Roguelike-ish...What is a RL any more?

[Cap n Crunch]

There's a part of my brain that responds to certain stimuli that makes me think "Roguelike" to things that may or may not be an RL.
Games of such ilk usually titillate me.
Though not Moria, Angband or Crawl, i get a roguelike-y feeling.

I've found of late this sensation becoming more prevalent in commercial releases.
Maybe it's a simple as punishing difficulty and procedural generation, but i'm not sure, so i'm fishing for a conversation on the subject.

There was a game on the Indiefort bundle from GG called 'Shepherd to the Slaughter', which stirred very roguelike-y feeling, despite being real time and 8 bit-ish.
In the 80's we'd definitely have called it an 'arcade adventure', but i felt distinctly roguelike-y.
Then there's this game i've just scored called FTL. Aside from being superb fun and painfully hard it just feels...well, it feels like a roguelike, yet by conventional definitions it's clearly not.

After Dungeons of Dredmor i've been looking forward to more commercial RL's, and am being challenged as much by the definition of the genre as much as the difficulty level.
Well, fellow dungeon bashers, your thoughts?

CC

[getter77]

It is the Spirit of the thing that matters, not so much a rigid taxonomy.

I recommend dipping back in time for the other commercial Roguelikes on consoles and handhelds, or the incredibly few on PC like Scallywag: In the Lair of the Medusa.

There's also a number of good things upcoming and otherwise in the Steam Greenlight topic in the Announcements board that "stretch" to varying degrees.

[Alex E]

It seems to me that everyone's idea of a roguelike varies. Personally, I see a roguelike as a randomly generated, turn-based 2D game in which you control a single character. That's just what I think when someone says "roguelike". Some other people imagine a dungeon-crawling game with swords and magic. And yet others think that permadeath and difficulty are all that are required for a game to be a roguelike.

There are many aspects in defining a roguelike. Other games can be difficult, turn based dungeon-crawlers too!

[guest509]

  It's like porno. I know it when I see it. And I like it.

-Jo

[Alex E]

 It's like porno. I know it when I see it. And I like it.

He got it in 3 sentences.

[roocey]

 It's like porno. I know it when I see it. And I like it.

I change my answer to this.

I am also fond of this answer.

But I also like Darren Grey's perspective: http://www.gruesomegames.com/blog/?p=203

P.S. I fail at BBC.

[TheCakePie]

Darren Grey, nice post.

You're right, geeks love to get into definitions, I think that's one thing we do well. I've read a few articles on the reasons why people play games (you probably already know this but there are some books on the subject, and  it's now studied heavily by students and marketing people in the games industry).

I personally like this subject. I wrote a bunch of words about that here:http://cake-pie.com/so-what-the-heck-is-a-roguelike/377/

[Darren Grey]

A game that lets me think and plan, immerses me, challenges me and is very replayable. These are the things I enjoy in roguelikes, not the silly feature checklists that others comes up with.

I should really do that "Why Roguelikes" blog post I promised... Or an ep of Roguelike Radio about it.

[george]

  It's like porno. I know it when I see it. And I like it.

-Jo

I'd say it's like sex. Everyone says they're doing it. Some people really are doing it. But only a few people are doing it well.

[guest509]

A game that lets me think and plan, immerses me, challenges me and is very replayable. These are the things I enjoy in roguelikes, not the silly feature checklists that others comes up with.

I should really do that "Why Roguelikes" blog post I promised... Or an ep of Roguelike Radio about it.

  Oh man Darren that would be great. Why do we like it? How is it such an addictive niche?

  I dig the design elements. Game design is fascinating to me. I came from designing card games, a very randomized and often brutal world. Solitaire. Replayable by the creator, not just the fan. Surprises. Huge swings of emotion. Plenty of time to think.

   Putting into words why you like something combines intellect and emotion. It's hard to do.

[Krice]

Turn- and tile-based, permadeath, random content, regular or complex rpg system. That's it. Numbers would be something like 100+ items, 50+ monsters, 50+ levels.

[Darren Grey]

Yes, Krice, we definitely want to exclude Rogue 

[roocey]

Turn- and tile-based, permadeath, random content, regular or complex rpg system. That's it. Numbers would be something like 100+ items, 50+ monsters, 50+ levels.

That would exclude DCSS, unless you account for some of the really long/infinite branches.

[XLambda]

Turn- and tile-based, permadeath, random content, regular or complex rpg system. That's it. Numbers would be something like 100+ items, 50+ monsters, 50+ levels.

That would exclude DCSS, unless you account for some of the really long/infinite branches.

It also excludes Rogue, which says something about making up absolute criteria for roguelike-ness.

[TheCakePie]

There's nothing wrong with setting up some parameters for what makes a RL. That said, those parameters can be done with enough finesse that they're not hard and fast rules that apply in stupidly limited ways, right?