How to be a Major Roguelike?

[Psiweapon]

Far better to me would be to recognize the ones that are especially industrious and ambitious in terms of what they are aiming to do stylistically and perhaps in absolute terms--rough examples would be MageGuild being pretty much the king of Puzzle Roguelikes alongside Desktop Dungeons,  Sprawling World/Quest doings like ADOM, JADE, Legend of Siegfried, Rayel....

Though, I should say that Angband is still developing along nicely and the next version should be a sizable leap forward thanks in no small part to Shockbolt's wonderful tileset amidst other core improvements.  Some of the variants are trucking along rather nicely as well with big changes, like the very recent FayAngband.

Kudos to you for *mentioning* Mage Guild, that incredibly awesome game that's also incredibly underadvertised and underfollowed.

Did I say I've started a new tileset for Mage Guild? No, I think I didn't. I've started a new tileset for Mage Guild.

[Kyzrati]

You mentioned it on the Mage Guild forum

That game's very worthy of mention, and doesn't seem to get the hype it deserves.

[Psiweapon]

You mentioned it on the Mage Guild forum

That game's very worthy of mention, and doesn't seem to get the hype it deserves.

Yeah. The poor game forum that only you, me, the Dev and another fella visit.

GO AND VISIT  http://www.lukossoftware.com/ RITE NAO FOR THE SAKE OF LITTLE KITTENS

(This thread has now been hijacked by the misguided MGSAA*)
*Mage Guild Support and Appreciation Army

[getter77]

Best wishes on a new Mage Guild tileset Psiweapon, as that is a kind of thing that may very well draw enough renewed glances to ensnare the player base.

[Z]

Darren, yes, DoomRL is a game in the middle, I think there is nothing wrong in that.

Krice, I think Spelunky is not a roguelike, just an action roguelike, roguelikelike, semi-roguelike or whatever, but that just helps the point that it is not a major roguelike.

There are lots of good ideas about MageGuild, but when I played it, it also had some factors which turned me off, unfortunately. Ugly "graphical ASCII" instead of a real console that I would be able to customize to my tastes (hopefully Psiweapon's new tileset can help here), and C# nature. When I tried it, reaching deep levels felt like a waste of time, since the deeper levels were very large, the game was running slowly, and it was too boring to get down there to get killed by something without a good reason (maybe the game was not balanced, maybe it required more practice), but these experiences are quite old, maybe it became better since then.

[Omnivorous]

On "Major Roguelikes":

I believe some of the criterias that are needed inorder to be a major RL is:

-Popularity
-Complexity
-As few controversial features as possible (It must stay true to the 'roots' - fantasy, rpg etc.)

But more importantly I think this is a fact: since RL-development seems to be really active lately, makes it problematic to admit new "Major RLs". Inorder for something to be MAJOR, it must be a minority - a minority that is 'ranked' above "everything else".

I rather think the world is crying out for a new term. Something inbetween "Major RLs" and "Not yet Major RLs.." Something like: "Respected RLs" or just "Popular RLs".

Don't you all agree? :-)

[Darren Grey]

Coffeebreak / Medium / Major ?  Overall I don't see the need for these labels at all.

I don't agree a major has to be non-controversial.  Cataclysm could be come a major for instance.  And ToME4 is pretty non-controverisal in many of its mechanics and interface features.

[Psiweapon]

Darren, yes, DoomRL is a game in the middle, I think there is nothing wrong in that.

Krice, I think Spelunky is not a roguelike, just an action roguelike, roguelikelike, semi-roguelike or whatever, but that just helps the point that it is not a major roguelike.

There are lots of good ideas about MageGuild, but when I played it, it also had some factors which turned me off, unfortunately. Ugly "graphical ASCII" instead of a real console that I would be able to customize to my tastes (hopefully Psiweapon's new tileset can help here), and C# nature. When I tried it, reaching deep levels felt like a waste of time, since the deeper levels were very large, the game was running slowly, and it was too boring to get down there to get killed by something without a good reason (maybe the game was not balanced, maybe it required more practice), but these experiences are quite old, maybe it became better since then.

