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

[guest509]

  If I hacked Brogue so that it let me restart the level when I die would Brogue then not be a Roguelike anymore?

[Krice]

It also excludes Rogue

Rogue is a special case, because it's not a roguelike, it is Rogue. I think Nethack is a classic example of a roguelike. You know, major roguelikes that followed Rogue. None of the 7DRL games are roguelikes, but they do have one or more roguelike-ish feature.

[Darren Grey]

Will Kaduria be a roguelike, Krice? If you had only 49 enemies would you be forced to add another just to make sure it hits your checklist of requirements?

[Holsety]

Now you're just being silly, Darren.

Judging whether or not something is a roguelike by manner of checklist is pointless, since checklists (unless defined really well) lack flexibility and will become outdated sooner or later. It IS an evolving genre and standards will shift with time. No point comparing new roguelikes strictly to Rogue/Hack/Moria to see if they're "valid".

However, I expect all of you know what is meant when someone here says  roguelike.

There's this arbitrary fad to put the roguelike label on things that merely applied roguelike design philosophies to a completely different genre...
Realtime games (platformers, first person shooters, rtses, action adventure games) are increasingly likely to be called a roguelike if they incorporate even a single element that roguelikes are known for (some randomness, "hard difficulty", random level generation).

Is the roguelike genre so empty/desolate in your* eyes that we have to desperately start calling completely unrelated games (Borderlands/Dark Souls) roguelikes?

I, for one, have tried to keep my hands clean especially of calling things roguelike-likes. Fuck. Just say "This game has some design elements that were inspired by roguelikes." instead of calling it a roguelike-like and thus entering it into the roguelike family tree next to roguelikely, 3rd cousin removed from rougelike etc etc.

As for myself, when I see a game I just label it a roguelike, a [closely related departure from roguelikes] or [game that just so happens to have some randomly generated things in it].

*plural

  If I hacked Brogue so that it let me restart the level when I die would Brogue then not be a Roguelike anymore?

It'd be something along the lines of turn-based dungeon delving RPG with a lot of roguelike influences. But it wouldn't be a Roguelike anymore. Permadeath is one of the core features, in my opinion.

[Darren Grey]

I am never silly 

[roocey]

I, for one, have tried to keep my hands clean especially of calling things roguelike-likes. Fuck. Just say "This game has some design elements that were inspired by roguelikes." instead of calling it a roguelike-like and thus entering it into the roguelike family tree next to roguelikely, 3rd cousin removed from rougelike etc etc.

I definitely have to agree with this. Roguelike-like is an odd term. You could technically include every video game ever by using "Roguelike-like" (add more likes, if necessary), but that doesn't really accomplish anything.

[AgingMinotaur]

What we need, is an official definition of a Roguelikelike-like, to be done with this discussion once and for all! Could be something to discuss at IRDC 2013?

As always,
Minotauros

[Z]

I definitely have to agree with this. Roguelike-like is an odd term. You could technically include every video game ever by using "Roguelike-like" (add more likes, if necessary), but that doesn't really accomplish anything.

Actually, I think this includes not only video games, but also board games, books, movies, technical inventions, and whatever. We can define rogue distance as the number of likes required.

[Quendus]

If 1000 people like my casserole recipe on facebook, I'll make it a casseroguelike!

[XLambda]

EDIT: You know what, screw it.

[Holsety]

Let's just, for a moment, imagine that all criteria are equally important. We can then measure the roguelike-ness of a game by determining the distance of its feature set to Rogue's feature set. Under these circumstances it's very easy to describe roguelike-ness. Be R the feature set of Rogue, and G the feature set of a given game. Then the Rogue distance is the quotient of |(the intersection of G and R)| and |R|. We may simply set down a given number as the minimum roguelike-ness and be done with it. That seems somewhat crude, and it is, because it doesn't care about how the given game actually plays.

The closing sentence nails it. At best you'd get a very arbitrary number. And to begin with it all, you'd have to answer the question "Is this even a roguelike?". If it is, why bother with how far it deviates from Rogue? If it isn't, why continue comparing it to Rogue?

I think the point about roguelikes and especially roguelike-likes is not that they have all the features of Rogue. Many of them fall flat on that aspect. Here. I think we are talking about roguelike design principles. A game can have only two or three aspects of the Berlin Interpretation and still feel very roguelike if it took Rogue's and its descendants' design lessons to heart.

 For example, I think this is why Diablo is seen by some as not really roguelike - it inherited many mechanics and characteristics of roguelikes, but not their design principles.

And I think this is where many people disagree - whether we're talking about games that are mechanically roguelike or conceptually roguelike.

I usually mean mechanically. Being conceptually roguelike is something that's possible even when departing radically from the mechanics.
For example, I wouldn't call Triangle Wizard, Spelunky or Probability 0 roguelikes because they stray too far from Rogue mechanically even though conceptually the influence of Rogue can clearly be seen.

...now I find myself almost wanting to call them roguelikelikes and be done with it, but that's too easy!
They're [games that have some design principles that are similar to Rogue]... God I need some coffee.

[Darren Grey]

Roguelike-like just means your longer sentence    If you want to be fussy with terms why use the term "roguelike" at all?

[Krice]

TLDR. I'm glad I know a roguelike when I see one.

[roocey]

TLDR. I'm glad I know a roguelike when I see one.

The all powerful "@" symbol?

[Cap n Crunch]

I like Jo's summary a lot.

To expand on his statement, there are some games that definitely are Roguelikes but some are like tits in a commercial.
I've never seen them out of place in a porno, but it doesn't mean i'm happy about the advert being on TV pre-watershed.

(a metaphor too far, mayhap )