How you guys feel about the new wave of rougelike games?

[almozayaf]

I know rougelike games first from dame steam games and like the idea of permanent death and randomness, but i have that feeling that the hardcore RL fans hate these kind of games that mix FPS or Action or even Platforming in RL, i just want to hear what you guys think.

[Samildanach]

I don't think people necessarily hate them so much as disagree with them being labelled roguelikes when many of the definitive features of the roguelike genre are often missing from those games.

Personally I'm not that bothered. Aside from the odd misunderstanding (e.g. when someone asked why my top 10 roguelikes list just included 'ugly' games rather than Risk of Rain or the Binding of Isaac) I don't find it problematic to see the label applied liberally.

[ibazly]

I think it's totally fine too - I mean I've started a podcast called LikeLikeLite for a reason, clearly I'm okay with games that mix it up! I think the main difficulty that is always going to come up with this is that... people are going to view roguelikes as being whatever few games they are familiar with, and unfortunately people don't really like to learn more about the games they are playing, thus the misunderstanding Samildanach was talking about. I think people need to be encouraged to learn more about the genre, but it needs to be done THROUGH the games that they love. If your reaction to someone who loves Spelunky or Binding of Isaac or Dungeons of Dredmor is condescending, rude, and dismissive, you're not going to be encouraging those people to look into the traditional roguelikes that you love. And this is something that I think is true for entertainment in general - if you meet someone who is interested in roguelikes but has only played The Crypt of the NecroDancer and Ziggurat, that could be a great shooting off point to recommend they try out NetHack (maybe recommend some good tilesets they can use to ease them into it, or they can get Vulture on Steam) or other such games. There are so many options out there if people are just encouraged to explore them.

[Avagart]

Too pretty, to cute, too intuitive, too much mouse support (or mouse dependency!), too much no-traditional. I don't hate new wave of roguelikes - I quite like more-traditional-than-other-new-roguelikes like Sword of The Stars, ToME4, and similaries. But always back to more archetypic games, like classics - ADoM, *bands, NH, Omega, or newer-but-traditional, like Frozen Depths, Numenfall (Legend of Siegfried), Forays Into Norrendrin (horrible title, but great game).

New 'roguelites', like Faster Than Light, or games-with-roguelike-influences-but-named-roguelikes, like Sunless Sea? I love them! But I don't think about they as about roguelikes. It's not hate, it's fact.

[guest509]

It's not hate, but real time RL's lack the problem solving component of a roguelike.

Roguelikes are not RPG's, they aren't about action or grinding or timing or memorization. They are strategy games with very real consequences for failure.

So when labels a game a roguelike just because it has procedural content and permadeath, well, there's that strategy part that's missing.

I really like Spelunky and Binding and the such. But they aren't strategy games for me, so they don't scratch the itch I have to play a roguelike. They scratch the Zelda or Megaman itch instead.

So not hate or anything, just some mild confusion by people who don't know what roguelike games are. People think the hybrid types are roguelikes. Meh. It's just a word but there's definitely something different about the strategy games.

[chooseusername]

It's not hate, but real time RL's lack the problem solving component of a roguelike.

Roguelikes are not RPG's, they aren't about action or grinding or timing or memorization. They are strategy games with very real consequences for failure.

So when labels a game a roguelike just because it has procedural content and permadeath, well, there's that strategy part that's missing.

I really like Spelunky and Binding and the such. But they aren't strategy games for me, so they don't scratch the itch I have to play a roguelike. They scratch the Zelda or Megaman itch instead.

So not hate or anything, just some mild confusion by people who don't know what roguelike games are. People think the hybrid types are roguelikes. Meh. It's just a word but there's definitely something different about the strategy games.

Haven't you watched Jeff Lait's presentation at IRDC USA 2015?

"Some people" believe that roguelikes can only be like rogue, and are only making definitions to exclude.  Definitions should be ignored.  Apparently, if you start wanting to make a roguelike, and end up with something else, then it's still a roguelike because you want it to be.    It was well presented, and full of empty rhetoric, ending that segment with Jeff pushing his own definitions which seemed odd given all the previous talk.

Lots of people believe different things make roguelikes roguelikes, and lots of people want to tell other people their definition is the right one.

Me, I just want to be able to find games that are actually roguelikes, and ignore the ones that use the label but lack resemblance, as an ego thing.

[guest509]

Yeah I didn't see that one. And the definition is well established. Pretending it's not is odd. You don't have to be in the box, you can be a rogue-lite, it's not a problem. The label has such value to people, dunno why, it should just be used as a descriptor for players, so they know what to expect.

[chooseusername]

Yeah I didn't see that one. And the definition is well established. Pretending it's not is odd. You don't have to be in the box, you can be a rogue-lite, it's not a problem. The label has such value to people, dunno why, it should just be used as a descriptor for players, so they know what to expect.

