Results for the 2013 Roguelike World Survey has been posted

[Rickton]

Genres only matter for marketing anyway. I have no idea who first used the term "roguelike" to describe their own game, but I'm sure they did solely it to attract people who enjoyed rogue.

[Omnivore]

Genres only matter for marketing anyway. I have no idea who first used the term "roguelike" to describe their own game, but I'm sure they did solely it to attract people who enjoyed rogue.

Which brings up an often overlooked aspect of Rogue and its early successors; free and open source**.  I wonder how many of today's games would be calling themselves roguelike if Rogue had been commercialized, properly trademarked, and closed source.   I believe ADOM was the first to violate the open source nature of the 'genre'.

**Rogue actually predates most FLOSS licensing.

[mushroom patch]

Genres only matter for marketing anyway. I have no idea who first used the term "roguelike" to describe their own game, but I'm sure they did solely it to attract people who enjoyed rogue.

Not true. Genre is a notion from literary criticism and its usefulness is primarily critical. Whoever was first to describe their game as roguelike, probably did so in response to common usage that had developed among players. I would guess that they probably also did so to credit the ideas in their game appropriately, as at that time, the idea of a "roguelike genre" probably hadn't developed.

In particular, if a game publisher comes along and claims they are marketing a "roguelike game," which does not in any reasonable way reflect the idioms of the genre except in rather superficial ways (see Risk of Rain), that publisher is in for some well-deserved criticism. When someone claims their game is roguelike, then they are not just saying, "Hey, do you like roguelikes? Then buy my game!" They are asking that their game be judged on its position within the genre. Any fair-minded critic would have to then say: This game deals only superficially in the themes and idioms that make the roguelike genre unique and fails to engage in a meaningful way with previous work in the genre. Their claims to be selling a roguelike game can only be viewed as a cynical marketing ploy.

[Krice]

I'm astonished that someone who has been doing this for as long as you claim to have could believe that.

ADOM for example has both ascii and tile version you can switch even during gameplay. When you switch to tile version does it suddenly stop being a roguelike? Besides most major and other roguelikes have tile versions. So what is your problem?

[chooseusername]

Meaningless results, presented using graphical means that confuse any remaining meaning.  Even if the definition of roguelike is put aside, it could be argued that the games shown as larger type in the tag cloud, are simply relevant to the time the survey was made, and nothing identifiably more.

Regardless of what is or is not a roguelike, it would be nice to distinguish between authentic roguelikes, and what needy developers who want some of whatever cache associating with authentic roguelikes produce and label as such.  Authentic roguelike?  Classic roguelike?  Genuine roguelike?

[mushroom patch]

I think tiles are okay as a fan add-on. I don't think it's good for people who produce actual roguelike game content (i.e. not tiles) to work on tiles, though.

There is a difference between an ascii interface and a terminal interface. A terminal interface is one where a stream of text with control characters is sent to a terminal or terminal emulator and this is how interaction is accomplished. This is the kind of interface you get on a public telnet server. ADOM has this kind of interface. It's okay to have other types of interfaces in addition to the terminal interface, although I don't think it's good for developers to spend too much time on them. On the other hand, you can have an ascii interface that looks like a terminal interface but is actually faked using something like SDL. A game with this kind of interface may not even have a terminal interface.

There is good work on this being done by the developer of NotEye and also itkatchev of diggr and incavead, on using terminal/telnet in ways that are more tile like. Personally, I like what tkatchev is doing with his wide character based telnet interface and tile enabled telnet client (especially the wide character stuff). This kind of stuff is good because, at least in principle, it could lead to standardized tile enabled clients for roguelike games that interoperate well with traditional interfaces. In principle, it could release developers from even thinking about tiles.

The value of terminal interfaces is not confined to nostalgia. Despite remaining one of the simplest ways to put together a game interface, it also remains one of the most flexible ways to deliver game content, share game records, provide multiplayer environments with spectating, etc. etc. Anyone can use a terminal interface on a remote server on any computer: just download putty if you're on windows, type telnet if you're on a real computer.

