Rogue Expedition: Design notions

[getter77]

Here's the first of Vic Davis' design notions for his in-dev Roguelike'ish game  Rogue Expedition, dealing with failure/death.

http://www.crypticcomet.com/blog/?cat=12

[Krice]

Boring. What I undestood he wants to take out permadeath and make the gameplay more rewarding. What a clown.

[george]

Sounds interesting. Anyone here play his other games? I've been meaning to try one out.

[Krice]

Really hate the kind of game designers that take a feature and then they make it a problem that has to be "solved". They don't have a clue. If they ever make a playable game it has to be an accident.

Other example is making roguelike real time. If turn based sucks don't make a false version of your stupid so called roguelike. Turn based and permadeath are both essential features that make sense if you know how to deal with them and design the game based on those features.

[Fenrir]

I might not have been so blunt about it, but I agree with Krice.

You can’t enjoy pushing buttons and pulling levers on the state machine if it is locked up for you.

He seems to ignore the fact that you can start the game over again.

Imagine a hard core rogue-like that once your character died would lock up and never let you play the game again on that or any other computer.

What is his point?

You can get ridiculous....

You already did.

....(although there are certainly some sci-fi novels I’m sure that have explored this)taking it one step further and imagine a system where when your character dies so do you. I offer just one (not very original) observation that almost all religious concepts of afterlife or reincarnation or even nirvana seek to add some type of meta structure to what we observe as our system of reality. So the ulitmate fail state… let’s call it perma-death has to be handled carefully.

Huh? I'm not the most perceptive sort, so I fail to see what this has to do with anything.

Dwarf Fortress’ failing is fun ethos works on so many levels.

It's "losing is fun."

Learning is Fun

Fenrir grins.
There is no way this man has attended college.

Not failing is exhilarating….where the exhilaration is proportional to the cost of failure

Shouldn't the chance of failure have something to do with that?

[dungeonmans]

Hey, a new thread to argue with Krice in

Other example is making roguelike real time. If turn based sucks don't make a false version of your stupid so called roguelike. Turn based and permadeath are both essential features that make sense if you know how to deal with them and design the game based on those features.

Look at it from a different point of view. The best way to evolve is to try new things, even if they seem like sacrilege. To say that turn based and permadeath are must-haves might be true for the most strict definition of a roguelike, but who knows what sort of fun game can evolve if those things are tweaked. Sure, it might not exactly be what you define as a roguelike, but it could be a fun game, one that you would enjoy.

I don't know how you feel about Diablo, but Diablo came about because someone took the formula (Roguelike) - (Turn Based) - (Permadeath) + (Graphics) you know?

[Krice]

but who knows what sort of fun game can evolve

Another sort of fun. You just don't get it: it's no accident why someone likes roguelike games. It's because of the key features. Try to get that in your thick skull.

I don't know how you feel about Diablo, but Diablo came about because someone took the formula (Roguelike) - (Turn Based) - (Permadeath) + (Graphics) you know?

Diablo is a Gauntlet clone. It has nothing to do with roguelikes. It never was a roguelike.

[Scautura]

Another sort of fun. You just don't get it: it's no accident why someone likes roguelike games. It's because of the key features. Try to get that in your thick skull.

Not everybody likes the same things exactly the same way as everybody else. Some people like graphical roguelikes, some people like ASCII roguelikes, some people like both, some people like fantasy, some people like sci-fi, the list goes on. It's not a case of "a roguelike is a roguelike is a roguelike", and no quantity of baseless insults is going to make anybody think that (except you, maybe).

Diablo is a Gauntlet clone. It has nothing to do with roguelikes. It never was a roguelike.

And Gauntlet is a simplified roguelike, in realtime, pretty much... Tile based, bump to attack, press button to fire ranged weapon, press other button to cast magic.

[Etinarg]

I don't know how you feel about Diablo, but Diablo came about because someone took the formula (Roguelike) - (Turn Based) - (Permadeath) + (Graphics) you know?

Personally I like Diablo and Diablo II. Also I see roguelike features in it. But a roguelike they are not - somone even coined the name "diablolikes" for later projects that used the Diablo specific features of being realtime fast paced action games.

I don't say things that are not roguelike are bad. But I don't think every good game must be called roguelike just because it has a few roguelike features.

Diablo developers in an interview said they were inspired by earlier games, including NetHack. So that's where some of the ideas come from. But they didn't claim to make a roguelike game, but something new.

To be fair one must admit that Diablo II has a permadeath mode, and there is a group of players playing this style. So one cannot just say the permadeath feature would be missing. It became optional, though.

Having said that, I want to say also that evolution is good. Just once something evolves sufficiently far, it needs a new name - it will not be a roguelike anymore, since the comparison is fairly fixed, and if there are too many difference it's just not enough "like rogue" anymore to get that name.

But yes, go an build on the old ideas, stepping forward and creating something new.  Make good games, and it will be fine

[mariodonick]

The original Diablo developers stated they owe Moria very much and had roguelikes in mind.

[getter77]

The original Diablo developers stated they owe Moria very much and had roguelikes in mind.

Correct as well as the Nethack notions---this inspiration later followed them to the likes of FATE and, moreso, Torchlight.

What Vic is contending with is commercial space realities as far as Roguelikes go.   I've ranted much on this before, but what he seems to be taking an unusually long detour to arrive at strikes me as hewing somewhat moreso to the Fushigi Dungeon trappings---which makes sense as they are the only successful retail Roguelikes nowadays and pretty much ever by traditional metrics.

It would seem to be that if Vic would lurk here, the GoogleGroups, the @Play columns, and the Gamefaqs message boards for the Fushigi Dungeon games in recent memory he would have an excellent window to construct a Venn Diagram of sorts to represent what he is trying to create, sell, and to whom.

[dungeonmans]

Diablo is a Gauntlet clone. It has nothing to do with roguelikes. It never was a roguelike.

Randomized dungeons, randomized loots, randomized monster placement. The mystery of items you need to identify, traps, (optional) permadeath, they have a lot in common. Of course, you could also list things from Gauntlet that exist in Diablo as well such as monsters, dungeons, ranged attacks and melee.

It's not to say that Diablo is a roguelike. Rather, Diablo was built on fundamentals from that genre, and it is an evolution.

[Fenrir]

Krice's point: Without certain elements, it isn't a roguelike.
Dungeonmans' point: Trying new game elements is good.

Both points of view don't conflict. There is no need for argument.

[scaught]

It's the nuance of "evolution" that usually rubs people the wrong way.  Saying Diablo was 'rogulelike evolved' implies that it somehow supersedes the genre that influenced it, that it's somehow better than a roguelike.  This is obviously not true and I don't think anyone is really trying to make that claim.

It's probably better served describing things as "derived from", "heavily influenced by" or even "mutated" from rather than bring evolution into this, as it implies a neutral at worst, honorific at best relationship.

As for "evolution is good" - that's entirely subjective.  Newer != Better.  Consumption culture is pushing the "new for new's sake" and it's unfortunate; there's plenty of good left in the old that's left unexplored. (yes, I'm one of those people that prefer turn-based ASCII....)

[dungeonmans]

Scaught I think you hit the nail right on the head. Making a new type of game, or new version of an older game, does not make the older version less good. "Evolution" as a term implies just that. Very astute.