, stuff like multiarch support is good, etc.) Personally, I don't really see what all the fuss is about. So I didn't find it the most captivating episode thus far, but had a nice time doing the dishes with it :)
As always,
Minotauros
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If that was every dev's approach then a lot of games would only have vi-keys :/
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The other way in which the roguelike community is unelitist is that a one-person development team with no skill at making sprites or writing prose can make a game and have it judged based on its gameplay, rather than on first impressions of its appearance.
But then there's the problem of all those threads in the Development and Early Development Feedback sections of Roguetemple with only the author's and/or getter77's posts... Bay12forums seems to be better in this regard, but given the volume of traffic pushing threads without replies down, this might be an illusion.
If that was every dev's approach then a lot of games would only have vi-keys :/
I'd worry about the roguelikes with emacs-like shortcuts in that case. Want to tunnel through that wall? Do control-shift-T then alt-j.
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A good interface should probably reflect the developer's preferences.
You need to play some of the Dev Log games on TIGSource to find out why this sentiment is utterly, utterly wrong. Developers often have the least idea of usability. Developers are also notoriously lazy.
I think what you need is an entry point for newbies, but support the wishes of the hardcore players. The hardcore are going to play your game the most. But the hardcore may not become hardcore if you don't let them pick up your game quickly.
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But then there's the problem of all those threads in the Development and Early Development Feedback sections of Roguetemple with only the author's and/or getter77's posts... Bay12forums seems to be better in this regard, but given the volume of traffic pushing threads without replies down, this might be an illusion.
Well, one can never tell really how such things will pan out---I would say the Dev board in particular is at one of the livelier periods I've seen since I first found this place. Bay12 is a phenomena in terms of latching onto a few things at a time with great fervor and the large masses of DF folks. There's a lot of diaspora going on in terms of the games that've yet to strike it big---one thing I've suggested in times past is for Roguelike releases, should the devs think to/feel up to it, to include the Roguetemple URL ingame at the main menu start and whatnot screens so as to get more of a hub going for those projects not aiming for the headache of an exclusive forum unless things get wonderfully hectic.
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A good interface should probably reflect the developer's preferences.
What I meant by this was not that developers should opt for making their own lives easier by making interfaces unusable by anyone other than themselves (obviously, I would have thought ;)). But rather that a good developer who is concious about UI issues and what kind of game (s)he is trying to make, will be the better judge of which UI suits the game. Regurgitating that "mouse/keyboard is better", or that "big/small commandlist is better", etc. totally misses the point, namely that every game is different, and therefore needs a different interface.
As always,
Minotauros
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New episode out covering Spelunky. Can't wait to have a listen!
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Yep, and we have Derek Yu on:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/08/episode-43-spelunky.html
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First, I would like to thank for some really inspiring podcasts (especially an episode about Diablo was mind-opening; when I played Diablo II I was killing one boss over and over again more than one hundered times only because of some certain piece of armour, so the term 'slot machine' is absolutely precise - addictiveness of Diablo is rooted in this constant waiting for better prizes). And second, I would like to suggest if it wouldn't be possible to make an episode about Angband variant named Sil (it was mentioned in an episode about winning also). It has some quite neat features and it differs from Angband quite a lot (no town, stairs to upper levels disappear for certain amount of time to reduce level scumming etc.). The game is even possible to win without killing any monsters, just by sneaking. I'm not an Angband enthusiast, but this game got my attention. And I'm not the only one, it's generally considered as a leading Angband variant nowadays. So it should probably deserve one episode on Rogulike radio.
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Thanks for the suggestion - I'll add it to our long list of games to cover :-)
I'll also note that we're looking at making a 1st anniversary episode about the podcast itself. Any fans or haters interested in taking part to ask us questions? Alternatively note here things you'd like us to discuss.
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An episode on Mercury would be good. I find it a bit pointless to play, but it's fun for a quick dip in dip out. Since it changes regularly it tends to stay fairly fresh. I find myself playing it not for the score but for just a quick and simple dive without all the frills.
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Regarding yours and Andrew's discussion on cardinal/diagonal/hex - pillar dancing is irrelevant. In a cardinal movement system, if you are a multiple of two tiles away you will always be hit first unless you can perform a wait action. Thus if you are an odd number of tiles away you will always hit first.
Therefore: if you only have cardinal movement and no wait action, your distance to one monster is irrelevant. It is whether the distance is a multiple of 2 that matters. Try it for yourself on paper.
With diagonal movement you get to jump back and forth each side of the binary system. Distance now matters.
I thought that with hex you would have the same issue with cardinal grid movement, but on trying it out on paper I'm not getting the same result. I can spend a turn but still be the same distance from the enemy - thus distance does matter in hex, yet it doesn't have the binary system that grids impose.
Not that the binary system isn't fun. But it does have a big impact on AI and on survival.
edit: multiple of 2 not factor of 2 :P
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Just had an episode on Steam Greenlight, with a few hopeful devs on:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/09/episode-46-steam-greenlight.html
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Two more episodes I really enjoyed recording:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/09/episode-47-ftl.html - FTL, which I can't stop playing
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/10/episode-48-designing-for-visually.html - designing for the blind / visually impaired
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I played the demo of Cardinal Quest while listening to the podcast and pretty much everything you said was spot on.
Love the accents too, except that Australian-buggerised kiwi accent
Its great that 3 grown men can talk about roguelikes for over half an hour and stay on topic.
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Andrew's accent is my favourite :)
Any requests for future episodes and games we should cover? We have a few quite nice things lined up, but more suggestions are always welcome.
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Have you guys stayed away from Dwarf Fortress for some reason? I'd bet that podcast would be pretty popular. You'd likely have to find some people that are experts in the game, I'm not sure the regulars are big DF players.
I can hear it now, "But is it a roguelike?" and "are you talking about adventure mode or fortress mode?"
Did you guys ever cover Terreria? I forget.
Maybe an episode on finishing a game. Why aren't they often finished? Labors of love for many, not meant to be finished, open source nature leading to new developers taking over etc...end with the question. Is Nethack finished? Then watch your comments section blow up.
That might be a good general suggestion, ending the episodes with a question. "So, what do you guys think? Tell us in the comments? Is Nethack over? Does it matter if a game is finished as long as it's fun?"
-Jo
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Maybe an episode on finishing a game.
There has been a recent RogueTemple thread on this. Why ask us for suggestions? Just look at the popular threads :) (I have suggested some topics some time ago)
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I'm not quite sure if this has been discussed before or not, but I'd be interested to hear about "real-time roguelikes". Can a roguelike be real-time? Well, FTL feels like a roguelike, and it is real-time (except that you can pause and think things through at anytime). Still, I'd love to hear some discussion about it.
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Much the same as the eventual Re-Biskupening to come, it would seem a prudent idea to get ahold of the Sword of Fargoal II devs somewhere down the line.
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I agree with Mosenzov that it'd be nice to see an episode on real-time roguelikes (mainly because I'm currently working on one myself, so it's something I've been thinking about a lot and it would be interesting to see some other perspectives). Although, that said, most of the decent real-time roguelikes that I can think of (Spelunky, BoI, FTL, Red Rogue etc.) have all already had their own dedicated episodes, so perhaps there's not much more to be said!
Since I've been playing the new XCOM for the past two weeks, it'd also be good to see an episode on X@Com (maybe when its finished) or even the original X-Com (or UFO: Enemy Unknown, to give it its proper name) itself, since its basically a roguelike anyway (at least, it is the way I play it).
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Have you guys stayed away from Dwarf Fortress for some reason? I'd bet that podcast would be pretty popular. You'd likely have to find some people that are experts in the game, I'm not sure the regulars are big DF players.
A good suggestion, and we did indeed find an expert on the game:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/10/episode-49-interview-with-tarn-adams.html
Enjoy :)
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Holy cow! Nice move sir.
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Since I've been playing the new XCOM for the past two weeks, it'd also be good to see an episode on X@Com (maybe when its finished) or even the original X-Com (or UFO: Enemy Unknown, to give it its proper name) itself, since its basically a roguelike anyway (at least, it is the way I play it).
I think there's definitely room for a strategy vs. roguelikes cross over episode, perhaps talking about Conquest of Elysium 3 and/or Seven Cities of Gold (and Slashie's Expedition).
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Great episode. Dwarf fortress originally got me into Roguelikes. I am also excited for a graphics and tile episode.
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Very enjoyable podcast.
Tarn Adams is always good value, the guy just goes on and on whilst remaining both interesting and coherent - also very nicely interviewed, got a lot out of him in the available time.
The 'danger' with some of the podcasts he has done is that because he is very listenable, and has a lot to say, he can talk for hours about the same thing - but this struck a good balance.
Nice work, will make a concerted effort to go back through the archives :)
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We ended up chatting with him for 2 hours after the podcast :) But I had a set list of topics I wanted to discuss and wanted to be reasonably strict on time. Our producer Ryan also did a nice job of trimming a few less on-topic bits.
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I recommend the Brogue Episode and the interview with its creator, Pender. I'd also like to recommend the Spelunky, Dredmore (gaslamp games) and Binding of Isaac episodes included the creator.
The David Ploog interview was super wacky, but really cool if you dig Crawl.
The infra arcana one was great too.
Really they are all pretty good.
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Will check them out :)
Listened to the Caves of Qud one last night, really interesting - glad to see the brutally punishing character creation was by design - and reminded me that I should go play that again sometime.
For some reason I will feel happier now dying in a frozen tomb of my own making, knowing the designers wanted that to happen!
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Have you tried Frozen Depths then? A classic right there.
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Latest episode, where we talk about ourselves:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/10/episode-50-episode-50.html
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I just started listening to this podcast and I'm really enjoying it. I'm probably going to get FTL because of you.
Have you tried being wackier? Maybe sharing stores of most frustrating deaths and taking a shot of vodka at the end of every story? Or perhaps a break in the middle of the podcast where everyone gets kicked in the nuts?
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Man. 50 eps of Roguelike Radio, that's quite an achievement. I'm proud to say I've listened to every single one of them. Looking forward to whatever your next ep covers. :)
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I've listened to them all as well. Some more than once, like the one I was on.
I am going to try a few other podcasts to see if they don't suck. :-)
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Grats on 50 episodes. I've become quite addicted to them with a 40 minute drive to work. Not missed a single one as of yet.
Thanks for all the work.
Shameless request: If you guys get a chance at some point, I'd love it if you could do an episode on algorithms and/or map design. Things like Cellular Automata, Perlin Noise, BSP, etc and your preferences. Maybe some games that have really stood out when it comes to map layout/design. Scrolling maps vs not. How many levels 'feel' nice. Persistent levels, world maps, city generation, etc. Something along those lines perhaps.
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We've done an episode on Graphics and Tile Design with a few known artists, but it was quite long so we split it into two. Here's the first half:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/11/episode-51-graphics-and-tile-design.html
Expect the second half in the coming few days. Lots of practical tips in here about both tile design and graphics implementation.
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Awesome Darren. I've been working on my pixel skills and have been looking to upgrade to a real graphics program, maybe a good tablet. I dunno if you talk about his stuff, hardware and software, but I'm glad for the treatment of this topic. It fits very nicely with my current hobby direction.
It should be noted I'm so scattered in direction that just about anything would interest me. Ha!
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Excellent show on tile art, looking forward to the next part.
I read John's article about his frustrations with producing indie art for an already established game. As a wargamer, I can really sympathise, because a lot of established wargames are still being pumped out with only slightly tweaked engines, and with the original art from the early 90's! On today's gaming systems, they just don't cut the mustard.
I listened to an early episode where Darren got really excited about a hex based RL, now you're talking, wargamers love the hex - so I'm fully in support there :)
Would love to see some sort of wargamey/roguelike hybrid based on historical settings. Not sure if thats ever been attempted in the RL genre before. I'm imagining a survival game, based around the Battle of Rorke's Drift in 1879 :)
Getting my ASCII feet wet playing the rather elegant and accesible QuickHack at the moment!
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Listened first 20 mins. Ido has quite low voice and at some point he was talking about 10 minutes in one long kafkaesque sentence.
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Part 2 now up:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/11/episode-52-graphics-and-tile-design.html
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so one thing you mention is the reuse of Tilesets. especially talking about the Oryx tileset. What do you guys think about reusing tilesets from one game to another?
For example reusing my Microgue tileset for a larger or different Roguelike, but it would not specifically be a sequel to Microgue.
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Well it might be odd to reuse the monsters if they don't do the same thing. But I'd personally say it's fine to reuse your own stuff as you're maintaining your own style. There's benefits to it even. I think the consistency across Jeff Lait's 7drls is quite nice for instance.
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It seems to be the case that you can re-use a tileset all day long every day and all night riiiight up until it first makes it into the spotlight in a given project. Then, save MAYBE if you also happen to be the original artist/dev, all others using it in your wake are likely to be inundated with claims of thievery and general offputting nonsense.
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Just use ascii and no one will say you stole it :P
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It depends on the project and how the UI develops.
A recent project I worked on (Turnament) required a few graphical fixes towards the end because players weren't understanding some of the basic concepts (like doors). This was because they weren't being communicated clearly enough.
A lot of programmers (and artists) seriously misunderstand what graphics are for. They aren't to make things pretty - they're there to communicate to the player. If you can't understand how to play just by looking at the graphics and the animations then it doesn't matter how pretty or ugly it looks - you've failed.
Reusing graphics is hardly an issue, we reuse animations and tiles all the time at work and our artists are considered to be among the best. But there's usually a need for the odd recolour or redesign to make sure communication with the player is taking place.
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New ep on a completely different theme: Game Design in Academia.
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/11/episode-53-game-design-in-academia.html
Focus was mostly on PGC stuff.
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Huh, that Trial by Spire game was totally unknown.
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Hrm, seems some catch-up is in order for this thread:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/11/episode-54-game-jams.html
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/12/episode-55-strategy-games.html
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/12/episode-56-interview-with-ftl.html
Happy listening :)
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Any way you can get the UnReal World dev on the show? I bet he has a great story with 20 years working on the game.
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A bit late, but here's our Roguelike of the Year discussion:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/12/episode-57-roguelike-of-year-2012.html
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New year, new Roguelike Radio!
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/01/episode-58-resurrection-of-adom.html
This time looking at 2012's runner-up, with Thomas Biskup returning to the show.
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Hello Darren, first time responder, long time listener :P
I have no idea if you take "topic requests", but I'd love to hear the topic of overworlds in roguelikes discussed. I think they add a lot to a game but I've only played a couple where any effort has been made to making them enjoyable.
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We certainly do take topic requests! Overworlds I'm not sure we'd have much to say much about though. I haven't seen *any* where they do more than add a little flavour and sense of breadth to the game. And there are no good examples of procedurally generated overworlds (I'm not even sure they're a good idea). If you have some specific games you think are worth mentioning let me know.
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I'm thinking of Princess RL right now, but the overworld was static right?
I wonder why there aren't many, or any, notable procedural overworlds? It seems like you could have a game like the old Zelda set up, where you have to roam around and find the dungeons, maybe a puzzle or key (or key/item) to open the dungeon.
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Well procedural overworld is hard to do for a start. But more importantly you have to look at the point of an overworld. It's essentially a quest selector, with different areas being harder or having certain requirements (fire temple needs fire resistance, etc). Make that random and the player finds it hard to judge which areas they should be entering. And the other aspect of overworlds, adding flavour and a sense of depth, is better achieved with a good hand-designed map.
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Yeah. So it's a bit like the issue with a good platformer or a good narrative. The location of elements spatially and chronologically are paramount. Dungeons lean more towards the objects contained therein as opposed to where they are placed in relation to each other and in what order they need to be found.