[Krice]

type telnet if you're on a real computer.

I thought you were just trolling, but looks like it's worse than I thought. Your "definition" of a real computer can be easily replaced by even earlier type of computer, which were more real, of course. Linux or even unix are way too modern inventions to be associated to real computers.

[mushroom patch]

type telnet if you're on a real computer.

I thought you were just trolling, but looks like it's worse than I thought. Your "definition" of a real computer can be easily replaced by even earlier type of computer, which were more real, of course. Linux or even unix are way too modern inventions to be associated to real computers.

This has been another technical insight from Krice, roguelike tile engineer.

[miki151]

I think tiles are okay as a fan add-on. I don't think it's good for people who produce actual roguelike game content (i.e. not tiles) to work on tiles, though.

I'm glad that most developers don't agree with you on this

[mushroom patch]

I think tiles are okay as a fan add-on. I don't think it's good for people who produce actual roguelike game content (i.e. not tiles) to work on tiles, though.

I'm glad that most developers don't agree with you on this

It's the players' loss. With most of the current fare, you'd be better off playing commercial games from the 90s. Better graphics, better mechanics and so numerous replay value doesn't matter. Which is why survey says a bunch of indie games written by clever undergraduates and a few real roguelikes that have existed in one form or another since the 90s.

But yeah, keep those tiles coming, devs!

[AgingMinotaur]

Lol. So much junk in this thread already. However, this:

Genre is a notion from literary criticism and its usefulness is primarily critical. Whoever was first to describe their game as roguelike, probably did so in response to common usage that had developed among players. [...] In particular, if a game publisher comes along and claims they are marketing a "roguelike game," which does not in any reasonable way reflect the idioms of the genre except in rather superficial ways (see Risk of Rain), that publisher is in for some well-deserved criticism.

is spot on. Just as an excellent collection of poetry will mostly suck as a novel¹, a platformer with random level layouts does not a RL make. Also, some of the "new major RLs" here might turn out rather ephemeral (or there is a new demography of "roguelite" players, which is simply much bigger than the community of roguelike players – we gotta go in with our hyrdraulic systemses and blast'em out). Standing on the barricades to keep the RL definition alive and meaningful is a noble cause. Re: terminals etc. Whatever floats your boat, humans I'm more interested in gameplay myself, and have always seen the usage of terminal UI as a practical solution rather than a holy doctrine. If the whole point is that gameplay trumps display mode, well, of course something like Dungeons of Dredmore is and remains a RL.

(Having said that, a terminal is indisputably better than a graphical display in oh so many ways, but a GUI also opens up some possibilities that are not there in ASCII). A good graphic design for a RL should be simple to allow flexible development. However, I'm happy with curses or SDL, or a f*ing team of dedicated artists, if that's what fits a game's particular vision. Take something like URR: The dev is sinking a lot of work into procedural graphics, because that's an integral part of his game idea. Dismissing that as a waste of time is just stupid stubborn. There's already been many discussions on the forums about the pros and cons of displaying your game with typography or tiles.

As always,
Minotauros

¹ The exception to this rule being, of course, Nabokov's Pale Fire

[mushroom patch]

Re: terminals etc. Whatever floats your boat, humans I'm more interested in gameplay myself, and have always seen the usage of terminal UI as a practical solution rather than a holy doctrine. If the whole point is that gameplay trumps display mode, well, of course something like Dungeons of Dredmore is and remains a RL.

(Having said that, a terminal is indisputably better than a graphical display in oh so many ways, but a GUI also opens up some possibilities that are not there in ASCII). A good graphic design for a RL should be simple to allow flexible development. However, I'm happy with curses or SDL, or a f*ing team of dedicated artists, if that's what fits a game's particular vision. Take something like URR: The dev is sinking a lot of work into procedural graphics, because that's an integral part of his game idea. Dismissing that as a waste of time is just stupid stubborn. There's already been many discussions on the forums about the pros and cons of displaying your game with typography or tiles.

