What trait disqualifies a game from being a rogue-like.

[ekolis]

I don't think there is any one thing that makes a game "a roguelike" or "not a roguelike". It's more a combination of how many different roguelike aspects a game has. If a game has a lot of them (permadeath, procedural content generation, minimal graphics, turn-based, etc.) then it is more likely to be considered a roguelike; if not, it's less likely. If we went by the strictest definition, then two out of my three successful 7DRLs probably wouldn't qualify because they didn't have procedural terrain, only random placement of enemies!

[natekerillf]

When it is boring. Rogue-like games are never boring.

[Eben]

In any case, I think the more sophisticated your graphics are, the more they threaten to restrict your Roguelike's complexity.

That's a really interesting point.  For a long time I've thought that voice puts a lot of restrictions on games, especially RPGs.  I didn't realize that graphics can do the same thing.

This is the one thing that keeps me using ASCII, it's super easy to add more content. I just have to pick a letter (or other symbol) and color and my art is done. The better the art, the harder it is to add new art as well.

Another aspect of this I played with is that changing fonts is an easy way to change the feel of your game, and can be left up to the player to pick a font if your engine supports that.

[Quendus]

This is the one thing that keeps me using ASCII, it's super easy to add more content. I just have to pick a letter (or other symbol) and color and my art is done. The better the art, the harder it is to add new art as well.

Another aspect of this I played with is that changing fonts is an easy way to change the feel of your game, and can be left up to the player to pick a font if your engine supports that.

The traditional message log also makes it easier to add new game mechanics; graphical representation means each mechanic requires new animations, interface buttons, or special effects, which take more dev time than just generating a descriptive string.

Some developers are preferring direct representation on screen to messages in the log, even in ASCII games (see Mosaic, for example), but I think it has exactly the same tradeoffs as moving from ASCII to graphics. Many aspects of the game becomes more intuitive and the flavour becomes more visual, at the expense of the developer's person-hours-per-feature being diverted to work which doesn't directly increase the complexity or depth of the game.

Of course, current trends in complete, working roguelikes lean towards simpler mechanics than they did 15 years ago, so the resulting workload hasn't changed much.

[mushroom patch]

It's strange to see people argue vehemently that ASCII (or console based) graphics aren't central to the genre when it's always been the case that the prominent examples minimally have a console (or some homebrewed facsimile) as a primary platform -- even to this day. (Equally obvious is the fact that the main innovation of rogue was using such graphics.)

Somehow the connection of roguelikes to UNIX and other multiuser systems has also been forgotten, much to the detriment of development and players alike. (It's worth pointing out that the most vibrant roguelike communities remain based around multiuser systems, dcss webtiles and public telnet being a prime example.) This is peculiar since now people seem to believe that permadeath is critically important, in spite of the fact that it is easily and frequently circumvented when games are played on a local system administered by the player.

That aside, what really disqualifies games as roguelikes is simpler than ASCII graphics and so on: It's being unworthy of the tradition of rogue, larn, moria, hack and nethack. That is: lacking the depth, detail, and diversity of early standard bearers and to some extent modern standard bearers. If there is any prestige to the genre -- and clearly there is -- it comes from the adrenaline rush of seeing a 'T' on the screen, as Glenn Wichman puts it, the creation of compelling gaming with the simplest technology. Without providing that kind of fullness of experience, any game's claim to being roguelike is pretense.

[chooseusername]

I don't think there is any one thing that makes a game "a roguelike" or "not a roguelike". It's more a combination of how many different roguelike aspects a game has. If a game has a lot of them (permadeath, procedural content generation, minimal graphics, turn-based, etc.) then it is more likely to be considered a roguelike; if not, it's less likely. If we went by the strictest definition, then two out of my three successful 7DRLs probably wouldn't qualify because they didn't have procedural terrain, only random placement of enemies!

This sounds pretty much in line with my own opinions.  But unfortunately, people like to feel that what they are working on is special, or what they like to play is special, and one way to do this is to latch onto the cachet of something popular and well liked.

So what you get is people tagging their product or features with labels, like roguelike.  Is saw an advertisement for a MUD the other day, which claimed to have a "roguelike map".  What they really meant was that they had an ascii map which was printed out as part of the room description.  Something various MUDs have had for over 10-15 years, without it being called "roguelike" until now.

And so the push to widen the meaning of the definition continues.  Once it meant turn-based, text display, procedurally generated.  I think it is now heading towards just meaning procedurally generated.

[mushroom patch]

If we went by the strictest definition, then two out of my three successful 7DRLs probably wouldn't qualify because they didn't have procedural terrain, only random placement of enemies!

This is an odd formulation -- so the idea a "7DRL" is not a legitimate roguelike is somehow a suspicious notion? It seems to me that the seven day roguelike is itself a suspicious notion, similar to but somehow more contradictory than the 30 day novel.

It's not possible to produce something comparable even to early examples in the genre in seven days, much less comparable to current standard bearers. Too often the concept of roguelikeness is an excuse to produce something minimal to the point of incompleteness or worse. This is primarily the error of the definitions currently bandied about.