I think when things need to happen in a specific order, with lots or prerequisites and what not, the utility of procedural generation can break down. At the minimum it becomes an incredibly complex problem.
Chopping up the order of dungeons becomes a bit like trying to chop up a narrative. Sequence really matters.
Note that in Zelda you can do many of the dungeons out of order, but after the first 2 or 3 it's unwise and/or impossible to do so. Each dungeon builds on the next, so the sequence becomes important, it becomes like a narrative. Also they are freakin' hard without the right gear. :-)
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We certainly do take topic requests! Overworlds I'm not sure we'd have much to say much about though. I haven't seen *any* where they do more than add a little flavour and sense of breadth to the game. And there are no good examples of procedurally generated overworlds (I'm not even sure they're a good idea). If you have some specific games you think are worth mentioning let me know.
Fair enough. I suppose the games I like with big overworlds are large and static. Tome4, Legerdemain (hugely, hugely underrated game) and ADOM. It's just a soft spot of mine. Probably not much to discuss from a mechanics point of view, but I just can't enjoy a game that takes place entirely in a dungeon that much. I need to feel the ascii suns rays on my face.
Whatever you do, please don't start talking about violence, sexual harassment, and rape like you guys did in episode 57. That was horrible to listen to, it felt like an after school special. I had to stop listening it was so uncomfortable. You might as well have started the whole thing off with "tonight, on a very special episode of roguelike radio". I really, really, really think the show should stay well away from srs real world topics.
(apologies if that criticism seemed over harsh, but i hope you'll take it as intended - something constructive from a person who very much enjoys listening to the show).
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I do prefer the fantasy as well. I am comfortable with religion, politics and sex but I understand how it can get dicey.
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I do prefer the fantasy as well. I am comfortable with religion, politics and sex but I understand how it can get dicey.
Well there's a time and a place for it. That place is #rgrd-ot on quakenet, and that time is "whenever".
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What happened to episodes about specific roguelike games? I think that the amount of interesting game-development discussion that pops up naturally from analyzing a particular game is often of more value than what pops up when there is a scheduled topic of discussion. That's my two cents anyway.
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We're going to try and do a bit more of that this year :) It can be hard to represent a game in depth though. A lot of our eps about specific games ended up focusing too much on interface niggles.
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We're going to try and do a bit more of that this year :) It can be hard to represent a game in depth though. A lot of our eps about specific games ended up focusing too much on interface niggles.
Your interface niggle things are important issues - it got me thinking. I persevered with ADOM, my first roguelike, but threw my hands in the air when trying dwarf fortress. However, I seem to have higher tolerance than most (I do use vim after all). I showed a "newbie" ADOM, and when I told him the keys to do stuff he was like "yeah...maybe I'll place this later :P" but he jumped right into TOME4.
People want as few buttons as possible, and they want to be able to optionally click (it seems).
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I think the click is just a simplicity thing. its way easier to click the bag then run over to the I key to open the inventory. some Roguelikes use all keys, when they could have used just a mouse.
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I think the click is just a simplicity thing. its way easier to click the bag then run over to the I key to open the inventory.
Well, maybe when the mouse pointer is already aimed at the bag, and even in that case it would be at most equally easy. Of course there are actions that are indeed much easier with mouse, but others (like accessing the inventory) should be still available from keyboard. A mouse has only 2 buttons, so that if you want to have mouse-only type of the interface, you must either simplify your game (which is not an option ;)), put a lot of buttons on the screen (again, not an option - what you want to create is a game, not some bloody Excel, right?), or implement mouse actions that are so complex that you won't have to wait for the angry crowd of players asking why the hell did you not implement any keyboard shortcuts. That's the way it is, buddy, you can't eat the cake and have the cake at the same time.
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New episode out about Sil:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/01/episode-59-sil.html
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I listened to half. I am surprised by your love of determinism darren! In combat and stealth. The "gambling" aspect of roguelikes is is a huge part of the fun for me.
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TSMI: Check out the in-depth discussion I had with the Sil developers on the Angband forums (http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=5870).
Also, new episode out!
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/02/episode-60-t-engine.html
Anyone interesting in making game's in ToME's engine should have a good listen - even I learned quite a few things whilst chatting.
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I love Roguelike Radio, I like Darren and the rest of the hosts and guests. But, I really would like to see Darren let the guests speak more, play more the role of an interviewer and less like a host.
So many episodes are essentially Darren informing another guest, and the audience, of his opinions. I agree with many of these opinions, but the thing is that I know them by now.
I'm more interested in what the guest, the author, the creator or designer has to say. Of course reacting is fine, but I find in 90% of episodes Darren dominates the guest(s).
I think if Darren just backs off a bit, even if it results in a shorter episode, asks some great questions and follow ups, I think it'll make a good podcast great.
Thanks!
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Thanks for the advice! I know what you mean, I do tend to dominate some conversations. I find that when we have silence during the recordings I feel the need to fill it. Also I tend to be the one most prepared by far, with a list of topics I'd like to cover in advance. But I'll see in future about cutting down on my monologues ;-)
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Is it because you followed this advice that the LibTCOD episode is taking so long to get online? :P
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Heh, no, just lack of time. I'll edit it tonight and have it up tomorrow.
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Ah, great! Looking forward to it! 7DRL is getting sooo close, and these series of engine focused episodes are coming in at a very appropriate time for that event :-) Getting me hyped at least!
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The 7DRL 2013 build-up continues! Here's an episode on libtcod:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/02/episode-61-libtcod-aka-doryen-library.html
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Thanks for the advice! I know what you mean, I do tend to dominate some conversations. I find that when we have silence during the recordings I feel the need to fill it. Also I tend to be the one most prepared by far, with a list of topics I'd like to cover in advance. But I'll see in future about cutting down on my monologues ;-)
Hey Darren I'd recommend checking out the interview style of Ariel Helwani.
http://tunein.com/radio/The-MMA-Hour-Podcast-p271191/
He's a fight journalist but he's the best I've ever seen/heard.
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And in more 7DRLiness, here's two episodes on how to make a *good* 7DRL, with quite the all-star cast:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/02/episode-62-how-to-make-good-7drl-part-1.html
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/02/episode-63-how-to-make-good-7drl-part-2.html
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Some 7DRL distractions courtesy of Roguelike Radio:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/03/episode-64-player-competitions.html
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/03/episode-65-roguelike-communities.html
One on Player Competitions, and the other on Communities (including mention of the great RogueTemple, of course!)
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Heh, a tip of the hat on a new way to spell my last name after so many years. :P
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Oops, changed :/
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Brian has an interesting accent. Is it from some region of USA?
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Sounds southern to me :)
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Sounds deep south too. Somewhere between Mississippi and South Carolina.
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I would have guessed Georgia, or somewhere thereabouts. Definitely a cool accent - probably my favourite of the accents we've had on the show to date (and we've had a *lot* of different accents).
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Heh, indeed I am in the not so great state of GA---it was an enjoyable time of it despite the editing woes in post-production Darren likely had to toil on. :)
Here and there in life I've had people comment that I perhaps had some kinda "radio voice" at times...this now the latest in that it seems in a sense.
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And now the first episode of 7DRL coverage:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/03/episode-66-7drls-2013-winner-reflections.html
Sorry for the many many worthy developers I didn't invite on this - there were far too many people I could have included :-/ We'll be following this episode up with one or two recordings discussion the entries as a whole, highlighting interesting ones, etc. We'll likely have a failures ep too.
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Oh I really would have liked to be on. But no worries. I was going bonzo playing all the games!
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Well you were on this one, Jo:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/04/episode-67-7drls-2013-overview.html
Over 30 games discussed this episode! And I'm sure there were some good ones we missed...
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Bring back the mechanics episodes! :D
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Yay thanks Darren!
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New episode, last one on the 7DRL front:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/04/episode-68-7drl-2013-failures.html
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Pounding 'em nice and quick hey Darren? Cool.
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Back to a design focus, here's an episode on Boss Fights:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/04/episode-69-boss-fights.html
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Sweeeeet!
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An episode idea: Frustrating Enemies.
In the poll about 'turn off's in roguelikes Legend brought up what I think he called 'cheap enemies.'
Level Draining Wights in many games, The freakin' Ants in Rodney that suck down my strength, Rust Monsters and Legend mentioned the Egg Plant Wizards from Kid Icarus.
The original Rogue was full of these cringe worthy guys, including
-Giant Ant hits you lose one point of strength, works off of poison resistance.
-Floating Eye paralyze only. No attack.
-Invisible Stalker is invisible.
-Leprechaun steals some of your gold and promptly vanishes.
-Mimic can imitate objects, including stairways.
-Nymph steals something valuable and promptly vanishes.
-Rust Monster corrodes. No attack.
-Umber Hulk confuses you, save vs magic.
-Vampire bites reduce your maximum hit points.
-Wraith can inflict poisoned wounds that reduce your level of wizardry and your maximum hit points.
I really like that sort of thing. An otherwise weakish enemy with a dynamite special ability. Not an insta-kill, but one that strikes fear. One little mistake and BAM. You don't have to restart, but you might want to.
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Interesting, a "most annoying enemies" episode. I'll have to think about that. Must try to get John on for the Nethack perspective...
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For terrible enemipes, please talk about the eyes from shiren the wanderer. They have a spell that makes you do random actions meaning you don't get a turn, it sucks to watch your hero eat his last three healing herbs while you have no control.
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Griefers!
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We've just done a new ep on "Introducing People to Roguelikes":
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/04/episode-70-introducing-people-to.html
This is really worth listening to for Eben's account of Eternal Knights from around the 42:40 mark.
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I could take it 20 minutes, but there was something in this one: if a roguelike is too simple or accessible, it's not a roguelike. I think Dwarf Fortress stands as an adamant monument of ridiculous complexity and inaccessible user interface which makes it such a popular game even among people who don't play roguelikes.
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I try not to use DF as an example of anything, besides showing a total outlier.
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It's a representation of how people will group around extremes. If roguelikes were republicans then Dwarf Fortress is the Tea Party. Also it shows the value of standing out - Dwarf Fortress in unlike anything else in so many ways. One problem I find with a lot of streamlined roguelikes is they have nothing that stands out about them.
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Very well put. DF is the hardest of hardcore. There's a certain distinction in being able to deal with it. Add to that very compelling game play for those willing to put in the effort and BAM, instant hit.
I feel the same way about Nethack. People that try to make a cut down version, perhaps something that doesn't need spoilers, and you get something entirely different. Go too far and you get a vanilla product.
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Nah, DF is actually a really easy game. The learning curve is a nightmare, but once you get past that it's trivial.
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Easy as in it's hard to lose? That's expected from an open ended simulation.
If learning to play it were trivial then it wouldn't be popular. That's what we are getting at here. Sometimes being ridiculously complex and hard to fathom up front is great. It's a dopamine thing. Learning to play is a reward in and of itself and if you have compelling gameplay on top of that then great!
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Personally I didn't feel there was any learning curve in df. If you can read english the interface gives you everything you need.
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Heh, so I guess to pull off a gambling Roguelike appealing to current Western fads. you'd need to somehow wrangle it to deal with Bitcoins instead of redeemable medals?
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Personally I didn't feel there was any learning curve in df.
I know. I could not learn how to play it. And computer games are not new to me.
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Krice I think he was joking. I laughed.
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Heh, so I guess to pull off a gambling Roguelike appealing to current Western fads. you'd need to somehow wrangle it to deal with Bitcoins instead of redeemable medals?
either that or WoW gold :)
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Heh, so I guess to pull off a gambling Roguelike appealing to current Western fads. you'd need to somehow wrangle it to deal with Bitcoins instead of redeemable medals?
either that or WoW gold :)
Even better, hook it up to steam and allow gambling inventory items :P (watches as people start gambling hats)
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An interview with Don Worth, the creator of Beneath Apple Manor (the pre-rogue roguelike), would be really interesting. I have no idea how difficult it would be to get him on the show, but I figured it couldn't hurt to suggest it.
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Sorry the gap folks, got a new ep out now:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/05/episode-71-hunger-clock.html
We had another ep a couple of weeks ago but the recording screwed up so it was lost :(
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Was it about ASCII? Any plans to re-record?
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Yes and yes, but it's hard to jump right back into it.
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More podcasts please.
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Okay, here you go:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/06/episode-72-irdc-2013.html
Our recording from IRDC last week. Next up is Let's Play videos, which we've already recorded, so it's just a matter of me finding time to edit :-/
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Man, that IRDC one is great!
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New ep on Let's Play videos:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/06/episode-73-lets-play-videos.html
A cool idea that surfaced was developers recording Let's Plays of their own games, with commentary about why certain things are designed the way they are. Would give some really great insights!
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New ep on Let's Play videos:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/06/episode-73-lets-play-videos.html
A cool idea that surfaced was developers recording Let's Plays of their own games, with commentary about why certain things are designed the way they are. Would give some really great insights!
Regarding recording ASCII games, I have to say it's really annoying. I lose a lot of quality because I record in ASCII. It looks fine on my end, but youtube really hates it from what I can see.
And thanks to Kawa for the mention in the episode!
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New ep on Let's Play videos:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/06/episode-73-lets-play-videos.html
A cool idea that surfaced was developers recording Let's Plays of their own games, with commentary about why certain things are designed the way they are. Would give some really great insights!
Oh, that's an awesome idea! I'd really love to see that. :D
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New episode ahoy! This time we finally discuss Sword of the Stars: The Pit!
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/06/episode-74-sword-of-stars-pit.html
Our coverage of the game was greatly helped by neither Andrew or I taking part ;)
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Slight issue - I only have audio from the left headphone/speaker. Quick fix was to use Audacity's "Stereo track to mono" option. As-is the right channel is silent.
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Slight issue - I only have audio from the left headphone/speaker. Quick fix was to use Audacity's "Stereo track to mono" option. As-is the right channel is silent.
That'll get fixed soon. You've found the right workaround for now though :)
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Been fixed, sorry 'bout that!
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Happy it's been fixed. Mentioned it to Kawa on twitter and she said I should leave a note about it here (or on the blog).
Anyway about the episode itself, I haven't played the game so I can't really comment too much. Nice that you finally got around to it though, how long has this topic been in limbo? :P
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Happy it's been fixed. Mentioned it to Kawa on twitter and she said I should leave a note about it here (or on the blog).
Anyway about the episode itself, I haven't played the game so I can't really comment too much. Nice that you finally got around to it though, how long has this topic been in limbo? :P
In limbo? We were just waiting for the expansion! Or so I'll claim.
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Happy it's been fixed. Mentioned it to Kawa on twitter and she said I should leave a note about it here (or on the blog).
Anyway about the episode itself, I haven't played the game so I can't really comment too much. Nice that you finally got around to it though, how long has this topic been in limbo? :P
In limbo? We were just waiting for the expansion! Or so I'll claim.
I'm not sure anyone will believe that, but you can try.
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New episode! We look at Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/07/episode-75-cataclysm-dark-days-ahead.html
Includes discussion its new Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/568375735/cataclysm-dark-days-ahead-dedicated-developer) (very near its funding goal) and the proper word for large milk containers.
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New episode! We look at Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/07/episode-75-cataclysm-dark-days-ahead.html
Includes discussion its new Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/568375735/cataclysm-dark-days-ahead-dedicated-developer) (very near its funding goal) and the proper word for large milk containers.
I actually grabbed the latest build b/c of this episode... I played it just a few versions ago and they've added a lot in a pretty short span of time. I didn't realize how rapidly this project was moving. Can't wait to see how much progress they make with the KS.