A terminal interface does not mean ASCII. See tkatchev's work with unicode.

The discussions on the forums here, as far I can tell, show not that there's a strong argument for tiles or even any real recognition of the technical advantages of the terminal (see persistent talk about "ASCII"), but that many people are personally invested in projects involving tiles (in some cases primarily or nothing but tiles).

[Darren Grey]

I thought you were just trolling, but looks like it's worse than I thought.

I think he's trying to out-troll you, Krice!

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).

Risk of Rain does not anywhere on its entire web-site use the word "roguelike". Not a single instance. There's not even "roguelite", "roguelikelike", "rogue" or even, heaven forbid, "rougelike". This marketing company they're employing to debase the term roguelike is doing a really bad job of it!

[AgingMinotaur]

(Having said that, a terminal is indisputably better than a graphical display in oh so many ways, but a GUI also opens up some possibilities that are not there in ASCII)

A terminal interface does not mean ASCII. See tkatchev's work with unicode.

Obviously, a "GUI also opens up some possibilities that are not there" in Unicode or other kinds of terminal display. *yawn* Please excuse me for assuming you could make that quantum leap of interpretation

The discussions on the forums here, as far I can tell, show not that there's a strong argument for tiles or even any real recognition of the technical advantages of the terminal (see persistent talk about "ASCII"), but that many people are personally invested in projects involving tiles (in some cases primarily or nothing but tiles).

So what if some developers (and a growing amount of players) like tiles? As long as a game is playable locally on my machine, I couldn't care less which tools the developer used, whether the application opens a separate window, plays in the terminal, or whatever. (I'd even try something that required telnet, even if the prospect seems about as abhorrent to me as playing Crawl or ADOM with tiles.) I happen to have a window manager installed, and I care more about how a game plays than self-congratulatory whining about how everyone are less hardcore than me. Show us the code, man.

As always,
Minotauros

[mushroom patch]

Risk of Rain does not anywhere on its entire web-site use the word "roguelike". Not a single instance. There's not even "roguelite", "roguelikelike", "rogue" or even, heaven forbid, "rougelike". This marketing company they're employing to debase the term roguelike is doing a really bad job of it!

"Risk of Rain is a platformer with roguelike elements." First sentence in the Steam description and conspicuously ubiquitous wherever Risk of Rain is mentioned, including the wikipedia page. It's almost as if there's a coordinated campaign to associate the game with the word "roguelike." But you're right, the developers show a lot of integrity not letting their publisher write their web page for them.

I'm impressed with the careful arguments you've made here, Darren. I should've just checked the developers' web site. Then I'd know what's up.

(Having said that, a terminal is indisputably better than a graphical display in oh so many ways, but a GUI also opens up some possibilities that are not there in ASCII)

A terminal interface does not mean ASCII. See tkatchev's work with unicode.

Obviously, a "GUI also opens up some possibilities that are not there" in Unicode or other kinds of terminal display. *yawn* Please excuse me for assuming you could make that quantum leap of interpretation

It also closes off possibilities. Unicode is not a trivial point, as you would have it.

So what if some developers (and a growing amount of players) like tiles?

Where are these players? What I see is that the roguelike games that have developed recently are still in the round off error range on google trends and the older ones have been in steady decline. Maybe you meant proportionally more, as players come to grips with the reality that the nethack dev team is gone.

As long as a game is playable locally on my machine, I couldn't care less which tools the developer used, whether the application opens a separate window, plays in the terminal, or whatever. (I'd even try something that required telnet, even if the prospect seems about as abhorrent to me as playing Crawl or ADOM with tiles.)

I'm amazed how disconnected from traditional roguelikes you profess to be. And it's not about being hardcore, it's about recognizing what's unique and excellent about the genre and focusing on that.