What if there's an argument to be made that most roguelike players these days are roguelite players, because games like FTL and Spelunky have had a much wider range of players and potentially higher numbers?  Because these games are labelled roguelikes, and have been used to push the expansion of the defintion, it can be argued that numerically players who understand a descriptor for roguelike, incorporate roguelite in the roguelike definition.

In which case by your own logic, there are no roguelites, only roguelikes and no real definition for the term!  Conundrum! 

[mushroom patch]

I don't like them.

What we've been seeing play out in the past 8 years or so is the result of longterm leaderlessness combined with new commercial interest in roguelikes touched off, ironically, by dwarf fortress. The fact is that proponents of traditional roguelikes have produced little that is genuinely new or exciting in a long damn time. I include myself in this criticism, of course. Almost everyone involved in the development of the classics and their descendants are maintainers or are developing forks and variants. Very little of stature comparable to the classics has been written since the late 90s. The closest thing is dwarf fortress, but Tarn doesn't seem to want to stake a claim there. No one really has a legitimate claim as a first mover and it's been that way for a very long time.

If people, like me, don't want to see the concept of a roguelike continue to be appropriated as the shortest path between between getting a BA in computer science and having a game on the market, new, exemplary work has to appear and new voices must appear with it to oppose the current establishment.

[akeley]

Games from other genres - be it platform, fps, even Necro-dancing - that get infused with roguelike traits can be awesome when done well and it`s a good thing that these concepts spread out (I would love to see an AAA game getting this treatment one day, like they tried with Far Cry 2 for example). And to be fair, these days they`re seldom called "roguelikes" by the authors themselves or even by the journos - just "X with roguelike elements" (great) or yeah, a "roguelite" - not so great, because it`s a confusing term, implying a lesser roguelike. But generally, they`re in totally different camp and I think there`s a kind of understanding - or at least it`s improving - in that regard (Shopfronts are guilty of lumping them all under roguelike tag but there`s not much can be done about that I suppose).

The ones I dislike (to put it mildly) are true rogue-lites. True as in, "me too!" bandwagon jumpers that just imitate the real thing because it`s hip & trendy due to its underground status. These clones are superficial, shallow and more often than not dispose of some important mechanic - especially permadeath - in order to make it more "accessible" and because it was "unfun".

I`m not sure though if - or how - the whole "new wave" thingy affects the traditional camp. After all, it was always a very niche part of videogaming. It`s not at all given that all these folks who play FTL would love Angband too, if only they knew it existed. I suppose most actually did try a classic RL or two, and they simply didn`t like it, one possible reason that it`s just not for them, or another - like in my case for 2 decades - misunderstanding and miscommunication of what the genre really is about.

One real danger can be talent drain - roguelike devs going roguelite mode because it will sell. I also agree with mp that there`s not much comparable to the Major Ones appearing these days - maybe URR, Cogmind and few others, but little else. It`s extremely worrying, but are the -lites to blame? I`m not too sure...

[chooseusername]

If people, like me, don't want to see the concept of a roguelike continue to be appropriated as the shortest path between between getting a BA in computer science and having a game on the market, new, exemplary work has to appear and new voices must appear with it to oppose the current establishment.

We've had decades for this to happen.  Do you really expect a champion to arise from within the proletariat to shake off the shackles of the establishment any time soon?

[chooseusername]

I`m not sure though if - or how - the whole "new wave" thingy affects the traditional camp. After all, it was always a very niche part of videogaming. It`s not at all given that all these folks who play FTL would love Angband too, if only they knew it existed. I suppose most actually did try a classic RL or two, and they simply didn`t like it, one possible reason that it`s just not for them, or another - like in my case for 2 decades - misunderstanding and miscommunication of what the genre really is about.

Which might include unapproachability.

How it affects the traditional camp: If you were to look for a roguelike now, you have to hope that whomever is making a traditional roguelike uses the keyword "traditional" otherwise you might miss it amongst the detritus that litters the references to the term.

[mushroom patch]

If people, like me, don't want to see the concept of a roguelike continue to be appropriated as the shortest path between between getting a BA in computer science and having a game on the market, new, exemplary work has to appear and new voices must appear with it to oppose the current establishment.

We've had decades for this to happen.  Do you really expect a champion to arise from within the proletariat to shake off the shackles of the establishment any time soon?

Nope. To some extent, it's an economic problem. There's no money in making actual roguelike games, yet the skills that go into making good ones can be put to profitable use elsewhere. Anyone who produces anything good is therefore likely to disappear within a few years. Meanwhile, the one guy who views it as a sort of religious vocation but still produces good stuff doesn't even call his game a roguelike.

On some level, it's probably necessary to find an economically viable model that can still produce the genuine roguelike article, as opposed to dumbed down, heavily commercialized schlock for steam. I think this has to involve a return to multiuser systems and a move away from the DOS shareware catalogue model.

[Holsety]

I don't like them.