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New episode out on Dungeonmans:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/07/episode-76-dungeonmans.html
We interview developer Jim Shepard and talk about his history and his plans for the game.
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Oh shit Darren, things slowed down there for a bit and now you are back firing the big guns! Got some newbs to pitch in as well, got Gamehunter coming on, and Eben.
Love it!
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Huzzah for seemingly indeed less audio editing woes beget by me that needed handling in post processing! 8)
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Huzzah for seemingly indeed less audio editing woes beget by me that needed handling in post processing! 8)
I'm pretty much the hardest to edit, I keep sliding my ums into actual words :(
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I think I might still hold the record for nearly exploding Darren's brain shortly before an ep went live though... :-[
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You've got a very cool podcast voice getter77! Thanks for another excellent episode guys!
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yes very high marks getter!
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I think I might still hold the record for nearly exploding Darren's brain shortly before an ep went live though... :-[
Hah, definitely not. Most frustrating moment was at IRDC last year. I painstakingly edited the whole recording, editing the volumes of each individual person (there were 12 people), but when I tried to save my computer crashed. Had to redo it again. At about 2am on a weekend of little sleep :-/
Even in regular eps Ido is usually the worst ;)
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I felt pretty bad when my mother released the hounds while we were trying to record... :-\
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Man, I SO got this picture running in my head now, Jo!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZWfDtNRvA4
Edit: The "MUM!!! THE DOGS!!!" part of course.
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Really enjoyed the Dungeonmans episode, some excellent insights into Jim and his game, along with talk around the topic, and lets not deny the love for Hawk the Slayer!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o9RGnujlkI
How entertaining is Getter on the voicebox? I could listen to his verbiage all night :)
As always, Darren the calming influence, manages to ask the right questions.
Really hope Dungeonmans gains its kickstarter goal and we start to see more established developers come into the genre and stamp their own individuality onto it, hopefully bringing new ideas and stretching and evolving the genre in ways we couldn't imagine.
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Any requests for upcoming episodes? Some ideas we're playing with:
Dredmor revisited
Brogue revisited
ToME revisited
Nethack
Automated play / tool assistance
UnReal World
Frustrating enemies
Designing Difficulty / Challenge
Feedback and Testing
Stealth
ASCII
Time
Items
Mobile games
Multiplayer
The Hero Trap
Spoilers and Discovery
Identification Systems
Puzzles
Randomness
Learning from Board Games
How to be Good at Roguelikes
Why we Play Roguelikes
Why we Develop Roguelikes
Any other thoughts? Things you'd like to see/hear?
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Dungeonmans was cool with that professional guy explaining how he is looking at game development. For some people it's a job and they expect to get money from it. I like the way he didn't think a roguelike can sell, but someone convinced him to try it anyway.
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Automated play / tool assistance - More details, what is this?
Mobile games - Pixel Dungeon? Big following on this board. Are there any other good ones?
The Hero Trap - More details, what is this?
How to be Good at Roguelikes - This'd be nice.......... can you teach patience over a podcast?
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I'd really like an episode on the Hero Trap or ASCII.
Also:
revisitation of games (ToME, Brogue and Dredmore sounds nice)
Items
Coming out of the IRDC, sounds like a Puzzle episode would be very interesting too!
Heh, looking over that list, every single episode would be interesting :P
Will you do an epsiode on ARRP this year? I remember last year you talked about it a lot before the event, but then really didn't mention much about it after the fact. Would be nice to have at least an overview episode to talk a bit about the releases there and such. It's so awesome for the 7DRL event, so I think it would be cool for the ARRP too.
Oh, and a NetHack episode to get mr. Harris back would be very nice!
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Automated play / tool assistance - More details, what is this?
Using bots and software tools.
The Hero Trap - More details, what is this?
People try to be heroes in roguelikes, especially those new to the genre, and this gets them killed. How can roguelikes teach their players to act like rogues instead of heroes?
How to be Good at Roguelikes - This'd be nice.......... can you teach patience over a podcast?
I could speak very slowly :P
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Another vote for "How to be good at roguelikes" from me. I love them, but ultimately fail miserably, often. In fact I've never reached past level 2 in the Dungeonmans preview build! I'm used to investing in RPG characters in MMO's etc, and I really do dig deep into builds and tactics, but usually my RL characters are so short lived I've barely got time to get to know them before they're dead and buried. :(
Also, I'd like to see a round up of the current Mobile RL's
Currently got this collection ("channel") together over at Playboard.me for Android RL's
(http://playboard.me/channel/51e64aa04368c3654900389f/image.png?apps=15) (http://playboard.me/channel/51e64aa04368c3654900389f)
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Currently got this collection ("channel") together over at Playboard.me for Android RL's
(http://playboard.me/channel/51e64aa04368c3654900389f/image.png?apps=15) (http://"http://playboard.me/channel/51e64aa04368c3654900389f")
Link doesn't work, can you fix it? I'm curious
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If you guys are considering revisits, I think you should try to get more in depth discussion of the specific games, perhaps without the creators just with community members or experts from that game's player community.
The previous episodes on each of the games has been very much an overview or initial impressions. Since those episodes, personally, I've gone and tried those games, and failed, so I'm familiar with the game in general, and now I'd be looking for insights into how to enjoy, improve, explore the game more.
For example, in addition to a re-overview, where the game might be going, etc. have some meat for current players or those that have tried and bounced off the game:
- tips for beginners
- tips for intermediate players
- typical or innovative strategies for mid-game
- discussions of classes strengths / weaknesses (for example in Tome)
- goals for characters at certain milestones in the game
It might result in more narrow interest episodes, but as a player of some of the games, that's personally what I'd like. Another overview isn't going to help me enjoy the game, or get back into a game whose systems I failed to grok.
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Agreed that there's lots of interesting topics ahead from the looks of it---I'd also suggest continuing to accost/kidnap/invite devs from more obscure Roguelikes in on the fun.
Also, I guess at this point you lot might as well add me to the sidebar on the right? 8) Where there's already been 2 visits, it pretty well stands that there's likely to be more down the line as it does.
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Link doesn't work, can you fix it? I'm curious
Sorry about that, I've fixed it up now.
http://playboard.me/channel/51e64aa04368c3654900389f
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What about this for an idea, just throwing it out there...
Since these Let's Play videos are so popular nowadays, you only really get a single persons commentary on what is going on, and very often its for the first time.
How about a panel of people who know the game, experienced players, and they comment on a lets play video, highlighting areas that could have gone better and discussing the options available to the player. I suppose its a sort of 'coaching' session, but where you get a real insight into the decision process of the play.
Not sure how you assemble it logistically, but you'd capture the video of the person playing, and also the audio of the panel discussing whats going on. I suppose you do the Lets play video in advance, then the panel can watch it, assemble ideas thoughts and comments, and then you do some nifty editing and timing, and interlace the commentary - pausing the lets play - even slotting in visual facts or help at times of discussion. The captured audio panel could be recorded in real time, as a normal radio show, but it would be the clever interleaving with the video that would add a lot of worth to the show - and it would be a new dimension to the RR podcast :)
Just an idea. Not sure how feasible or how much work it would involve. But I can imagine the benefit of having a number of opinions on decisions made during play, as it plays out in front of the audience.
Otherwise a tiered discussion by the panel, for beginners, then intermediate players, along with anecdotal stuff by players would be quite appealing.
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Also, I'd like to see a round up of the current Mobile RL's
Currently got this collection ("channel") together over at Playboard.me for Android RL's
(http://playboard.me/channel/51e64aa04368c3654900389f/image.png?apps=15) (http://playboard.me/channel/51e64aa04368c3654900389f)
Thanks for this, there's a couple on here that I didn't know about yet. Now I need to go on a trip so I have an excuse to play on my android :)
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What about busting out of genre conventions and doing a podcastlike? Maybe a roguelikeradio drama? What about revisiting some of these RL's from the perspective of the _character_?! :P
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New episode out on the Hero Trap:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/08/episode-77-hero-trap.html
Don't know what that is? Well, go check out the episode then! :P
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New episode out on the Hero Trap:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/08/episode-77-hero-trap.html
Don't know what that is? Well, go check out the episode then! :P
I think I'm a model Hero Trap RL player. Coming from a background of CRPG's and ARPG's, RL's seem like an untapped resource of procedurally generated RP content, but as you say RL's are built different in the way they present the game, with slightly different objectives - not just to sweep in and storm in and solve all the worlds ills - but you have to pick your way through the system and make very key decisions at every step, for the wrong decision will lead to your instant and permanent death!
A lot of why RL's feel punishing to the Hero Trap players like myself, is probably down to my expectations of the game. If you come at it as you would a normal RPG, then you're going to have a rough time of it. It's good that RL's are now catering for the Hero Trappers of the world a little more, and are gently easing them into the gameplay, and hopefully coaxing them to see the differences and the uniqueness of the RL way. If RL developers can shape the experience to introduce the concepts to these action/RPG players coming into the genre for the first time, I think RL's will get much better press in the long run, and more player interest in exploring the essence of what it is that defines the genre.
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Also, I'd like to see a round up of the current Mobile RL's
Currently got this collection ("channel") together over at Playboard.me for Android RL's
(http://playboard.me/channel/51e64aa04368c3654900389f/image.png?apps=15) (http://playboard.me/channel/51e64aa04368c3654900389f)
Thanks for this, there's a couple on here that I didn't know about yet. Now I need to go on a trip so I have an excuse to play on my android :)
I wish infinite dungeons wasn't for $.
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New episode out on taking inspiration from Board Games:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/08/episode-78-inspiration-from-board-games.html
Alas I forgot to mention that there are several Rogue and roguelike card/board game adaptions :-/
We've also recorded an ep on Mobile Roguelikes that I can assure you in advance is *excellent*. Expect it to be published in about a week.
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And here's the mobile episode:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/09/episode-79-mobile-roguelikes.html
Also, 2 years of Roguelike Radio! Wooo! :D
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Congratulations to all involved in Roguelike Radio! :D
Good episode. A lot of points were raised that simply hadn't occurred to me. I'll also have to check out some of the ones that have a good interface, since I've found that the Android ports of Angband, Crawl, and even just Rogue are basically unplayable.
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It seems to me, the ones I've seen, you kinda want it to be designed for the system specifically or there are problems.
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New episode looking at one of the most unique and interesting roguelikes out there, UnReal World:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/09/this-is-episode-80-of-roguelike-radio.html
With its creator Sami. I haven't listened to it myself (Eben hosted) but I'm guessing it's absolutely awesome!
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New episode looking at one of the most unique and interesting roguelikes out there, UnReal World:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/09/this-is-episode-80-of-roguelike-radio.html
With its creator Sami. I haven't listened to it myself (Eben hosted) but I'm guessing it's absolutely awesome!
your guess is correct!
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First 10 minutes were already quite interesting. It's annoying, but URW has been longer in development than Kaduria. I thought I would win in that, but...
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New episode up, it's about Puzzles. The Ultima Ratio Regum guy is on!!!
Also featuring the triumphant return of Undrew Doull. I think he was out for a bit.
Here:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/10/episode-81-puzzles.html
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Good discussion on the role of puzzles. It also made me curious about Ultima Ratio Regum, which I played once a while back and then dropped because there didn't seem to be much in it. Maybe I should try it again now.
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Been far too long, but here's a really great episode interviewing Zeno!
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/11/episode-82-interview-with-zeno.html
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A very very special episode today: ASCII!
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/12/episode-83-ascii.html
110 minutes of procedurally generated joy :)
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Nice intro! ;D
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Heh, thanks.
And a new episode... It's another lengthy one again, this time on Nethack!
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2013/12/episode-84-nethack.html
Quite the all-star cast for this one too, including John Harris, Jeff Lait, David Ploog and Patric Mueller.
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110 minutes of procedurally generated joy :)
I loved that comment in the intro. Just a calm "matter-of-fact" statement that this is a procedurally generated episode (an outrageous concept, even terrifying to imagine that level of AI). Nearly choked on my food when I heard it ;D
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Darren, I just listened to the ASCII edition of the podcast - and while it was interesting, I thought the main point of ASCII wasn't mentioned. Basically, the ASCII characters weren't really chosen because they were symbolic, or aesthetically pleasing, they were chosen because thats all the original coders had to chose from.
I think a lot of roguelike players, especially the ASCII stalwarts can get to a point where its the ASCII that defines them, rather than the games themselves. Like ASCII is worn as a badge of merit, for only the few that still support it in these days of modern systems and graphical representations. It's true there is a sort of purity to it, like you all said in the podcast, but its more down to being forced to use the basic supported character set than any real design decisions based on symbolism or aesthetics.
I appreciate what can be done, in terms of gameplay, still presented in ASCII, and I think theres still a sector of RL's that can utilise ASCII, some even push the boundaries using the character set, embracing it like a lived in well worn cardigan, yet expanding what can be done with it. But I still think, that even the symbolism can be worked on, and tested, and pushed, so that you have more interesting roguelike adventures built, without the confines of yesteryear. I look towards the likes of The Slimy Lichmummy for inspiration, or even the likes of Brogue, no matter how gaudy, and following the spectrum up through to the many graphical games bringing new audiences into the genre. Perhaps they will step back out of curiosity and see where the genre come from, where the evolution started, but to confine it is a cardinal sin.
My favourite ASCII RL is QuickHack, and its java based and uses a very modest amount of graphical flair to spice it up. Perhaps there is an evolution happening, and with the likes of Necklace of the Eye and TOME we can look forward to RL's embracing and expanding what has come before in terms of homage and evolution?
Finally, are you planning (or considering) a show on Bionic Dues from Arcengames (http://www.arcengames.com/w/index.php/bionic-features)? Its a roguelike inspired robot team dungeon crawl with a lot of tactical options. Chris Parks the lead dev and main man behind all of Arcengames is usually very willing and vocal about his development cycle. A true visionary in the world of indie game development and embracing procedurally generated content since AI War (his first game).
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Note that "Beneath Apple Manor" was a roguelike created independently two years before Rogue itself, it used simple graphics, but somehow it did not catch on that much. And, even if the authors of Rogue could only use a terminal, the style currently used in roguelikes was not the only choice :) For example, they could also make 5x5 ASCII arts.
Overall, even if the original reason for using ASCII was that it was the only way possible, it is no longer the main point of doing it now. In photography, for example, originally it was only possible to take black and white photos, and some people still take black and white photos today, but this is not necessarily nostalgia, they think that such photos look better. There are some weird roguelike traditions that are bad and repeated by new games (for example, after death NetHack had a long list of questions such as DYWYPI, instead of having a menu like the one which has been done in the new version of ADOM), but I think that ASCII is not one of them. Nowadays, it is well known that roguelikes can be done with graphics, but people still create ASCII roguelikes.
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Darren, I just listened to the ASCII edition of the podcast - and while it was interesting, I thought the main point of ASCII wasn't mentioned. Basically, the ASCII characters weren't really chosen because they were symbolic, or aesthetically pleasing, they were chosen because thats all the original coders had to chose from.
I haven't finished listening to this episode, but this was actually mentioned when discussing the terminal origins of roguelikes somewhere in the first half. Maybe you missed that part.
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If they could have done it graphically they would have. But in doing it as ASCII they inadvertently stumbled onto something very pleasing. It's a barrier to new people, sure, but doing it ASCII has advantages.
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Rogue switched to graphics as soon as it could - the Macintosh port had crude tiles as it could support a graphical display.
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Nethack episode was great. I think it (at least for me) revealed the importance of game design and how rare good game designers really are. It's almost unbelievable no one has got into the level of Nethack, let alone surpass it.
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The Nethack episode was great, as was the ASCII episode.