[NON]

That aside, what really disqualifies games as roguelikes is simpler than ASCII graphics and so on: It's being unworthy of the tradition of rogue, larn, moria, hack and nethack. That is: lacking the depth, detail, and diversity of early standard bearers and to some extent modern standard bearers. If there is any prestige to the genre -- and clearly there is -- it comes from the adrenaline rush of seeing a 'T' on the screen, as Glenn Wichman puts it, the creation of compelling gaming with the simplest technology. Without providing that kind of fullness of experience, any game's claim to being roguelike is pretense.

Oh god yes, this, exactly!

[Vanguard]

That aside, what really disqualifies games as roguelikes is simpler than ASCII graphics and so on: It's being unworthy of the tradition of rogue, larn, moria, hack and nethack. That is: lacking the depth, detail, and diversity of early standard bearers and to some extent modern standard bearers.

DoDonPachi is deeper, more detailed, and more diverse than Rogue.  Is it a roguelike?

[Vanguard]

It's not possible to produce something comparable even to early examples in the genre in seven days

PrincessRL is vastly superior to Rogue and on par with or better than most "real" roguelikes.

[mushroom patch]

It's not possible to produce something comparable even to early examples in the genre in seven days

PrincessRL is vastly superior to Rogue and on par with or better than most "real" roguelikes.

Sounds like it's more of a 14DRL.

It seems to me that by restricting comparison to rogue, you're trying to bring down the standard I propose -- PrincessRL certainly isn't superior in terms of influence or innovation, so I can only guess you want to compare a product of 2010 favorably in terms of interface and gameplay to something written over 30 years ago. I don't know what you mean by "most 'real' roguelikes." Unless you mean something like "roguelikes that have been included in major unix distributions," I think this kind of comparison is meaningless.

[mushroom patch]

That aside, what really disqualifies games as roguelikes is simpler than ASCII graphics and so on: It's being unworthy of the tradition of rogue, larn, moria, hack and nethack. That is: lacking the depth, detail, and diversity of early standard bearers and to some extent modern standard bearers.

DoDonPachi is deeper, more detailed, and more diverse than Rogue.  Is it a roguelike?

I remind you that this thread is about disqualifying factors, i.e. what traits might disqualify a game otherwise similar to roguelikes from being an according-to-Hoyle roguelike.

[Vanguard]

By "real" I mean "non-7drl."

I remind you that this thread is about disqualifying factors, i.e. what traits might disqualify a game otherwise similar to roguelikes from being an according-to-Hoyle roguelike.

Ok, comment withdrawn.

I still don't think that's a good criterion though.  A roguelike lacking in depth, detail, and diversity is still a roguelike.  It's just a bad roguelike.

[mushroom patch]

By "real" I mean "non-7drl."

I remind you that this thread is about disqualifying factors, i.e. what traits might disqualify a game otherwise similar to roguelikes from being an according-to-Hoyle roguelike.

Ok, comment withdrawn.

I still don't think that's a good criterion though.  A roguelike lacking in depth, detail, and diversity is still a roguelike.  It's just a bad roguelike.

Well, obviously the view held by some around here (perhaps including you) allows for a game to be judged according to some kind of objective criteria of "roguelikeness" or "roguelike factors," even arriving at a numerical score for 7DRLs. There is some discontent with that approach, it seems to me, and part of it is that it misses what I would call the spirit and tradition of roguelikes. It shouldn't be that one can score high on "roguelikeness" with something that is ultimately quite minimal and not very good. (Leaving aside the question of whether something literally hastily put together fits within that tradition.)

[guest509]

Mushroom you are conflating being a Roguelike with being complex and fun. Those are three different scoring criteria. It might be that your personal view is that a roguelike must be complex and fun. That's cool. Nothing wrong with that.

But in the scoring we use getting a high 'Roguelike' score is no measure of quality, fun or complexity at all. Roguelikeness is in the eye of the beholder.

In your personal view:
1 point. Not really a roguelike.
2 points. Hybrid or Roguelike-like.
3 points. Very much like Rogue.

Sort of granular, and that's only one of the many criteria.

The other's are fun and scope (complexity) you've already mentioned, and then there is completeness (bug free?), aesthetics and innovation.

I tend to shoot for fun and innovation.

On this forum we are all fans of the genre, but I would hazard to guess that most of us don't list a roguelike are our favorite game of all time. I know I don't. I just like to design Roguelikes, they are fascinating and doable with minimal resources. I can make a cool one all by myself, that's awesome. I can chat with other devs, other hobbiests.

The competition was started to show you can make a minimal sized roguelike quickly. Being a great big huge monster was not necessary, a roguelike could be small and quick to make and not be in constant development for years on end, and still be fun (or at least playable lol!).

Still it's an RL competition, not a general competition, so we keep the Roguelike criteria as one of the 6 scores. Believe me it causes no end to internal debate among the reviewers each year, it's the most controversial scoring criteria.

You should join this year Mushroom. It's a blast. Or maybe do some reviews, we can always use more reviewers.