Results for the 2013 Roguelike World Survey has been posted

[Slash]

http://www.roguetemple.com/2014/06/19/2013-roguelike-world-survey-results/

The new major roguelikes:
* Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
* Faster Than Light
* TOME 4
* Dungeons of Dredmor
* Rogue Legacy
* Spelunky

[Zireael]

How many nerdy girls is 'not enough'?

[DaBeowulf]

This whole thread so far (apart from the link): LOL and :rolleyes:

[Kevin Granade]

1.18 players?!?  Couldn't even get two players to rub together, how sad.

p.s. Yes I know . is British for comma or something.

[Krice]

FTL and Spelunky are not roguelikes, so they can't be major roguelikes either.

[mushroom patch]

Agreed. Another survey that tells us nothing except that the current mavens of the roguelike tradition are giving away the farm to six man indie gaming companies' marketing departments (that is, the sixth guy).

"Yeah, so our definition of roguelike is: It doesn't have to have a terminal interface, it doesn't have to be fantasy themed, but it is supposed to have monsters that are the same as players (even though we don't even know what that means and no existing roguelikes have this feature), and the most important thing is permadeath, and also random dungeon generation is a high value factor. Also you have to have tiles, like hexagon tiles, or Penrose tiles, or a tiling of hyperbolic space. But remember, it doesn't have to be a terminal! But actually you don't have to have tiles, because platformers can be roguelike, that's just another high value factor."

"Oh yeah, and Mario has tiles."

[AgingMinotaur]

Har har, better get with the times, fellas. No doubt the watering-out of the genre definition these latter years has been problematic in ways (and make no mistake: FTL and Spelunky may be cool stuffz, but it's a stretch to term them RLs). When the hype around procedural generation dies down a bit, and maybe some terms like "roguelite" or "stochastic bifurcating death whatever" sinks in with the general consciousness of gamers, we might come out the other end with a more solid understanding of the core RL genre. If we're seeing a kitschification/commercialization of the RL term, many of us have the advantage of being independent in the old sense – ie. not making money as developers, and so the $-guys can just bungle around all they will – they can't make us fall, as long as we're already crawling

Terminal support, though, while nice, is no more of a requisite for calling something a RL than wooden pieces are a requisite for calling something chess? Ditto fantasy theme, I think. A rose by any other name, and all that.

As always,
Minotauros

[Omnivore]

Terminal support, though, while nice, is no more of a requisite for calling something a RL than wooden pieces are a requisite for calling something chess? Ditto fantasy theme, I think. A rose by any other name, and all that.

The terminal interface is far more important than wood vs plastic.  It is a minimal interface with the primary effort of development put into the logic of the game itself, *not* the display.  This is a crucial difference.** 

The current usage of the term 'roguelike' would rewrite history, I'm sure many C64 and Atari games from the 80's would qualify as roguelikes today.  Perhaps we should consider Rivers Of Mud Multi-User-Dimension as the first multiplayer roguelike.   If not, then surely EQ or UO.  The 90's brought forth a bonanza of commercial roguelike offerings... by today's standards.

Today its like, "We've made a Roguelike game, it has a display and a user interface and you move stuff around - see its a roguelike!"  The term is currently meaningless.

**If you must have graphics, sounds, alternative input sources, these can be added later by, even by a third party (NotEye as an example).

[reaver]

Not this again

[mushroom patch]

Well said, Omnivore. It continues to boggle my mind that people think a terminal interface is not a core element of what it is to be roguelike. It's heartening to see others recognize the importance of focusing on game logic as opposed to media (in roguelikes).

[Krice]

It continues to boggle my mind that people think a terminal interface is not a core element of what it is to be roguelike.

It's not. Original Rogue was also released with graphical tile version and it wasn't less a Rogue than ascii version. The gameplay is what matters, not how it looks.

[Omnivore]

It continues to boggle my mind that people think a terminal interface is not a core element of what it is to be roguelike.

It's not. Original Rogue was also released with graphical tile version and it wasn't less a Rogue than ascii version. The gameplay is what matters, not how it looks.

Tile version was an add on to later ports.  Much later. 

[EDIT] However I agree that game play is what matters.  Had it been quicker and easier to implement tile graphics (and had the hardware been capable then) than it was to implement ANSI/ASCII I'm pretty sure they would have used it.  Not because of the looks, because it would have been simpler, faster, and less work.  Any development team, small or large, only has a limited amount of time and money to invest in producing a game.  Time spent doing 'gee-whiz' graphics is time not spent doing 'gee-whiz' game play.

[Darren Grey]

Agreed. Another survey that tells us nothing except that the current mavens of the roguelike tradition are giving away the farm to six man indie gaming companies' marketing departments (that is, the sixth guy).

You really think indie game-makers have a whole person dedicated to marketing? Here's a pointer for you - Spelunky was made by *1* person. FTL was made by 2, with the music contracted out. I've never heard of any studio I'd term "indie" as employing a marketing person.

There's a lot of ignorance around about the term "roguelike" but it's not down to some evil marketing men in the background plotting to overthrow roguelikes.

[getter77]

LOOK UPON THY WORKS OF A FOCUS ON OVERWROUGHT TAXONOMY AND DESPAIR!

The essence of the thing is the spirit of the thing---Gestalt will dwarf bullet points looking for seemingly notable trees in the vast, primeval forest always and forever.

Discussions of Rogue should bear in mind a sensible requirement to watch all parts of the Matt Chat interview:

http://forums.roguetemple.com/index.php?topic=3828.0

[mushroom patch]

It continues to boggle my mind that people think a terminal interface is not a core element of what it is to be roguelike.

It's not. Original Rogue was also released with graphical tile version and it wasn't less a Rogue than ascii version. The gameplay is what matters, not how it looks.

I'm astonished that someone who has been doing this for as long as you claim to have could believe that. You've probably never even seen the kind of computer that the original rogue was "released" for.

You really think indie game-makers have a whole person dedicated to marketing? Here's a pointer for you - Spelunky was made by *1* person. FTL was made by 2, with the music contracted out. I've never heard of any studio I'd term "indie" as employing a marketing person.

There's a lot of ignorance around about the term "roguelike" but it's not down to some evil marketing men in the background plotting to overthrow roguelikes.

No, I don't just think that. I think some of them employ entire companies to publish their games and that these companies are the worst offenders in trading on the prestige of the roguelike genre (see Risk of Rain -- stay tuned for the 2014 Roguelike World Survey for more on that). I think it's interesting how quick you are to go the other way and trade on the success of games that have little to do with the genre properly understood.