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Nethack episode was great. I think it (at least for me) revealed the importance of game design and how rare good game designers really are. It's almost unbelievable no one has got into the level of Nethack, let alone surpass it.
Good game designers are ridiculously rare and what most of what gets celebrated in mainstream gaming is mediocre at best. It seems to me that the goal of most designers is to never let the player feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed. Like, that's their ideal - remove or replace everything that gives people bad experiences no matter what. But you can't do that without gutting everything that makes your game interesting.
People with talent for game design will always be a minority, but the situation wouldn't be anywhere near as bad as it is if the majority of game designers weren't working towards foolish and counterproductive goals.
What do you mean when you say Nethack has never been surpassed? Obviously there's no game that out-Nethacks Nethack, but imo it'd be pretty crazy to call it the most well-designed game in the world.
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What do you mean when you say Nethack has never been surpassed?
I mean that! In that podcast it was obvious that UI was again discussed, but it's not really the point. I've started to think UI differently myself, rather than just complaining about "ancient" UI and the fact that people don't really think what the real alternatives would be and how they would actually work. Worst thing is when people try to think how to shrink the game and UI to mobile devices. As if it was something you have to do. I can tell where they can put their mobile device.
UI has become a target for idiots. It can be seen in mainstream games and also in tool programs and even in operating systems as Windows 8.
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I can tell where they can put their mobile device.
lol, I suspect that would be somewhere with only limited mobile phone coverage :)
UI has become a target for idiots. It can be seen in mainstream games and also in tool programs and even in operating systems as Windows 8.
True, that. It's funny how no one expects to operate something like a car or even an electric lawnmower without learning how it works first. And yet, the ideal for computer applications is to have no learning curve whatsoever. It goes without saying that the width of something like Nethack comes with a complex UI. Simplifying the UI will unavoidably take away some of the gameplay. Still, I think there's a place as well for RLs which aim for depth in the gameplay, whilst retaining a much more constrained UI.
As always,
Minotauros
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It's because we are old fogies and remember fondly when games were hard.
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My only major complaint with NetHack's UI is the ridiculous equip/unequip commands for weapons, clothes, rings, etc. There doesn't need to be one for each. That's just awkward.
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My only major complaint with NetHack's UI is the ridiculous equip/unequip commands for weapons, clothes, rings, etc. There doesn't need to be one for each. That's just awkward.
That's also my biggest complaint.
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I assume since it won the ASCII Dreams poll we can expect an episode on Noxico soon?
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I assume since it won the ASCII Dreams poll we can expect an episode on Noxico soon?
That would be nice... <-Sarcasm
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Obviously the roguelike community really needs something which summarizes the year, and the poll fills that role nicely, that's why it is so important to many people. Even if it is so flawed.
I think we can expect the whole poll, controversy, and ideas for improvement to be discussed on Roguelike Radio soon. And this would obviously include Noxico.
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I theorize that someone picked Noxico to run their bot on as a protest against TOME and to a lesser extent ADOM. I don't think it was about Noxico so much, except that a sex Roguelike featuring forced sex mechanics makes an hilarious spoiler winner.
Noxico itself isn't a terrible game if you are into that sort of shit.
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I theorize that someone picked Noxico to run their bot on as a protest against TOME and to a lesser extent ADOM.
Protest why? Sure both games are boring, but no one has yet done anything better.
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I would guess to break the seemingly-unbreakable momentum/the return of bitterness from last year's ToME ingame-poll awareness. ADOM also received lots of spite for "daring" to do a crowdfunding attempt. Also, probably rabble rousing on the nature of the poll and how it was conducted in general---"Look upon thy works and despair" and whatnot.
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Noxico itself isn't a terrible game if you are into that sort of shit.
I was really only suggesting it as a joke, but out of interest; how is it if you're not into that sort of shit? i.e. is there any reason why I - as somebody who does not regularly masturbate to Watership Down - should give it a go other than out of morbid curiosity?
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I can't play Noxico now after all this. It will remain in my imagination as the perfect rape simulator.
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Paul if you aren't into the subject matter you won't enjoy it. You engage NPCs in conversation trees trying to fuck them, basically. Choose enough flattery type options, then move on to the taking off of clothing, then to the fucking. Or you can force the issue and choose, "Hold the PonyGirl down" or whatever.
If you like dinking about with conversation trees and hidden arousal meters then go for it. Other than that tree are a billion other games to check out.
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Obviously the roguelike community really needs something which summarizes the year, and the poll fills that role nicely, that's why it is so important to many people. Even if it is so flawed.
I think we can expect the whole poll, controversy, and ideas for improvement to be discussed on Roguelike Radio soon. And this would obviously include Noxico.
Is it so hard to set up a somewhat non-cheatable poll?
There seems to be lots of resources for it onlne:
https://www.google.se/search?q=create+a+poll
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Well, I personally think the poll would profit from being reimplemented next year. The sheer scope of the community/genre has simply changed a lot throughout the years the poll has run. As some have said, the more interesting games show up further down the list. #3 and #4 in the poll are separated by several thousand votes, making the top three no-brainers, really[1]. (I'm not saying ADOM and ToME aren't great games, but do we really care which of the two managed to round up the most fanbois this year?) A simple solution (apart from implementing at least some halfhearted security measures) might be to exclude previous winners from the poll. Then, ToME would be out of the ointment, ADOM could get it's moment in the sun come December, and we might all actually be excited about the winner again in 2015 ;)
But Andrew doesn't seem too concerned, and that is probably wise of him. I mean, we can still use the results to point us in the direction of interesting games, which is the real meaning of the poll, right? And even if the most popular entries get inflated results, I don't think many people are going to cheat on behalf of the kind of games that gets votes by the dozens rather than the thousands.
Anyway, I'm hoping for a breakdown similar to what Jo did with last year's results, listing the top 10 games in various categories.
As always,
Minotauros
[1] Well, I guess Noxico did come as a surprise :) But even with #2 and #3 being the no-brainers, and #1 something of a Memento Mori (Memento Futuere, rather) for the runner-ups, the point stands that as of late, the struggle to get on top of the list seems to have very little relevance to what's currently moving in the Roguelike scene.
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Removing the winners from a poll is an option, but I think that it is possible for the same game to actually deserve winning the poll twice. (If the poll was already there in 1999 and ADOM won it, I think it would be okay if it won it again in 2012-2014.)
I think cheating is not the only problem. There is confusion what are we actually rating: progress in 2013, overall quality, player's fun in 2013. I actively play DCSS and I think that its quality is one of the highest, and I had lots of fun with it, but I am not satisfied with its progress (new races are cool, but some of the changes are controversial), so I do not vote for it. (Lack of progress is not necessarily a bad thing anyway, it could be also a sign of perfection.) Regarding progress, there are two separate things, one is how the game itself changed, and the other is meta-game stuff such as marketing/modding (ADOM was a ROTY for me in 2012 because of the crowdfunding campaign, even if the changes were relatively minor; similarly ToME in 2013, I suppose that the changes were relatively minor, but Steam and module contest are notable). And what if a game made major progress in 2012 and a minor one in 2013, but I found about it in 2013 (or maybe I found the poll in 2013, or I think that the game is underrated) -- I want to vote for it (but if there was no development in 2013, the game would simply not appear on the poll). I think that some of the games get high scores because people do not care what the poll is actually about.
Maybe it would be cool to have some categorized poll, but I expect that fans will simply vote for everything, and ToME would win the "most underrated" category. :)
And don't forget to rate roguelikes on IRLDb (http://forums.roguetemple.com/irldb/) :)
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And don't forget to rate roguelikes on IRLDb (http://forums.roguetemple.com/irldb/) :)
This, for sure!
As always,
Minotauros
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So what did we learn? That the Noxico bot voted faster/longer than the TOME/ADOM bots. ;)
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I expect they're the same bot. I saw a graph on IRC that seemed to show very similar linear growth in vote counts, just with different rates, and apparently converging to a common approximate value. Maybe the bot's owner was trying to imitate a closely faught poll.
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Bah, this ep took ages:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2014/02/episode-85-2013-retrospective.html
Sorry for the delay, but please enjoy :)
Next up is an interview with the Angband dev team (already recorded). I'm also trying to arrange a "How to Make a Unique 7DRL" episode.
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Is there enough time to post this 7DRL episode (and an Angband episode before it)?
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The whole commercial/mobile roguelike thing is kind of sad. On the other hand if you want to make money from games, why not create a roguelike? Even if it's not really that good idea. Sometimes I think myself if it would be better try the commercial route. You know. Money, and stuff.
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Is there enough time to post this 7DRL episode (and an Angband episode before it)?
Possibly not, especially since I'm moving house at the mo, but I'll gosh-darn-well try! If needs be I can delay the Angband release.
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One of the reasons I like RLR is that when I listen dumbs talk about roguelikes and not-so-roguelikes it gives me determination to work harder on creating hardcore roguelikes - a determination that sadly dissolves in couple of minutes.
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One of the reasons I like RLR is that when I listen dumbs talk about roguelikes and not-so-roguelikes it gives me determination to work harder on creating hardcore roguelikes - a determination that sadly dissolves in couple of minutes.
Yeah, it's hard to work up the determination needed to write games that you can't make a living on and that no one plays, especially when you can talk on forums as if you spend a lot of time on such games anyway.
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Yeah, it's hard to work up the determination needed to write games that you can't make a living on and that no one plays, especially when you can talk on forums as if you spend a lot of time on such games anyway.
You have to remember that even as it is my determination greatly exceeds average. And also that the way I'm creating games is engine-based so it looks like nothing is happening. I know it's a difficult burden, often unbearable for most developers.
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New episode! And it's very timely - How to Make a Unique 7DRL:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2014/03/episode-86-how-to-make-unique-7drl.html
I'm joined by Eben Howard and Aaron Steed, who have both made excellent unusual roguelikes in the past.
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Another on topic episode - 7DRLs 2014!
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2014/03/episode-87-7drls-2014.html
Over 36 games discussed because of their stand-out features!
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My, it's sure been a while... Here's an ep that's been in the wings for a while now - an interview with the Angband devteam:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2014/08/episode-89-interview-with-angband.html
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The discussion of autoexplore in angband was peculiar. The devs say that angband is about exploration, so you don't want autoexplore. They claim that their level generation is so awesome, there's no need for autoexplore. There's no need for autoexplore because there's no need for exploration. Clearing/exploring levels is naive play and largely a waste of time (except that some people like to do it -- whatever).
I was also surprised to hear the dev team re: the danger of diving. At least one of them seems to think there's a limit to how far you can dive without running into a situation that will kill you. This has not been my experience with recent versions. I recently kinged a character who got his first speed ring (which led quickly to a win thereafter) at dungeon level 72 and experience level 31. You really don't have to fight anything you don't want to in angband. Teleport level, teleport other, banishment, etc. make monsters other than hounds and a few others mostly irrelevant except as xp/loot bags if you have the means to kill them. It's essentially trivial to put together an acceptable armor set up because you don't need most of the resistances and you can take down Morgoth easily with a number of artifact weapons that collectively occur pretty frequently or with ego versions of the bigger melee weapons (and forget about randart games -- shields with +2 attacks o.0). There are lots of things to rethink in current angband.
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Agreed, the way they nerfed hounds very fundamentally changed the game.
Hounds were the unavoidable monster in earlier versions of the game. They were why you would definitely die if you went too deep without resistances.
With hounds at their much reduced numbers and probabilities, it's now possible to avoid everything really dangerous.
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The way I remember older versions, the non-base resistances had a bigger impact on damage taken than they currently do, which is the reason you don't need the kind of equipment you did in old versions.
I've always been of the opinion that the main problem with angband is the availability of escapes involving teleportation out of line of sight, especially teleport level and teleport other. Teleport other is particularly crazy because it's easily available, it always works, it always teleports monsters so far away they won't come back, except Morgoth and a handful of others, and once they're away, they're as good as dead -- you just get what you're after and leave the level.
The game needs monsters and dungeon settings that prevent or hamper teleportation. Such things exist in some variants already, but I haven't seen it done really well.
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I've always been of the opinion that the main problem with angband is the availability of escapes involving teleportation out of line of sight, especially teleport level and teleport other.
Things like that are there to "fix" the game balance. Roguelikes are full of escape methods.
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Is there a feed with the old Roguelike Radio podcasts available somewhere? I notice the one I subscribed to through iTunes only goes back to around episode 50. I suppose I could go to the website and pull them out of the embedded player in the blog posts - just wondering.
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Hmm, not sure what's up with iTunes. All of them are available through the RSS feed on the main site.
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Ok, ty, it's probably iTunes/my itunes.
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The way I can see it there are only last 50 podcasts (back to 41st) in the RSS feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/RoguelikeRadio)
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Yeah, that exactly how far back I can see. Maybe Apple has instituted a limit on number of podcasts in the feed, or how long they are retained - this doesn't appear to be the only podacst cut off after going so far back.
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Apparently it's an issue with the feed link from Google, which can't handle too many items. You can get the full feed here:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/feeds/posts/default?max-results=500
In other news, new episode! This time we talk about the first roguelikes we made:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2014/09/episode-91-our-first-roguelikes.html
And there's some bonus fun at the start ;)
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I really liked the last episode. It motivated me to dust off some old prototype code for a roguelike I was making a few years ago.
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This great podcast brougt me here - the roguelike communities episode, particularly. I'm not a hardcore roguelike player (I like DCSS and roguelites... but brogue and TOME are really great too), but the discussion is very interesting.
The last episode was great indeed. You guys are motivating me to maybe try to make my own roguelike, which is cool and scary at the same time. Anyways, great, great podcast. I'll keep listening, learning and trying new games in this genre.
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Glad to hear people are inspired to make new roguelikes or revive old projects :) There's nothing more satisfying than getting your own game out!
And a new episode for those, interested, where Andrew and I return to Brogue:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2014/10/episode-92-return-to-brogue.html
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I was pretty astonished by the volume of whining in the episode. Not to whine about whining, but damn. The long, long discussion at the beginning diagnosing interweb drama and demographics would've been fine if it hadn't been followed by complaining about how the game is too hard, interfaces are too hard, items are too hard to identify, identified items are too useless, cursed items are too bad, it's the ugliest game ever even measured against the low-bar set by other "ASCII roguelikes" (lol, like there's some other important class of roguelikes), etc., etc., etc.
At least the Australian guy seemed to have some insight into the subject matter and sensible things to say. I particularly liked his points re: items that experienced players view as useless/pointless but play a significant role in the beginner's experience and the role of hallucination effects in widening the novice's view of the game.
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I personally think that one of the main purposes of all media -- including both journalism and games -- is social commentary and, yes, criticism.
And, yes, the gaming industry deserves some goddamned criticism this decade. They are producing the same damned game over and over and over, and have essentially abdicated anything like artistic development or progress. Better graphics and special effects do not make something a better or different game. Re-skinning the enemies from Nazis to Orcs to Aliens to Demons to Jihadis or whatever else, or re-skinning the setting to medieval or far future or WWII or the Middle East, doesn't matter if the gamers don't have to think in new and different ways to win.
Doom came out 21 years ago. It was innovative, technically brilliant, a big risk for the company, had a very uncertain market, and challenged our culture to examine the way we thought about violence. Call of Duty: Ghosts came out in 2013 and it was one more knockoff cookie-cutter exploitation of a tired genre with a captive press and a carefully cultivated market. There is no new material about violence left to cover and the current generation of First Person Shooter games is therefore fairly pointless; they provide no new experience and no new cultural commentary over that provided by Doom and Quake 20 years past. I did that 20 years ago and don't need or want to do it again.
