Show Posts
781
Classic Roguelikes / The greatness of Crawl
« on: January 14, 2009, 11:20:00 PM »
Sorry if I'm rambling.
First of all: Congratulations to this year's winners of ASCII dreams' Roguelike of the year. Last year saw Dwarf Fortress take home the gold. I never dared to play DF. Instead I like to envision it as sort of a "Finnegan's Wake" of roguelikes, a piece of work you should only approach after intense meditations. This year, one of the recognized "major roguelikes" prevailed, demonstrating that quality never goes out of style, even in these modern times.
The sense of having a canon of the genre, is very strong in the roguelike community. We have the classics: Nethack, Angband, etc. Amongst the slightly younger roguelikes, there are some bodies of work that are recognized as major (I consider games like ADOM and Crawl "young" in this sense, although they certainly feel like modern roguelikes, even today). Of all the most celebrated games of the genre, Nethack and Crawl are the two I know the least.
I haven't been playing much of any roguelike recently, but I had a period this summer when I started playing Crawl. As I'm tinkering on my own project, I've been asking myself questions about what makes a good roguelike, and recently, I found myself thinking about Crawl again. I can very much understand Crawl's popularity. At the same time, I don't experience the same thrill as I did when starting to play Angband (my first rl) or ADOM. Maybe the genre is growing old on me, or Crawl just doesn't suit me as well as some other games.
To my mind, Crawl's greatness comes perhaps with the polish. It is such a carefully crafted game. I must honestly say that I find the interface slightly baroque (I never understood why taking off jewlery and removing a piece of armor needed separate commands). But once you get to know it a bit, it makes interaction with the game very smooth. One of the things I dislike about ADOM, for instance, is all the tedious voyages up and down already explored dungeons to reach the different way points (going down the caverns of chaos after clearing the tower of eternal flames, etc; so one of ADOM's greatest strengths is also a weakness). Crawl commands like Shift-X are pure genius, I think.
Compared to some of the more ideosyncratic roguelikes, Crawl could be called dry. I never played a roguelike that felt more "intelligent", if you know what I mean. The brilliant logic of the interface is backed by a setting that is frugal, while still fascinating to explore. One could almost call it realistic. Even with the weird mixed-up randomnesses you end up guiding down that dungeon (which always takes you by surprise, in the end), there is some suspension of disbelief. The game seems to be built on a vast amount of experience. Where the creators of Rogue were really dabbling in the dark, exploring a very new territory in game design, Crawl's designer was already schooled in the classics.
On the one hand, I can think that Crawl is too conservative for me. But I must admire it's stringency. I will no doubt continue to crawl now and then, thinking maybe I will one day learn to walk.
So, I guess I propose that Crawl owes much of its popularity to the smooth interface. Then again, I never got any deep in the game. For instance, I've not yet drawn the attention of the gods.
Feel free to enlighten me with your own experiences and thoughts on the subject. What makes crawl great (or not so great), in your views?
First of all: Congratulations to this year's winners of ASCII dreams' Roguelike of the year. Last year saw Dwarf Fortress take home the gold. I never dared to play DF. Instead I like to envision it as sort of a "Finnegan's Wake" of roguelikes, a piece of work you should only approach after intense meditations. This year, one of the recognized "major roguelikes" prevailed, demonstrating that quality never goes out of style, even in these modern times.
The sense of having a canon of the genre, is very strong in the roguelike community. We have the classics: Nethack, Angband, etc. Amongst the slightly younger roguelikes, there are some bodies of work that are recognized as major (I consider games like ADOM and Crawl "young" in this sense, although they certainly feel like modern roguelikes, even today). Of all the most celebrated games of the genre, Nethack and Crawl are the two I know the least.
I haven't been playing much of any roguelike recently, but I had a period this summer when I started playing Crawl. As I'm tinkering on my own project, I've been asking myself questions about what makes a good roguelike, and recently, I found myself thinking about Crawl again. I can very much understand Crawl's popularity. At the same time, I don't experience the same thrill as I did when starting to play Angband (my first rl) or ADOM. Maybe the genre is growing old on me, or Crawl just doesn't suit me as well as some other games.
To my mind, Crawl's greatness comes perhaps with the polish. It is such a carefully crafted game. I must honestly say that I find the interface slightly baroque (I never understood why taking off jewlery and removing a piece of armor needed separate commands). But once you get to know it a bit, it makes interaction with the game very smooth. One of the things I dislike about ADOM, for instance, is all the tedious voyages up and down already explored dungeons to reach the different way points (going down the caverns of chaos after clearing the tower of eternal flames, etc; so one of ADOM's greatest strengths is also a weakness). Crawl commands like Shift-X are pure genius, I think.
Compared to some of the more ideosyncratic roguelikes, Crawl could be called dry. I never played a roguelike that felt more "intelligent", if you know what I mean. The brilliant logic of the interface is backed by a setting that is frugal, while still fascinating to explore. One could almost call it realistic. Even with the weird mixed-up randomnesses you end up guiding down that dungeon (which always takes you by surprise, in the end), there is some suspension of disbelief. The game seems to be built on a vast amount of experience. Where the creators of Rogue were really dabbling in the dark, exploring a very new territory in game design, Crawl's designer was already schooled in the classics.
On the one hand, I can think that Crawl is too conservative for me. But I must admire it's stringency. I will no doubt continue to crawl now and then, thinking maybe I will one day learn to walk.
So, I guess I propose that Crawl owes much of its popularity to the smooth interface. Then again, I never got any deep in the game. For instance, I've not yet drawn the attention of the gods.
Feel free to enlighten me with your own experiences and thoughts on the subject. What makes crawl great (or not so great), in your views?
(Feeling more like a lurker than a developer, and I won't have the capacity to release anything roguelike before the meetings.) I guess I should, since I am in Berlin anyway, and to get some roguish impulses for the wet season. I still ardently plan to release a small, broken game by the end of the year 