Design Goals Illustrated: NetHack vs. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

[cvaneseltine]

(Apologies if I posted this in the wrong folder - I've been lurking for a while, but never actually set up an account before.)

I keep a game dev blog at Sibyl Moon Games, and today's post compared NetHack to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, looking particularly at how each game was shaped by its design goals. I thought people here might find it interesting.

Design Goals Illustrated: NetHack vs. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

[Avagart]

Nice post. Nothing revealing, but well written. However I think that will be good if you add your evaluation of DCSS' design goals - changes in newer version (11+?) seems to be illogical. Especially with regard to dev team's assumptions.

[cvaneseltine]

Admittedly, it's mostly aimed at people outside roguelike circles - inside them, "what is a roguelike?" is SO very redundant!

I'm a latecomer to DCSS (read: within the past two weeks) so I'd have to double down and examine their history of changes. I might do that article anyway, but only after the next version comes out.