Further, the industry that produced them has no desire to produce social criticism or social commentary. They do not want to produce anything their audiences are uncomfortable with because they now *are* the mainstream, answerable to shareholders and lawsuits etc, and so are no longer in a position to criticize the mainstream. Further, they are no longer run by anyone who *wants* to produce social criticism or challenge people's beliefs or world views. They will give their audience games that do not challenge them to think or learn or to view the world differently than they viewed it the day previous. Which is simply another way of saying they are no longer run by artists and no longer in the business of producing art.
If games want to remain relevant, they need to start covering new ground. For example, the Binding of Isaac presents itself as an innovative and difficult critique of a certain kind of religious belief. It was published by someone who thought everyone would hate it, and was astonished to find that it had a real audience. Red Rogue presents a bit of an interesting take on mourning and obsession over a lost love. You can play these games in the same mindset as you play a FPS, but if you think a little beyond the surface, there is real content there which is no longer available from the now-mainstream and heavily calcified big studios..
If journalists and writers want to take up the job of social criticism that these people have set aside, I say more power to them. If the first thing they want to criticize is mainstream games and how they depict women and minorities and the way that depiction has not changed at all in the last N years,, I say that's a good start.
Hell, somebody's got to do it.
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I personally think that one of the main purposes of all media -- including both journalism and games -- is social commentary and, yes, criticism.
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If journalists and writers want to take up the job of social criticism that these people have set aside, I say more power to them. If the first thing they want to criticize is mainstream games and how they depict women and minorities and the way that depiction has not changed at all in the last N years,, I say that's a good start.
Hell, somebody's got to do it.
Things should not be given a pass, because some faction of the population considers an action for the cause (whatever it might be) to
validate any lack of substance. In the end, both the cause and the media in which it features, are better served by the journalists and writers doing a worthwhile job.
Mushy doesn't think the effort had substance to warrant it (as I read his post), and neither do I. Do you, and why?
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I personally think that one of the main purposes of all media -- including both journalism and games -- is social commentary and, yes, criticism.
Hm, I'm not sure if you're responding to me. If you are, I don't disagree with what you say here.
What I would say, though, is that the discussion in the podcast is about Brogue and a variant maintained by one of the participants called unBrogue. Neither are commercial games (which is what I would take your "gaming industry" comments to pertain to) and Brogue, at least, has been praised as a worthy addition to the genre. The complaints I refer to were aimed at Brogue, which is fair enough if the general tone is measured, but it came off as more of a bitchfest to my ears.
I think their diagnosis of the low participation of women in roguelike gaming and discussion is more or less on target, but I didn't hear any ideas about addressing the situation. As such, after more than a minute or two, it starts to sound more like drawing a line between themselves and internet bad guys than social progress.
[As an aside: I don't think it's fair to convict the gaming industry for the state of the FPS genre. The fact of the matter is that id produced games of such brilliance so early (I refer to the Quake series) that there was nowhere to go but down. And indeed, that's what the gaming consumer wanted. The "sophisticated" FPS player plays Quake or Counterstrike multiplayer and is not interested in dumbed down or gimmicky imitators (although Half-Life 2: Deathmatch might be a short-lived exception) -- id and Valve basically killed that market from the beginning by creating such enduring classics. So, CoD is the only thing you can sell.]
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No, I wasn't talking about brogue. I was talking about the controversy the response to which led off the Roguelike Radio podcast this episode.
In case you've not been paying attention, there's a froofroo going on about misogyny and sexism in games, where those defending the industry have gone over the top in making threats to rape and kill the journalists who dare to say anything negative about those games -- which, IMO, rather underlines their point about misogyny.
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Ah, okay, I see what you're saying. That wasn't what I thought they were talking about. I guess the bit about harassment didn't click for me. I'm not that plugged into wider commentary on vidya games.
Their discussion still strikes me as gratuitous and self-congratulatory though.
[Further update: upon actually looking into the incident you seem to be referring to (Anita Sarkeesian's video commentary on misogyny in video games), I'm kind of unimpressed. Women are harassed by weirdos on the internet no matter what they do. The idea that there's a connection between this and video games, posited by quite a bit of commentary on the matter, is a stretch. This kind of harassment is an unfortunate, but common, phenomenon that has existed as long as the internet has had significant numbers of unaccountable users.
I agree that the reaction amplifies her point in that it brings a lot of attention and third party commentary to her videos, but this is only because the general internet consumer is not aware of the dynamic between creepy guys on the internet and online feminism.]
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I thought RR was pretty much "90 minutes of Darren complaining about a roguelike." How are else are you going to fill up a whole show? This game is great. See you next week.
In all seriousness, I don't see the problem with someone sharing their opinion about what they do or don't enjoy within a game. It's quite subjective, but that's what I want to hear on a podcast. If I wanted the specifications on the game, I would go read a wiki. I found myself agreeing with Darren quite a bit. I've only played Brogue briefly, but identification systems and cursed items in other games seem to be very luck based and they don't add much for me. Identification is tedious, but a no-brainer. It's kind of funny that we accept "permadeath and procedural" as enough to be rogue-lite at least, but if you're going after a roguelike label you absolutely have to put in a slew of obtuse mechanics just because Rogue happened to have them.
I take your point on beginners finding certain mechanics pointless (e.g. hallucination), yet experts know they're really important. I'd like some more discussion on this, but I'm leaning towards: the beginner isn't having fun... can you really argue with that?
Women are harassed by weirdos on the internet no matter what they do. The idea that there's a connection between this and video games, posited by quite a bit of commentary on the matter, is a stretch. This kind of harassment is an unfortunate, but common, phenomenon that has existed as long as the internet has had significant numbers of unaccountable users.
This is one of the biggest justifications used by the gamergate crowd. As they continue to harass, threaten (not just Sarkeesian), hack, and dox people, they repeat in unison "There is no harassment in gamergate. Ignore the trolls." OK, there are trolls in every community. So what? Why can't we actively condemn the trollls??? We're not getting death threats; we're getting a 5 minute discussion. Seems like we should be willing to put up with that if we really are against the harassment.
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Women are an unfortunately natural target by not being a big part of the obnoxiously 'loud' hater crowd -- just guessing, but I'd love to see a survey about male/female ratio in online haters that post threatening shit -- and therefore easier to prey on as not generally 'being one of them'. I remember reading recently about Lennart Poettering (https://plus.google.com/+LennartPoetteringTheOneAndOnly/posts/J2TZrTvu7vd) who might have pissed a lot of people and apparently some of those started collecting BitCoins to hire a hitman. Did we see it all over the news? No. Probably wouldn't make such a good story: "Angry nerds threaten angry nerd". Attacks on women are all the rage right now apparently, but attack a woman nowadays, and especially a media person (Sarkeesian, Lawrence) and there's a shitstorm coming.
Sad thing is that the gamergate thing has apparently valid points by criticising bad journalism (as I've read, as I'm not into video-game press anymore), but looks like it's the same thing with feminism: The man-hater feminists are quite vocal and give the rest a bad name (term is already poisoned). Similarly the woman-hater gamergate people got quite vocal too and there goes this one down the drain...
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I think their diagnosis of the low participation of women in roguelike gaming and discussion is more or less on target, but I didn't hear any ideas about addressing the situation. As such, after more than a minute or two, it starts to sound more like drawing a line between themselves and internet bad guys than social progress.
I think this is a fair assessment. We know there are problems and we don't have any good answers. We'd like the community in general to be open and welcoming (which it generally is - I think roguelikes as a genre are great for accessibility in terms of gameplay and content) and we'd like to encourage more women to step forward and be voices in the community and develop more games. More people in general actually, but there's a specific imbalance with women at the moment.
If others have ideas for what we or the community can do on a practical level then that's obviously very welcome. Part of the role of the podcast is to encourage more discussion.
I thought RR was pretty much "90 minutes of Darren complaining about a roguelike." How are else are you going to fill up a whole show? This game is great. See you next week.
Hah! I think I was actually quite positive in this episode. And Pender got in touch with me to say he loved the podcast (though he disagrees with my opinions on colour choices ;)).
I did praise a lot of the things in the game, and tried to temper my negativity by emphasising where it was more down to personal preference and how the negative elements stand out all the more because of how good the game is. Also at least this time I've actually gotten very far in the game :P
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it's the ugliest game ever even measured against the low-bar set by other "ASCII roguelikes"
Did they actually say this? About Brogue? I think Brogue is one of the best-looking ASCII roguelikes (although strictly speaking it's not pure ASCII, but still).
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Did they actually say this? About Brogue? I think Brogue is one of the best-looking ASCII roguelikes (although strictly speaking it's not pure ASCII, but still).
No, he's exaggerating, but I have said a few times in the past that I think Brogue is an ugly game. In the episode I clarified that it's about the clashing colour choices, which sometimes even interfere with gameplay (a big no-no for any graphics style for me). Also I said I think it has the most beautiful environments of any roguelike I've played, really lovely caverns to explore, which might be why so many praise its visuals.
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Women are harassed by weirdos on the internet no matter what they do. The idea that there's a connection between this and video games, posited by quite a bit of commentary on the matter, is a stretch. This kind of harassment is an unfortunate, but common, phenomenon that has existed as long as the internet has had significant numbers of unaccountable users.
This is one of the biggest justifications used by the gamergate crowd. As they continue to harass, threaten (not just Sarkeesian), hack, and dox people, they repeat in unison "There is no harassment in gamergate. Ignore the trolls." OK, there are trolls in every community. So what? Why can't we actively condemn the trollls??? We're not getting death threats; we're getting a 5 minute discussion. Seems like we should be willing to put up with that if we really are against the harassment.
I'm confused. How is calling "the trolls" weirdos, creepy, etc. not condemning them? What good does it do to condemn them? And how is it the responsibility of uninvolved parties to spend their time writing condemnations as opposed to expressing their opinions on the actual substance raised by critics and Sarkeesian in particular?
Women are an unfortunately natural target by not being a big part of the obnoxiously 'loud' hater crowd -- just guessing, but I'd love to see a survey about male/female ratio in online haters that post threatening shit -- and therefore easier to prey on as not generally 'being one of them'.
I think your guess is probably right on target: About 100% of death/rape/assault threats are made by men with mental problems and internet connections (although feminists make a good point that these people are probably more outwardly normal looking in public life than some might think).
Sad thing is that the gamergate thing has apparently valid points by criticising bad journalism (as I've read, as I'm not into video-game press anymore), but looks like it's the same thing with feminism: The man-hater feminists are quite vocal and give the rest a bad name (term is already poisoned). Similarly the woman-hater gamergate people got quite vocal too and there goes this one down the drain...
As problematic as AAA video games are from the perspective of feminist theory, I'd say feminists are at least as problematic as political allies of the left. I'm all for social justice, but looking around my country, at least, I'm hard pressed to believe that a jargon laden, professorial dressing down of popular media products is going to help the cause or certainly advance the interests of workers and renters -- for whom, it must be admitted in many cases, raunchy, violent video games are a valued escape.
I sometimes worry the online social justice scene is turning into a modern temperance movement. Freddie deBoer had a good take on this trend. http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/08/21/where-online-social-liberalism-lost-the-script/
Now to give equal time, "haters" are bad, especially the crazy ones who attempt to silence women's voices through intimidation and threats. More needs to be done to protect women from such harassment, etc.
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I think anyone who reacts to criticism by getting angry is being really stupid, and, yes, part of the problem.
Not just the trolls who make threats to do really stupid, illegal, violent things that would ruin lives including their own, but the whole community that makes raging the normal response to any criticism.
Criticism, when taken in good spirit, is how people learn to make better games. Criticism, when seen only as a trigger to rage, produces a community in which those trolls and haters, as you call them, find refuge.
So yes, a community of angry nerds is a breeding ground for all sorts of hate, and if that's a problem, maybe we should stop forming communities with angry nerds, or tell them to grow the hell up and get over their anger.
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The problem with this analysis is that angry nerds create their own communities, so it's not as if any of us have the power to drain the swamp, so to speak. And indeed, that's where a lot of this stuff gets started (see the case of the video game developer whose ex-boyfriend took to 4chan to raise an army against her).
People "raging" about criticism is not a cultural phenomenon. It's a human one. The fact of the matter is not everyone is as refined or educated as we would hope. The median gamer isn't an upper middle class dude with a master's in women's studies.
I would also say that the criticism in question is not exactly designed for polite persuasion. It's a relentless, one-sided hit piece that passes very harsh judgement on popular media and those who enjoy it (not me, for the record) coming from a rigid moral perspective. Of course the response will be anger. Come on.
And now the obligatory disclaimers: Even if feminist commentary can be assertive and at times inflammatory, there is no excuse to respond with threats or intimidation. Anger is a normal response to provocative ideas, but it is important that anger be handled and expressed responsibly, remaining within the confines of civil discussion and controversy. As always, I strongly condemn all those who have made threats, engaged in other anti-social behavior directed at Sarkeesian and other feminist bloggers, or given support or encouragement to such actions.
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I would also say that the criticism in question is not exactly designed for polite persuasion. It's a relentless, one-sided hit piece that passes very harsh judgement on popular media and those who enjoy it (not me, for the record) coming from a rigid moral perspective. Of course the response will be anger. Come on.
If you're talking about Sarkeesian's "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" series, she says in the first minute of the first episode:
This series will include critical analysis of many beloved games and characters, but remember that it's both possible and even necessary to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.
That's why the meme of Sarkeesian coming to "destroy games" or comparisons to Jack Thompson make so little sense. She's a gamer. She wants more games, better ones, and still enjoys playing those that she criticizes. It's not an attack on gamers. If anything, the criticism is aimed at the developers.
I argue with a friend nearly everyday about this and I still can't get the point across... there's definitely a lot of misguided rage (not from you of course).
I'm confused. How is calling "the trolls" weirdos, creepy, etc. not condemning them? What good does it do to condemn them? And how is it the responsibility of uninvolved parties to spend their time writing condemnations as opposed to expressing their opinions on the actual substance raised by critics and Sarkeesian in particular?
To me, not really. It's like saying Boys will be boys. What are you going to do?
Well, what you could do is take ownership of your community, at least your little corner of it. Newcomers to a community don't know if it's going to the inclusive kind or the pro-harassment kind. Seems worthwhile to point out which kind are going to strive for. I thought that was the point of the disclaimer on this episode; maybe I'm wrong.
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Well, what you could do is take ownership of your community, at least your little corner of it.
'Community' is an interesting word which I think causes some problems. Some people (myself included, on occasion) think "I didn't choose to be part of a community, I don't consider these awful people my peers or friends, I wouldn't be part of a community that includes them. You're just assuming I'm in their "community" because I play games." Jim Sterling has overcome this by using the word 'ecosystem'. You don't sign up for an ecosystem or deliberately participate in it, you're just there - a part of it.
And just like a biological ecosystem, everything you do or don't do contributes to how well or poorly that ecosystem functions. Just as flinging raw sewage and heaps of discarded plastic into a lake make a mess of our ecosystem for everyone, regardless of who's doing it, so do the actions of noxious harassers and bullies make a mess of the games ecosystem for everyone. We have to take responsibility for it because, like it or not, we live there and our inaction is harmful.
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I would also say that the criticism in question is not exactly designed for polite persuasion. It's a relentless, one-sided hit piece that passes very harsh judgement on popular media and those who enjoy it (not me, for the record) coming from a rigid moral perspective. Of course the response will be anger. Come on.
If you're talking about Sarkeesian's "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" series, she says in the first minute of the first episode:
This series will include critical analysis of many beloved games and characters, but remember that it's both possible and even necessary to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.
Well, everyone's crazy to be upset then.