I must admit that I haven't ever played Mage Guild in text mode. I haven't ever finished it, either, and yes, the deep-ish levels (been only down to 8 myself) are REALLY big, and an instakill nasty might be lurking in the second room you explore. Or two of them.


I'm making two variants of the tileset, one with female PC tiles and another one with a male PC.
So far I've made nine monsters, the five scrolls, three PC ranks, six scenery tiles and I'm starting with the targeting circle. The scenery tiles "repeats" should be grayed out.

You can check an early WIP here:http://lukos.x10hosting.com/sites/default/files/MG_psi_female_tiles_1.png

[Krice]

If you can't kick in the game it's not a roguelike. Kicking stuff is an essential feature every roguelike has to have. In other words you need a lot of features and different ways to interact in the game, so you can use more than one tactical solution to a problem.

[Darren Grey]

And thus Rogue is not a roguelike... Well done on another feat of logic, Krice

Also I'd say complexity does not need to come in the form of item interactions. It's one way the major classics have depth, but there are other approaches.

[Krice]

And thus Rogue is not a roguelike... Well done on another feat of logic, Krice

I think we all know that when we talk about roguelikes we actually refer to Nethack as the standard roguelike. Besides Rogue can't be a roguelike, because it IS Rogue. It's not "like". Nethack had influence from Rogue, but it become more complex, so called roguelike.

[Darren Grey]

I consider Nethack an example, not the definition.  Many games are much closer to Rogue and lacking the complexity of Nethack.  Rogue itself shows that in the genre you don't have to be complex.

[Z]

Krice's definition is similar to what I understood as a roguelike several years ago: a set of features which appear in NetHack, ADOM, Angband variants, Crawl, Ragnarok, but are less popular in non-roguelike games. This includes not only the big things mentioned by the Berlin Interpretation, but also things like bone files (NetHack, Crawl, Ragnarok, some Angband variants), hallucination (NetHack, Rogue, Ragnarok, some Angband variants), fortune cookies or a similar system (NetHack, ADOM, Angband variants, Ragnarok), identification (every one), blessed/cursed items, and so on. Yes, roguelikeness of Rogue is smaller than of NetHack or ADOM, according to this. But that's not a problem, the genre has evolved since Rogue. It would be possible to imagine a single "ideal roguelike", which would not be Rogue or any of the games mentioned above, but something in between. Roguelikeness would be measured by distance from this ideal roguelike.

But during these several years, the genre has evolved more. 7DRL challenges have shown that you can create a good roguelike without identification or fortune cookies.

I still think that having fortune cookies (or some variant adapted to the specific theme) makes a game more roguelike, even though Rogue ltself and most roguelikes appearing now do not have them. A simple identification minigame might not add much to the tactics, but it adds to roguelikeness. The exact feature set of the ideal roguelike is subjective, but IMO it would still contain fortune cookies, identification, bones, and all other similar side features.

[Darren Grey]

I think certain things should be considered Nethackisms rather than Rogueisms.  For me procedural content + turn-based + single-hero control + permadeath = everything you need.  Everything else is flavour.

[Omnivorous]

Coffeebreak / Medium / Major ?  Overall I don't see the need for these labels at all.

I don't agree a major has to be non-controversial.  Cataclysm could be come a major for instance.  And ToME4 is pretty non-controverisal in many of its mechanics and interface features.

Erm, you are talking about "How to -theoretically- be(come) a Major Roguelike".

I am saying, what is ACTUALLY required to be a "Major Roguelike". And I still think the key factor is "lack of controversy"+Quality+Complexity, in that order. All of the Major Roguelikes is games that, when someone calls it a Major RL - whether you love that RL or not - you will nod to yourself, and say: "Yeah..that IS a good roguelike.."