What we've been seeing play out in the past 8 years or so is the result of longterm leaderlessness combined with new commercial interest in roguelikes touched off, ironically, by dwarf fortress. The fact is that proponents of traditional roguelikes have produced little that is genuinely new or exciting in a long damn time. I include myself in this criticism, of course. Almost everyone involved in the development of the classics and their descendants are maintainers or are developing forks and variants. Very little of stature comparable to the classics has been written since the late 90s. The closest thing is dwarf fortress, but Tarn doesn't seem to want to stake a claim there. No one really has a legitimate claim as a first mover and it's been that way for a very long time.

If people, like me, don't want to see the concept of a roguelike continue to be appropriated as the shortest path between between getting a BA in computer science and having a game on the market, new, exemplary work has to appear and new voices must appear with it to oppose the current establishment.

This post pretty much nails it.

The problem might be that early on in the RL "scene" Hack/Moria/Angband became popular and that popularity continued by means of a billion forks/remixes (all the *bands, various versions of Nethack, and so on). In recent times (though I've been out of the loop HARD) I guess Brogue and perhaps Sil are the only games to get much approval amongst the purists?

I speak for myself here, but I'm a purist and I'm fine with rererereplaying the fossil games of yore. What I want is more games like what I know and am familiar with (more angband variants!) or games that don't stray too far from my comfort zone (brilliant gems like Forays into Norrendrin or a nice diamond-in-the-rough 7DRL).
What I'm after is UI improvements (DynaHack/NitroHack) or clever gameplay twists, not taking two steps forward and two steps backward because compromises have to be made due to graphics.

We've had decades for this to happen.  Do you really expect a champion to arise from within the proletariat to shake off the shackles of the establishment any time soon?

Nope. To some extent, it's an economic problem. There's no money in making actual roguelike games, yet the skills that go into making good ones can be put to profitable use elsewhere. Anyone who produces anything good is therefore likely to disappear within a few years. Meanwhile, the one guy who views it as a sort of religious vocation but still produces good stuff doesn't even call his game a roguelike.

On some level, it's probably necessary to find an economically viable model that can still produce the genuine roguelike article, as opposed to dumbed down, heavily commercialized schlock for steam. I think this has to involve a return to multiuser systems and a move away from the DOS shareware catalogue model.

I think the "dumbed down heavily commercialized shlock for steam" tag is a very fitting description of "the new wave". Looking at steam's catalogue, you're quick to notice Dungeons of Dredmor (which I think is just the worst), which is badly designed in nearly all its aspects. The rest is mostly examples of "other genre but with something vaguely related in the third degree to roguelikes tacked on".
I'm trying really really hard to not go into the whole "but what is a roguelike?" spiel AGAIN. It's been discussed to death and there's neither a leading body to decree what is law nor is there a desire among those who discuss it to reach consensus, so why even bother.

I don't know what the topic starter counts as "new wave". I know I occasionally look at the roguebasin or here during 7DRL Challenges, download everything that looks appealing to me, and decide whether I'm shift+deleting or keeping it within 5 minutes of starting.
What I myself have been noticing, right here in the Announcements subforum, is a marked rise in games tagged with $.
Paid roguelikes! Unheard of! That's what *I* consider to be the "new wave". And I don't like it.
I'm sure I'm an awful person for saying "Roguelikes were free from the start, so they should be free forevermore!", but I don't have any incentive to pay for Cogmind, or Adom, or ToME4, or any RL. Not when I can play 7DRL Cogmind for free. Or legacy Adom for free. Or Nethack for free. And so on and so forth.

I think the shift to paid RLs is mildly alarming. If it's gated behind a paywall, how will I know if I'll like it? Likewise, since I'm very picky about my RLs, if there's a slight flaw or thing I dislike, I'm deleting the game and never looking back. That's... a slightly wasteful thing to do to a product you paid money for.
Who are paid roguelikes for? Purists/veterans have an ocean of RLs to play already. People new to the genre likely don't know what they're getting themselves into. Is this some sort of malicious cash grab or bait and switch?

Sorry if this wasn't what the topic starter had in mind or if I'm getting off-topic here. I just had to get this off my chest when mushroom patch mentioned "economically viable models"; I wouldn't mind an explanation either. Could be I'm overlooking something crucial here.
I don't think having an actual job and making RLs for the fun of it is mutually exclusive.

[mushroom patch]

Indeed, and the previous post highlights a big part of the problem, two in fact. As much as people trying to make a name in roguelike commentary fight it, pedigree is a central aspect of what it is to be roguelike. They say my definition is too narrow, but in reality it's probably too broad. Mere engagement with the genre and superficial similarity to existing work has never had the cachet of direct descent. To my mind, Sil and DCSS are the standard bearers of the genre, yet they're variants of older games.

The other big piece is the expectation that everything be free. The problem is that you can't exceed existing work in the genre starting from nothing for free. That takes time and expertise, neither of which come cheap. It must be disheartening to read someone claim they make a decision on whether a game is worth anything in five minutes and even then are absolutely unwilling to pay a dollar for it if it is. Probably a common practice among fans though.