That's why the meme of Sarkeesian coming to "destroy games" or comparisons to Jack Thompson make so little sense. She's a gamer. She wants more games, better ones, and still enjoys playing those that she criticizes. It's not an attack on gamers. If anything, the criticism is aimed at the developers.
I argue with a friend nearly everyday about this and I still can't get the point across... there's definitely a lot of misguided rage (not from you of course).
Yeah, I don't think this really washes re: developers. The real technological advances of the last two decades haven't been in computing, they've been in public relations and marketing. The people behind these games know exactly what gamers want and carefully craft their offerings to appeal to the most lucrative possible audience. It's not like you see broadly supported petitions against video game companies for any of the material in the videos, you know.
Re: the ecosystem and "boys will be boys," I think that's a bit facile. It strikes me as obviously true that no one banging the social justice drum has a real solution. The idea that we're going to fix things by talking about them and educating ourselves has not really been born out by 50 years of new left political awareness -- this works over time with the pervasive, once mainstream stuff, but not the marginal characters behind death threats.
It looks to me like the emerging argument from the social justice scene is that these problems actually are mainstream and driven by mainstream attitudes, so that what is essentially the only tool they've got, "raising awareness," will work. I don't buy it -- ranting and complaining about what someone has to say about your favorite video game is not on the same spectrum as sending death threats and drawing a line that puts the ranter on the same side as the guy writing death threats doesn't help. The idea that the problem is pervasive misogynistic attitudes that normal people hold does nothing to account for predatory behavior of a small minority. It's also a pretty offensive notion to people who are inevitably assigned to the "community" or "ecosystem" the unstable few are imagined to be part of.
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I wish people would stop framing this in terms of "left" and "right" as though it's a political debate.
Honestly, this is all about "Asshole" and "Non-Asshole."
Someone who makes physical threats in response to words is an Asshole. That's very clear. It doesn't matter what politics the Assholes and non-Assholes have, and bringing political leftism or rightism into it simply distracts from the issue.
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And now the obligatory disclaimers:
It's unfortunate that this sort of disclaimer is necessary. I mean it is necessary, but the discussion has been so coloured that it's hard to present an opinion without looking like an extremist. It's especially difficult when so much of this arises on Twitter, the absolute worst place to have a reasoned and nuanced discussion.
As for raising awareness not having an effect... well, I think it can and has done in other walks of life. Consider the whole history of the feminist movement, or the American equal rights movement. It takes time and torture but eventually things do get better. There will always be extremists, but the more normalised an idea becomes the less extremists we have that oppose it.
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As for raising awareness not having an effect... well, I think it can and has done in other walks of life. Consider the whole history of the feminist movement, or the American equal rights movement. It takes time and torture but eventually things do get better. There will always be extremists, but the more normalised an idea becomes the less extremists we have that oppose it.
I say it does have an effect: An effect on prevailing attitudes. But prevailing attitudes already agree that threatening feminist bloggers is beyond the pale. On the other hand, all you have to do is go to the comment section of any local newspaper in America to find plenty of evidence that raising awareness of issues relating to sexism and racism has not eradicated marginal illiberal sentiment on those issues, even fairly stereotypical, old timey, medieval sentiment.
I wish people would stop framing this in terms of "left" and "right" as though it's a political debate.
Honestly, this is all about "Asshole" and "Non-Asshole."
But it is political. Feminist bloggers are political activists. You're saying there's no issue here other than people issuing death threats vs. people receiving death threats. While I agree to some extent that this is the real issue, after all we wouldn't be talking about this without the death threat angle, it's not the only issue.
I don't say it's a question of left vs. right. It's more of an intra-left thing (which as someone generally sympathetic to the left, interests and somewhat dismays me). It's obviously a political debate though. Someone comes along with a controversial perspective on video games grounded in non-consensus notions about how society should be organized, a perspective evocative of a long history of political debate on video game content, even mentioning video game ratings in passing, and you say it's not political? Of course it is. Unfortunately, it's gotten attention in a way that tends to shut down political debate.
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I think a general lack of civics proliferated through the culture these past few decades has devolved the issues to the "political" morass somehow becoming the high standard as opposed to the more critical elephant in the room of it being societal outright.
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I think there are different definitions of political going on here.
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I wish people would stop framing this in terms of "left" and "right" as though it's a political debate.
Honestly, this is all about "Asshole" and "Non-Asshole."
...
Someone comes along with a controversial perspective on video games grounded in non-consensus notions about how society should be organized, a perspective evocative of a long history of political debate on video game content, even mentioning video game ratings in passing, and you say it's not political? Of course it is. Unfortunately, it's gotten attention in a way that tends to shut down political debate.
Of course there is a political angle... but the world is big enough to allow people to disagree. The fact that her commentary is rooted in a minority political view does *NOTHING* to justify or excuse the escalation of disagreement into violence.
What I was reacting to, and what I will continue to react to, is anyone who's flinging around terms like "leftist" or "fundie" or "foreigner" or whatever as though it makes escalation into violence a reasonable response or is a good reason to dismiss or devalue the person. That is dehumanizing an individual by playing on a stereotype. And since much of my own family now dismisses me in exactly that way as an "Outlander" that's an issue I'm fairly sensitive to.
So, yes, IMO honestly it's all about how we treat people. Individual people, with whom we may or may not agree, but whom we must evaluate as people, not as stereotypes. That doesn't make them non-people, and that doesn't make the escalation of disagreement into a threat of violence anything other than the act of a complete asshole. So I'm standing by my initial assessment. You may believe something else; after all the world is big enough to allow us to disagree.
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I wish people would stop framing this in terms of "left" and "right" as though it's a political debate.
Honestly, this is all about "Asshole" and "Non-Asshole."
...
Someone comes along with a controversial perspective on video games grounded in non-consensus notions about how society should be organized, a perspective evocative of a long history of political debate on video game content, even mentioning video game ratings in passing, and you say it's not political? Of course it is. Unfortunately, it's gotten attention in a way that tends to shut down political debate.
Of course there is a political angle... but the world is big enough to allow people to disagree. The fact that her commentary is rooted in a minority political view does *NOTHING* to justify or excuse the escalation of disagreement into violence.
Uh... I guess this is what happens when I forget to end my comment with a standard disclaimer?
What I was reacting to, and what I will continue to react to, is anyone who's flinging around terms like "leftist" or "fundie" or "foreigner" or whatever as though it makes escalation into violence a reasonable response or is a good reason to dismiss or devalue the person. That is dehumanizing an individual by playing on a stereotype. And since much of my own family now dismisses me in exactly that way as an "Outlander" that's an issue I'm fairly sensitive to.
Whose actual opinions are being dismissed or devalued? I would say Anita Sarkeesian's opinion is being widely disseminated and she's on an arc to occupy a place in public discourse it took commentators like Amanda Marcotte a decade to achieve. She's the one with mainstream voices behind her. The opinion that is being dismissed and devalued is the opinion of hundreds of thousands of gamers who like smutty, violent crap but didn't and never would send threatening or harassing messages to someone just because they don't like what she has to say. Notice that you can't even voice these people's opinions in public without spending half of your time condemning the bad guys.
Maybe more to the point, doesn't it seem to you there's a lot of collateral damage involved in creating a category of "assholes" into which all dissenters re: Feminist Frequency/Women vs. Tropes are inescapably drawn? (No double entendre intended.) By insisting on categorizing people as "assholes" or "non-assholes," don't you think you're setting up exactly the kind of political binary you seem to have found yourself on the wrong side of?
So, yes, IMO honestly it's all about how we treat people. Individual people, with whom we may or may not agree, but whom we must evaluate as people, not as stereotypes. That doesn't make them non-people, and that doesn't make the escalation of disagreement into a threat of violence anything other than the act of a complete asshole. So I'm standing by my initial assessment. You may believe something else; after all the world is big enough to allow us to disagree.
You know, I'd be satisfied just evaluating the ideas people put forth, but anyway....
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Maybe more to the point, doesn't it seem to you there's a lot of collateral damage involved in creating a category of "assholes" into which all dissenters re: Feminist Frequency/Women vs. Tropes are inescapably drawn? (No double entendre intended.) By insisting on categorizing people as "assholes" or "non-assholes," don't you think you're setting up exactly the kind of political binary you seem to have found yourself on the wrong side of?
Not at all. "Asshole" is a category defined by very individual behavior. People can dissent as loudly as they want against anything, and I will just smile and consider it healthy debate. If they hate things I care deeply about, I may seek to be elsewhere while they're spewing. But that doesn't make them assholes. That's a clash of ideas, and the world is big enough to hold people who disagree.
"Asshole" in this case is a title reserved for those who escalate the clash of ideas against ideas into a clash of people against people. When someone uses threats, or violence,against human beings, it is no longer ideas they're opposing, but people. And that is where we cross the line from "dissent" into "assholery".
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I think that's a nice idea about how things should work, but it's not how these blog/twitter shitstorms actually do work. The whole thing is built around the advantageous position afforded to the anti-smut and violence side by the threats from "the other side." Without the "assholes vs. non-assholes" framing there's no chance for a discussion, because everyone intuitively understands that video games have a lot of questionable content and no one really cares. When you use a phrase like that, you've completely bought into one side of the argument.
Anyway, the whole thing is kind of sad. It's impossible to even express sympathy for the kids who just want to wear shirts with pixelated mushrooms on them and sperge out about skyrim or whatever without getting crazy denunciations. Meanwhile, you have mainstream commentators saying there's a deep connection between wearing mushroom shirts and computer hackers cyber-stalking feminists, gamers must discard the culture they identify with or forever be identified with psychopaths, etc. The sad thing is that while this whole debate will have no effect on most people, there are people in professions where this kind of commentary will be taken at face value and an associaton with "gaming" will result in dark suspicions from some quarters. But hey, it's all about "assholes vs. non-assholes."
Anyway, I've probably gone on long enough about this. I hope I'm not distracting you from anything important like writing video games.
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I think part of my point was that wearing a shirt with pixelated mushrooms DOESN'T make someone an asshole.
Maybe there are assholes who wear such shirts, but it's the threat of violence, and not the shirt, that is the defining feature of the asshole.
And if that's buying totally into "one side of the argument" then count me in.
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Back to the thread topic... new episode ahoy!
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2014/10/episode-93-868-hack.html
And we have another one recorded already to release next week. Expect some more regularity in future! And if you have any requests for things to cover then please let me know.
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Had to take a break from games because of work. Now I have 9 months of roguelike radio to work through. ;D
Oh and pixelated mushroom t-shirts? I've clearly missed something. No matter how hard I read the last dozen posts I can't figure out wtf anyone is talking about. doubt I can add any insight either so I'll leave it at that.
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I really enjoy listening to the podcast Darren, but would it be possible to boost the volume...a lot! Perhaps a little compression to normalize the levels too.
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This episode should have better levelling:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2014/10/episode-94-procjam.html
It's about the upcoming Procedural Generation Jam, with lots of great chatter about the role of PGC.
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I don't know why people want to get their roguelike game to Steam. If it's money, then why the heck they are even developing roguelikes? You get more money quicker if you make some other type of game which are easier to create.
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I don't know why people want to get their roguelike game to Steam. If it's money, then why the heck they are even developing roguelikes? You get more money quicker if you make some other type of game which are easier to create.
I don't know why people want to get their game to Steam. If it's money, why the heck are they even developing games? You get money quicker if you have some other type of job that's easier to do.
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You get money quicker if you have some other type of job that's easier to do.
I guess people wish they hit the jackpot like Notch did with Minecraft, which certainly wins about all other ways to get loads of money fast. Who knows, it may happen. Not with a roguelike, though. It's unlikely that roguelike will become a game that sells big amounts.
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I don't know why people want to get their roguelike game to Steam. If it's money, then why the heck they are even developing roguelikes? You get more money quicker if you make some other type of game which are easier to create.
It's not about the money, it's about exposure. Many people will never find your game if it's not on Steam. This may change in future, but it's the current state of PC gaming. If we want the current generation of gamers to play roguelikes then we need to make them easy to find.
Most roguelikes are never going to earn serious money, and certainly never enough to remunerate the time put into them.
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"Roguelikes," as they represented on steam, are not harder to produce than other games. They're considerably easier because you dodge most of the art and graphics programming that goes into making almost any other game that people are willing to pay for.
The answer to the question is that it's relatively easy to put together something whose primary gimmick is "procedural content," market it as a "roguelike," and make enough money to support a bachelor lifestyle. It's all about insight into what people are willing to pay for. The insight is: People are willing to pay a nominal fee for "roguelikes."
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Many people will never find your game if it's not on Steam.
But roguelikes (real ones) are such a specific type of games that everyone knows where to find them. I could argue that if the game is on Steam I can't find it, because I don't use Steam. And never will. Unless trying to sell a game for casual players. Let's hope my desperation will never go that far.
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I think the roguelikes that have been on Steam prove that wrong. There are plenty of non-casual players on there who would struggle to find roguelikes otherwise.
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I think the roguelikes that have been on Steam prove that wrong. There are plenty of non-casual players on there who would struggle to find roguelikes otherwise.
If one is unable to find anything that is not present on Steam, then the word 'causal' is among most polite things to say about that person.
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Hmm, should we find some causal rougelikes? ;-)
I'm not sure why you think good roguelikes are in any way easy to find. Games like HyperRogue are little known even to veterans of the community. If you're young and not exposed to many games how do you have any hope of finding it?
Steam is full of hardcore games. Plenty of fans of games like X-Com or the 4X genre would love roguelikes if they were exposed to them.
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I'm not sure why you think good roguelikes are in any way easy to find. Games like HyperRogue are little known even to veterans of the community. If you're young and not exposed to many games how do you have any hope of finding it?
If you are looking for roguelikes, you type "roguelike" in Google and get the Roguebasin page, where you can find any RL that has been ever heard of. There's even a recent update on HyperRogue. And you can learn ridiculous things, such as that Diablo is also a roguelike. How Steam is better than that? Okay, it does not have the 7DRL junk flood :).
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I don`t think underexposure is a major problem in discovering quality roguelikes, not in 2015. Over last few years that word has become quite trendy, especially among the indie scene and I`m pretty sure any gamers -old or young, no matter - considering themselves anything above "totally casual" have encountered this term and at least some games associated with it.
Those exposed who got the bug will definitely have no problem following up - all roads links eventually lead to this site`s ultimate database, and a day or two of lurking on forums here or on bay12 will give you enough clues as to which games stand out, yielding enough material to keep you occupied for months (in case you`re unwilling to just try some at random, which I personally think is much more fun)
In my opinion bigger obstacle in getting more people to play is poor communication and lots of misconceptions regarding the genre. I first played Rogue very long time ago - thought it`s a funny little game, entertaining for a bit but ultimately a gimped RPG, and had nowhere to learn the truth about it back then. And so I avoided the genre for the next two decades...I simply didn`t know that all I always wanted the most from videogames -depth, originality, attitude, complexity, emergent gameplay and so on is just few links away.
These days coverage and information is zillion times better and more accessible of course, but I still don`t think enough is done on more popular level to explain how the standard definition (turn based, permadeath etc) -which is kind of boring and perhaps off-putting - relates to aforementioned values.
In case of Steam itself the problem might be also the fact that the tag "roguelike" lumps everything together - and so somebody who tried, say, 3089, might have trouble understanding why on Earth should he play Caves Of Qud too.
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If we get more proper roguelikes on Steam then hopefully that'll become less of an issue. In particularly I want the people who played Binding of Isaac and thought "bleh" to come across Brogue and think "oh, maybe this genre is more interesting than I thought".
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I simply didn`t know that all I always wanted the most from videogames -depth, originality, attitude, complexity, emergent gameplay and so on is just few links away.
Just an off-topic aside; that is EXACTLY what I felt when I first played NetHack. I was amazed this had always been out there!
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New Roguelike Radio episode on What Players Want from 7DRLs:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2015/03/episode-98-what-players-want-from-7drls.html
7DRL-makers, take note :)
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Alan's voice sounds almost like Benedict Cumberbatch.
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Alan's voice sounds almost like Benedict Cumberbatch.
Ha! That's new. I often get "soothing"; this is the first time getting "Cumberbatchian".
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We've now reached the milestone of 100 episodes! And what better way to celebrate it than to talk about many deaths:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2015/06/episode-100-yasds.html
The episode includes YASDs from many devs and communities members, with Andrew and I making general fun of them :)
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That was a fun episode! It was also pretty informative, giving insight and thoughts about certain roguelike mechanics.
Keep it up.
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The new one is an interesting format, I think. With Roguelike Radio usually having themed episodes - either on a particular mechanic or a particular game - the wider ranging discussion prompted by the Q&A feels a bit different (at least to participate in).
What did others think?
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Good episode, though I have to imagine it makes it harder to write up the little summary blurb footnotes after the fact given the wide berth of meandering inherent to the topics at hand.
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It's even harder to write the summary when unable to listen to the episode and on a mobile in an airport ;)
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Kornel's episode was nice even I was (and still am) disappointed to what happened to GenRogue and higher goals in roguelike development. But I can understand it if you want to make money/career out of programming it's important to concentrate on making actual games (or if you simply find other things in life). Still, I would argue that from the old guard I'm the one that hasn't quit (at least not yet). I'm still aiming for that next gen roguelike.
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I think first developers of IVAN are finnish, so it's one of the few roguelikes from Finland. Wasn't Frozen Depths guy also a Finn?
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Wasn't Frozen Depths guy also a Finn?
Yes he is.
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Wasn't Frozen Depths guy also a Finn?
Yes he is.
So it seems like Finland is a roguelike utopia!
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So it seems like Finland is a roguelike utopia!
Finland is one of the countries that is producing roguelikes. I think roguelikes are a good indicator of perhaps even generic intelligence level of a country: countries that produce roguelikes have smarter people than countries that do not produce roguelikes. Of course USA is an exception, because it's a multicultural country and there are big differences in people's abilities in that country.
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Listening to IRDC episode made me feel that these conferences are totally outside the world I know as a roguelike developer. Probably none of the games itself were roguelikes and these random people are just having fun meeting other people, under "roguelike" term. They could have used anything instead, like larping I guess. But it's not taking anything away from me, on the contrary it makes me feel I'm hard core.
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More like troll core, AMIRITE?
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Yeah, right.. About that, I think I'm going to leave this forum, because there is too much everything else than roguelike development and it doesn't help when you are called troll all the time. But that's not the main reason.
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Yeah, right.. About that, I think I'm going to leave this forum, because there is too much everything else than roguelike development and it doesn't help when you are called troll all the time. But that's not the main reason.
Oh come on don't do it, the forum will be boring without you!
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It's funny how you imagine some people and then they look nothing like that. I didn't know Kornel was this big, rotund Quentin Tarantino-ish looking guy. And it's even funnier how he pronounces his last name. It should be Kisielewicz, but he says "Kilewicz".
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Rotund? Kornel definitely isn't rotund. You can see him clearly in the Kickstarter video: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2020043306/jupiter-hell-a-modern-turn-based-sci-fi-roguelike
But in general, yeah, you can build up a weird image from someone's voice that is entirely separate from how they really look.
As for pronunciation, maybe something got skewed but the pronunciation I was taught by him was "Kee-shell-ah-vitch".
And for the general purpose of this thread, I guess I should note we've had 31 more episodes recently :-/ Catch up on www.roguelikeradio.com :)
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I guess he is more skinny fatty type. How tall is he in metric units?
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I guess he is more skinny fatty type. How tall is he in metric units?
What does "skinny fatty" mean?! And I dunno how tall he is in any units. I guess average-ish?
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I guess he is more skinny fatty type. How tall is he in metric units?
What does "skinny fatty" mean?! And I dunno how tall he is in any units. I guess average-ish?
This is getting weird haha
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What does "skinny fatty" mean?!
It's like when person is not looking very fat, but everything he has is fat, not muscle.
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Make more episodes. It's nice to listen to these while programming.
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We recorded one last night! On Randomness. Will get it edited and online ASAP.
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Cool. Interesting theme, as well. I usually enjoy those more theory-minded episodes the most (although it was your ep. on Caves of Qud that first got me playing that fantastic game).
As always,
Minotauros
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So the Randomness ep got bumped in queue in favour of a new ep with Jeff Lait and I talking about How to Make a Traditional 7DRL: http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2017/02/episode-133-how-to-make-traditional-7drl.html
7DRL hype, woo!
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7DRL hype, woo!
I listened that one when programming the swamp level theme for Kaduria. Mostly what happens is that I'm so concentrated on programming that what you say disappears somewhere far away.
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New episode out - focusing on Randomness in game mechanics: http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2017/03/episode-134-randomness.html
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That episode was confusing. But I think there is one thing about randomness which is important and it's that roguelikes are not that random after all. The rules that determine random generation are often quite rigid, and variations within certain limits. That's why when people are thinking that roguelikes are "easy" to create because they are "randomly generated" they step into a big trap.
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Not sure you got the point? It's not about random generation, it's about random mechanics. A weapon does 1d6 damage, you have a 80% chance to hit an enemy, loot is randomly generated from a table, an AI has a 1 in 5 chance of executing a certain action, etc.
This applies to all sorts of games, not just roguelikes, but for roguelikes it's quite important for tactical decision-making and the feeling of fairness.
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loot is randomly generated
Well for that stuff you also have rules so it's not that random. Loot is often restricted to "generic" items which itself is the underlying design of the game. I'm thinking this is more a problem in high fantasy where everything is amplified to extremes.
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Well for that stuff you also have rules so it's not that random.
Depends on the game. In some games it feels like you win or lose based on what loot you find. In others it feels fairly balanced, but perhaps also less exciting. How you implement and constrain the randomness has a big impact on the game.
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Good episode. I made a comment about "Good, Bad, and Ugly" forms of randomness. My thesis is that randomness is best used when its effects are not immediately evident. And while it's not possible to get rid of every situation where the player has to roll a 6 to live, the game designer should do as best as he can to give the player opportunities to avoid such situations.
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New episode looking at some of the 7DRL highlights:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2017/04/episode-135-7drls-2017.html
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Think I'm going to pass this one. I would probably just get angry listening about all those great ideas and 7DRLs no one is actually playing, and start to drink.
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I started to check older episodes of Roguelike Radio, and just found out that the first episode is missing from server. Is it possible to reupload it?
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I started to check older episodes of Roguelike Radio, and just found out that the first episode is missing from server. Is it possible to reupload it?
Sorry, had a wrong link on the blog post. It's fixed now!
Two new episodes recently:
Ep 136: MidBoss (http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2017/06/episode-136-midboss.html), a roguelike centred around possessing enemies
Ep 137: Procedural Generation in Game Design (http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2017/06/episode-137-book-on-procedural.html), a new book on PCG with various roguelike developers contributing
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What is wrong with Eniko's voice?
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It's just his voice, man. Go read Hávamál verse 27 or something.
As always,
Minotauros
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It's just his voice, man.
His? I thought he was she. Well, you never know these days. Sounded like something is wrong anyway, I hope it's nothing bad.
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Nah, that's just her voice---it is neat~ 8)
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Ops, I really botched that one. :o If anyone's looking, I'll be in my room reading that verse from Hávamál.
As always,
Minotauros
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New episode out on Golden Krone Hotel:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2017/08/episode-138-golden-krone-hotel.html
Important fact learned this ep is that the French word for the @ symbol is 'arobase'.
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First 10 minutes and I'm already getting angry. For start, light as a functional thing has been used in games before, it's not like he invented it. For example it's an essential weapon in my 7DRL game 'Teemu' to damage grues in the grue lair.
Then he is counting the amount of commands in Nethack. Yeah, there are a lot of commands in a true roguelike. Unlike in your not-roguelike.
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Yeah, there are a lot of commands in a true roguelike. Unlike in your not-roguelike.
I think you should make a new account if you really want to rile people up. At this point it's just funny Krice. ;D
Other games have done light mechanics. Even one of Darren's had it (and is about playing a grue no less).
I didn't invent anything really. What I meant was most major roguelikes don't do per-tile light calculation, especially with continuous values instead of having (or appearing to have) discrete lit/unlit states. Feel free to prove me wrong. I didn't say any of this on the show because I was way too nervous to form coherent sentences.
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What is this nonsense Krice? :-[ Golden Krone Hotel is pretty clearly a Roguelike on top of this being needlessly invective out of damned nowhere. Simmer down and knock it off.
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Golden Krone Hotel is pretty clearly a Roguelike
Didn't sound like it, but how would I know, I've never even seen it or tried it.
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Then why have any impetus to cast aspersions upon it? Why not just have that be a springboard into actually checking it out in more concrete detail if you heard something that stirred you one way or another? :-\
Let's keep it cordial/inquisitive/exclamatory/etc around here---not defamatory and negative as that ill serves the place.
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not defamatory and negative as that ill serves the place.
I'm not negative, I'm realistic. The worst service to this community is always think every roguelike game is good or at least trying to stay positive.
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Appeals to realism ring hollow if you are not following up with looking into things before passing judgement---especially antagonistic judgement. Baseless critique alone gives rise to nothing, both in a sense of value and outright.
There's ample cause within any given week/month/etc of updates and releases across a wide spectrum of projects for optimism in the scene---this is the liveliest era yet wrought by far, without question.
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if you are not following up with looking into things before passing judgement
It was an educated guess and now when I was watching gameplay video on youtube I was right. It's exactly like all those simple "roguelikes" designed for casual players. You could say they have all roguelike features (turn-based, permadeath, random dungeon generation, rpg-system (often, as in this case, -very- light weight one)) but it's not everything. You need more than that.
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It never claimed to be something other than the coffee break style of Roguelike, it is right there on the Steam page and everything. ???
Not every Roguelike has, or should, be of the mega project variety---it takes all types to make things interesting.
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Not every Roguelike has, or should, be of the mega project variety
Most of these "roguelike" games are not even the level of original Rogue, let alone something more complex as Nethack (which in my opinion should be the starting point of complexity for a new roguelike game). This is the problem. We get all these new games, but none of them are roguelikes! It's a strange situation, but for commercial game developers money is important so they need to put their games in some category and I guess roguelikes is what they are using.
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Nethack (which in my opinion should be the starting point of complexity for a new roguelike game).
Har! In that case, I can't think of a single Roguelike from the last 20 years. Even Angband doesn't fit the bill :D In all fairness, you probably just had a bad day. Jere was obviously not touting light/darkness mechanisms as something wholly unique, just a feature he'd given a bit more attention than the typical basics (tiles being lit/unlit). Apart from Golden Krone, the only RL I can think of that did anything particular with lighting, would be the 7drl Madness. So it's definitely something that sets GK apart, and there's nothing weird about discussing the particulars. There was another vampire-themed game (http://www.globz.com/games/vamp/) with light and darkness featured in the less known "Procedural Death Jam" some years ago, that was quite fun (not a Roguelike, though, but a puzzler with random levels).
As always,
Minotauros
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Krice seems to have a lot of bad days...
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Har! In that case, I can't think of a single Roguelike from the last 20 years.
It's true, because there are no new roguelikes. ADOM and Crawl have been updated, but it's not the same.
I also have lot of bad days, but it has nothing to do with this.
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Nethack is bad.
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Nethack is bad.
I know, but it's still the best roguelike we have. It's quite weird to realize that.
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There is nothing good in the nethack direction. Anything as "complex" or more so than nethack is also going to be bad. The whole idea of nethack is bad.
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Anything as "complex" or more so than nethack is also going to be bad.
Buddy, you are on a wrong forum with that opinion.
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There are innumerable problems with Nethack but the main one is that the design philosophy is "here's a reward for being a nerd".
The game is a big pat on the back for knowing trivia about ancient mythology, Tolkein, D&D, and Nethack itself. Anyone who doesn't want to spend a decade learning all that can go fly a kite. Count me out.
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There is nothing good in the nethack direction. Anything as "complex" or more so than nethack is also going to be bad. The whole idea of nethack is bad.
Dwarf Fortress is a counter example. I agree with your point in general, but there's a definite audience for crazy complex games.
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I don't think a game like dwarf fortress could find an audience today. That stuff has been worked over and chewed on for a long time. Dwarf fortress is riding first mover advantage.
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New episode out, for those who didn't notice yet ;)
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2017/10/episode-140-horror.html
As always,
Minotauros
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I don't think a game like dwarf fortress could find an audience today.
http://steamspy.com/app/294100 (http://steamspy.com/app/294100)
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A couple of new episodes:
Ep 141: MUDs (http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2017/11/episode-141-muds.html), with some interesting guests including a co-creator of the world's first MUD
Ep 142: Recording from IRDC 2017 (http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2017/12/episode-142-roguelike-development.html) (with videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0Fvm3bUWtg&list=PLcZ-fMpNVsjUQ_eKlGrOH_OOgjxKzT84w&index=1) too!)
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Was there anything interesting in irdc? Feels like they are about everything else than roguelike games (at least in practical level).
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Are the comments on rlr moderated? I posted a comment about ADOM's source code looking very much like Nethack's, but when I logged out the comment disappeared. And it appears to be the case. What happened?
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Huh, it ended up in the spam folder somehow. I've reinstated it.
Oh, and we did an end of the year show! http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2018/01/episode-143-end-of-2017.html
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New ep on AI: http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2018/02/episode-144-ai.html
Honestly one of the best eps we've had in a while, IMO. Covers various design choices, including very pragmatic considerations, whilst also delving in to technical details like the implementation of inversion of control in Caves of Qud.
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When I hear Tommy's accent I think he looks exactly like James Nesbitt. I have no other comments on that episode, other than that inverted AI sounds dumb in my opinion (although I guess an easy solution to make AI do stuff).
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New episode, talking about this year's crop of 7DRLs!
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2018/05/episode-145-7drls-2018.html
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I was a little surprised that with the new podcast they didn't at least mention some of the more graphical entries. Admittedly I am biased as I wrote one of them. But I would have thought there would have been some minor discussion about the use of 3d.
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I agree, it sucks to not have your game covered. I wish every game could be mentioned because we know every dev goes through a hell of a lot of effort. I've never heard of your game until now and it looks very interesting! I wish I had played it.
The reality is even with 4 guests, there's no way we could have judged or covered all of the games among us. There's 113 successful entries not to mention unsuccessful ones, so about 30 games per participant and that's assuming none of our judging overlapped, which of course it did.
more graphical entries
A weird phrasing, I think. Most of the games were "graphical", some of them exceedingly beautiful as I made sure to point out.
I would have thought there would have been some minor discussion about the use of 3d.
To be perfectly honest, 3D in and of itself is not especially noteworthy in this challenge. With engines like Unity freely available, we usually see 3D entries every single year. There were a couple 3D games that I had judged that I didn't mention on the podcast simply because they weren't especially good.
I looked up some reviews of your game and found this line:
"There is a firmly established tradition in 7DRL of every year having a game with beautiful 3D graphics which took the full 7 days and left absolutely no time for anything even remotely approaching gameplay."
I would wager this might be overly harsh feedback so take it with a grain of salt, but still sums up the issue. 3D is a lot of work! For this reason, the 3D games we see in the challenge tend to be the less mechanically interesting ones.
I should also mention some thoughts about the judging criteria (something I've thought about a lot) because Darren went out of his way to highlight the highest rated games even if he hadn't played them. Having superb graphics is only a drop in the bucket. There are 6 categories and having 3D graphics is only going to definitively affect Aesthetics. And even there you can get crushed by having a poor UI or bad controls. As opposed to other challenges, this is one where the rules are guiding people towards making roguelikes and mechanically deep ones at at that.
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That's a very good answer. Nice and clear with examples of how and why thing work. Thank-you for that :)
You are correct in saying a lot of work went into the 3d engine itself - It is a custom build by myself and not using unity or any other 3rd party library. Maybe you'll see the style next year?
I definitely take criticism of poor gameplay and fully understand that. Hopefully I can improve next year? Maybe even with something ascii and deeper gameplay...
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You are correct in saying a lot of work went into the 3d engine itself - It is a custom build by myself and not using unity or any other 3rd party library. Maybe you'll see the style next year?
Why would you limit it to 7DRL? Why not just make an actual roguelike game with that engine? If I had a 3D engine I would shit my pants and then make a roguelike game.
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thanks Krice. my 7drl entry has been continuously updated (with the most recent addressing a lot of the issues and also having a linux build). the 7drl was really it's first public outing. I'll still be working with the engine :)
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"I'm here to shit my pants and make a 3D roguelike and I'm all out of 3D."
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"I'm here to shit my pants and make a 3D roguelike and I'm all out of 3D."
Well you never know if I get interested about making one. I'm a professional 3D modeler so it wouldn't be that hard creating art for the game at least.
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Episode 147: Difficulty. I didn't listen all of it, because it was quite hard to follow with all that pseudo-intellectual mumbling. Doull seems to be somewhat douche and I could almost see the faces (facepalms) of other guys when they heard him explaining. I think roguelikes have "1980's" difficulty and gameplay, where you learn small details and repeat them until you don't die. In fact many other types of games in 80's had "permadeath", because you couldn't save the game, the technology was not yet there. That's why even small games had things that you probably couldn't prepare for the first time, but knew later how to deal with that particular problem. So, when you watch playthroughs of experienced players it's actually quite easy for them. They know what to do in what order and good players have also a memory skill of an elephant, they remember what items are, how they are better than other items etc.
ps. I'm sure we have covered this before and I wrote something exactly like this.
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I've been listening to this sometimes while playing roguelikes. I often end up disagreeing, but hearing other perspectives has opened my eyes to some things.
I distinctly remember beating Angband. It was such a stressful experience that I really didn't want to go through with it a second time.
One part of me thinks it's amazing that a game can inspire those kind of feelings. That's something really special, though often not intentional.
On the other hand, when there is an implicit promise that each new game I intend to seriously attempt will pull some dirty tricks, it makes me think twice.
Even the "easy" roguelikes make it a point to be extraordinarily difficult, so much so that their own developers often don't bother to beat them. A sin in any other genre.
I have one theory as to why this is. So many roguelikes, in an attempt to extend their longevity, end up catering heavily to their expert cult-following.
I'll rattle off a few examples of the kind of thing I mean:
The developer of Moria had made it a point to "fix" the various strategies that people used to beat the game. A common practice today.
DCSS is continuing it's content cleansing to remain fun for its more exploitative experts, who are intent to keep playing like a machine would.
Nethack goes on with it's myriad of seemingly requisite spoilers and insider knowledge, as does Angband to a frustrating degree.
There is an old running joke in the IVAN community that beating the game is a bug that just hasn't been fixed yet.
Even in rogue, I remember hearing the developers altering the game so as to make it difficult for the rogomatic to beat.
What's next? Some kind of impossibly sadistic roguelike designed around TAS? If it exists, some neckbeard out there will master it and hog the developers.
You can beat plenty of smaller games relatively inexperienced, but even then "relatively" means the developers expectation of at least a month of solid play before cracking it.
At some point it becomes an issue of if a game even deserves to be as difficult as it is. That is, the difficulty detracts from a game already dealing poorly with repetition.
It can become a kind of a "buyers remorse" trap. Sure, you can always give up on the game, but you won't feel good having invested all those hours into nothing...
So you are stuck with a boring game. At times it might feel safer to just avoid the crowd because of this, and not invest much time in anything too poorly documented. Just in case.
This is one, more unfortunate, reason why I think roguelikes are such an addictive genre of games. A lot of the games are simply bad, but we carry on to justify a time investment.
I sometimes wish I could find more roguelikes that just drop all pretenses and act like any other RPG but within a procedural, permadeath, roguelike world.
It doesn't seem like too much to ask for, but barring 7 day roguelikes (which I have other problems with), it's like a vast wasteland of difficulty, with few gems.
Old games were fine being this hard when you would only have a small library, but when there is all of roguebasin to explore, it gets exhausting churning out the victories.
Yeah, it's very satisfying to long ponder a games philosophy, and even better to finally beat it and hear the lamentations of the developers. But there is such a thing as wearing out your welcome.
Some people can beat a certain game with every race, every class, every conduct, and all while only wielding a sock. But things shouldn't be designed around that crowd so often.
It seems logical to cater to your most dedicated fans, especially when they might be your last, but at the same time it has probably hurt the genre as a whole.
I still don't want to change what has already happened. Every roguelike in existence is special in its own way, and has its own riddles and lessons, and that's a big part of why I love this genre.
Maybe it would just be nice if I could catch a break more often. There is some point where you must admit the game has run its course and the player (and maybe even developer) should move on.
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It seems you fall for the allure of the "must win" mentality. For me, somebody who came to RLs from 3 decades in c/jRPG land, where you play games to "finish" them, it was so refreshing to discover a completely different approach. Now I enjoy RLs for the ever changing situations, emergence, stories and other genre-specific peculiarities. I've played Linley's Crawl nearly every day for the last several years, never won and still look forward very much to starting again, even if I die 3 times within 10 minutes. Same goes for the likes of Sil, ADOM, Qud, Nethack and other trad classics. Sure, it's good to have something to aim for - I'm not really a fan of infinite dungeons - but it's so much more about the journey than the destination. For me at least.
Therefore the last thing I'd like to happen is for roguelikes to "act like any RPG would". Sadly, such opinions are heard quite often nowadays with constant harping about how the old design is just a 30 year old mistake, ID game/food/clocks/permadeath/etc sucks and so on. People seem not to like such devices to get in the way of them winning and being generally victorious. And games which borrow from this kind of ideology frankly bore me (thinking of Dungeonmans or TOME here). That is not to say they shouldn't exist - as long as we remember this approach is just different, not the right one.
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I sometimes wish I could find more roguelikes that just drop all pretenses and act like any other RPG but within a procedural, permadeath, roguelike world.
Game suggestions for you:
* Tales of Maj'Eyal - Has an Adventure Mode and difficulty settings that let you play at a more relaxed pace
* Dungeonmans - A proper roguelike, but relatively light-hearted, and has some progression across games that takes the sting out of permadeath
* DoomRL - Many many difficulty levels, so you can play at the level of challenge you enjoy
But as you say, a big problem with more established games is that they grow increasingly catered around their most hardcore audience. Developers are motivated by the feedback they receive, and it is almost exclusively the hardcore fans that give serious feedback,
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Developers are motivated by the feedback they receive, and it is almost exclusively the hardcore fans that give serious feedback
While this may be true for some developers it's not for all. Some developers like myself are motivated mostly by the genre itself. In my opinion roguelikes are still today a platform for gameplay ideas possibly never seen before.
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If not motivated, many may still be disproportionately influenced by the most knowledgeable level of feedback.
And if not that, it still can come in through witnessing that feedback to other projects. Fair enough though, I don't want to accuse you of anything Krice.
This is just me recounting my experience over the years. I hope nobody will take it too personally. It is more of a vague systemic problem in my eyes.
It may not actually be solvable for that reason, but I think it gives the roguelike genre its characteristic difficulty, and the consequences of that difficulty.
Anyway, I do not want to dumb-down roguelikes, and I do not think even most novice players really do either. Usually it's the developers who want these things if anyone.
Either in a (possibly misguided) attempt to spread the popularity of the game, or make it less tedious, or scratch some developer-specific "itch" regarding optimial design.
I understand your point of view akeley. Sorry if I sound conceited, but I used to see it that way when I started out. First I found rogue, loved the concept, then was distracted by Nethack.
Finding a game like that blew me away. The gameplay was beyond my wildest imagination at the time. And I never thought twice about beating Nethack for many years. It was just beyond me.
Or any roguelike, but I kept playing. Though Nethack was my Crawl, the game I played every day. But several years later I had somehow stumbled upon my first victory.
At this point I've beaten all of the games mentioned since my post, more or less depending on my level of dedication to and enjoyment of the specific game, except Dungeonmans.
I might consider playing that one later, but I don't use steam. I do remember the difficulty of DoomRL hitting pretty close to "just right" though, but I haven't played it in a while.
I think the reason why I play roguelikes to win now is the same reason you may come into that mentality playing crpgs. Because you are allowed to fall into that mentality.
Most people will not "play to win" roguelikes because, once the novelty wears off, they lose interest before they are able to obtain this level of proficiency that is common in most other genres.
For me, I've noticed going from one game to the next often involves a lot of dealing with insider-focused decisions the developers have perhaps unwittingly designed into a cryptic meta-game.
So what I tend to see is either surface-level players who never progress past a point, or those who master one game primarily, as it seems more enjoyable than to deal with this hurdle again and again.
These issues usually take the form of developers fighting their games mortality by turning up the heat in a way that could not be easily circumvented by those same master players. It's an isolating cycle.
It is not from adding any concept in particular: identification, food, clocks, or even permadeath. It is from how existing concepts are altered in order to keep the game from being further mastered.
If someone plays a game seriously for years and years, the logical conclusion is they will understand it deeply at some point. Once fully understood, it needs to be amended to remain interesting.
Yet they still want to keep going. Complaints may crop up that a game is not updated despite being complete, and there is a bias that creeps into developers when (actually) infinite replayability is expected.
New players brush it all off as hazing and old players are content having already known the ropes to their favorite game. Developers find the programming more interesting than the gameplay and become callous.
Admittedly these road-blocks can make it more satisfying. Being forced to allow certain ideas to "ferment" in my mind while playing might make them more savory in the end.
But it is important to remain vigilant of difficulty actually becoming a cynical means of extending the replayability of the game beyond its practical scope.
There is some point when a game is complete, and can not be taken further without also losing something else. A point for the developers and the players.
I know that is heresy for some people, but there are limits. The completionists consensus that judges every roguelike by proxy is misguided and harmful to the genre.
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I really think they hit the nail on the head with their critiques about doomrl. I feel the same way about most of the points they brought up.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIR1dfB2p20 Especially how the game almost seems to have changed too much since it's initial inception. The achievements/unlockables can be somewhat frustrating. They mostly seem to be geared towards veteran players. It took me some years to finally get enough silver badges to unlock the second tier of challenges which I would have rather been able to play from the get go. Some of the badges rely a bit too much on chance in my opinion.
The non-random levels can be frustrating as well. Especially since some of them are practically mandatory to get certain items that only appear in them. Like the backpack in the Wall level which is one of the most valuable items in the game I think, but it's kind of a pain to go through the wall in almost every play through because it's the only way to get it. Same with the spear weapon in the unholy cathedral when playing the melee challenge games.
I also agree with how the game seems too long. 25 levels, not counting the special levels, tends to get tiresome once you have gotten that far. Would be nice to see it knocked down a little bit.
The developer says that he plans on making doomrl 2, but with all the things added already since the early versions of the game, it almost seems like there is not much of a point in making a sequel that could really distinguish itself from the original.
At this point, they have added so much, it almost detracts from it's original charm.
Don't get me wrong. I still think it's a great game, but they made very valid points.
The only thing about the review is that they were not all up to date on the current version of the game. Some had only played earlier versions. Would have been better if they all had played both earlier versions and the latest.
This is a very great an detailed observation..I have been playing the game for quite some time now and am liking it a lot..I would love to emphasize on the number of levels..a cut down to a maximum of 20 levels would do..they get harder each time an am even dreading to play past level 15. :D
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Some new eps I haven't posted here yet:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2018/06/episode-146-cinco-paus.html - A deep look at Michael Brough's interesting and innovative mobile for iOS and PC
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2018/08/episode-147-difficulty.html - Talking about the nature of Difficulty, how to find the right balance in design
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2018/10/episode-148-morgue-experience.html - How to treat players after death, with useful sharing features and ways to keep people hooked and learning
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How to treat players after death, with useful sharing features and ways to keep people hooked and learning
When I'm programming roguelikes I'm always thinking about this, but in the todo list it's one of the least important stuff to do. You can always think about all funny ways to implement that part, but it does require some extra work on top of everything else. The podcast itself was quite difficult to follow I think, but the idea was there.
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New episode on Chaos Theory:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2018/12/episode-149-chaos-theory.html
How many developers have a maths background, I wonder?
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I like the way you looked when Alexei (she?) began to talk about that chaos theory story. I was able to see you facepalm. And I could only listen to 10 minutes of that crap. Where do you find these guys?
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This is cool, I never knew there was such as active community for roguelikes.
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New episodes!
150: rot.js, a toolkit for roguelike creation in Javascript: http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2019/01/episode-150-rotjs-with-ondrej-zara.html
151: Haque, a new roguelike with delightful aesthetic: http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2019/02/episode-151-haque.html
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And another new ep just published: http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2019/03/episode-152-kitchen-sink.html
This time discussing the "everything inc" approach to design in many roguelikes.
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Goodness, it's been a while... 2 new episodes since the last update here:
- 7DRLs 2019 (http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2019/04/episode-153-7drls-2019.html) (released back in April)
- Jupiter Hell (http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2019/08/episode-154-jupiter-hell-early-access.html) (released just now)
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Been rather a while since we last had a new episode, but we now have a new one on 'Magic Systems', in particular about how to make a magic system that feels subtle and mystical:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2020/07/episode-155-magic-systems.html
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I just want to comment on that magic episode that scrolls and other items with "loaded" magic were invented for character classes that are less gifted in magic. I think you were wondering why there are scrolls, so that's why. It was so funny when you were trying to figure it out that I was both irritated and laughing out loud at the same time. But I look at these podcasts as something fun to listen to, not a source of knowledge about roguelike games. Well, sometimes some guests know what they are talking about.
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Good point on the origin. In effect though they end up doing different things than spells, such that all classes rely on them equally.
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Scrolls are a hold over from tabletop RPGs where they allow casting of a spell from a game's spell list without using a Vancian resource. In some systems it is used as part of a caster's learning process (D&D wizards for example almost exclusively learn from scrolls). They were never really a means for any class to cast the spell, because in a lot of systems scrolls cannot be used by any class - requiring some innate ability to be able to read them. Shadow of the Demonlord for example requires you to have magical power to read a scroll without consequence of failure.
Potions in tabletop are distinct from scrolls in that they almost never replicate the effects of a spell. They are always bespoke effects.
In any videogame when we see a potion we think there's a good chance it will restore health. That's generally why we want both scrolls and potions. A scroll will never heal you (or at least it shouldn't).
I have to agree with the podcasters though that potions and scrolls in roguelikes have become interchangeable - which is not a good thing. Likewise only game which has made good use of identification is Cinqo Paus - and you rarely burst into flames during an investigation.
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New ep about the Roguelike Celebration event: http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2020/09/episode-156-roguelike-celebration-event.html
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Nice darren! Also thanks for following me on twitter!