Combat-less themes
chr.m....@gmail.com
Completely unrelated to what i'm working on at the moment i came to
think about if there are any combat-less themes in roguelikes. When
you ask rl players about what a roguelike is, they might tell you they
are roleplaying games about exploration, strategy, combat, random-
generated content etc. In some hack&slash roguelikes, most skills boil
down to the abilities to kill others and the abilities to prevent from
getting killed (I'm looking at you, crawl, even though i enjoy playing
you).
I was wondering if there are themes that do not involve combat that
are sufficiently rich in order to create a deep gaming experience. Or
is it that combat is such an integral part of the roguelike genre that
any game lacking combat should not be called a roguelike? Maybe
without combat, there are not enough death threats that make the game
sufficiently difficult/interesting.
What do you think?
Christopher Charles
chr.m....@gmail.com
wrote:
> I was wondering if ...
Oops, just found out that there was a discussion about combatless rls
back in june 2005. But the regulars of this group have changed a bit
since then, maybe someone has fresh answers by now.
Christopher Charles
Brog
I'm not sure what is the question here.
You can make a game which does not have combat. Such a game can be
deep and interesting to play. It can have roguelike elements like
randomness, identification, ascii, turns. If your question is whether
such a game can exist, my answer is yes please. If your question is
whether such a game is called a roguelike, who cares? Please let's
not have another discussion about the definition of a roguelike.
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
chr.m....@gmail.com wrote:
I haven't found any solution that wouldn't be a "combat in disguise" in
some way. Then again, there are not many real life challenges that
couldn't be compared to combat either.
One possible direction could be a Harvest Moon-like game, where you build
and maintain some infrastructure. "Roguelikeness" would be then created by
similar interface, theme, randomly generated maps and items and perma-death.
Another direction would be to leave a "contest" part, but "decorate" it so
that it's not your old "you hit Foo with a sword". For example, I was once
considering a hentai-themed roguelike.
A Thief-like game, where combat exists but is discouraged, would be
another way of de-emphasizing it.
Finally, making the encouters predictable and emphasizing the preparation
stage ("red always kills blue, blue kills green, green kills red") makes
the game more strategical and less hack-n-slashy -- for example, look at
the chessrogue.
--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski <http://sheep.art.pl>
Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity. -– David Gelernter
Jeff Lait
<chr.m.char...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Completely unrelated to what i'm working on at the moment i came to
> think about if there are any combat-less themes in roguelikes. When
> you ask rl players about what a roguelike is, they might tell you they
> are roleplaying games about exploration, strategy, combat, random-
> generated content etc. In some hack&slash roguelikes, most skills boil
> down to the abilities to kill others and the abilities to prevent from
> getting killed (I'm looking at you, crawl, even though i enjoy playing
> you).
Roguelikes aren't Roleplaying games. Most CRPGs aren't roleplaying
games either - they are a fusion of Hack & Slash with a Choose Your
Own Adventure novel.
> I was wondering if there are themes that do not involve combat that
> are sufficiently rich in order to create a deep gaming experience. Or
> is it that combat is such an integral part of the roguelike genre that
> any game lacking combat should not be called a roguelike? Maybe
> without combat, there are not enough death threats that make the game
> sufficiently difficult/interesting.
I'm becoming convinced that a game lacking combat isn't a roguelike.
By "combat" I include the obvious relabeling of combat sometimes done
to try and declare things combat-free.
There are themes lacking combat sufficiently rich to create deep
gaming experiences. I'm just not convinced that a Roguelike framework
is the right way to implement those themes.
"Roguelike" means more than "Ascii", or "Top Down View", or "Contains
Random Stuff". The key essential part is that is be "Like Rogue".
Rogue is very much hack & slash, so we shouldn't be surprised that the
farther a game strays from hack and slash, the farther it strays from
rogue, and hence from the roguelike genre.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
Norbert Melzer
> Oops, just found out that there was a discussion about combatless rls
> back in june 2005.
Would you provide a MID please? I am very intereseted to take a look, even
at the older discussion about that topic.
TIA
Norbert
chr.m....@gmail.com
> Am Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:03:58 -0800 (PST) schrieb chr.m.char...@gmail.com:
> > Oops, just found out that there was a discussion about combatless rls
> > back in june 2005.
>
> Would you provide a MID please? I am very intereseted to take a look, even
> at the older discussion about that topic.
here you go:
<d_YFe.32936$Iv5....@fe02.lga>
Christopher Charles
Elbin
Artisan. You can find it on http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org
or
http://artisan.hit.bg/
for a description of the main features I have or plan to include. You
can have combat, why not, fighters that emphasize their physical
abilities will get really strong, you can have rogues (to be honest I
haven't given this part much thought yet) with stealth (maybe, that's
a new idea that came to me right now) or mages possibly, but the
stressed point is making new things, be it equipment, art, buildings
or whatever you like. And by new I don't mean just choosing from a
list like in Ultima Online.
The ultimate point of this would be to implement a warehouse where
players can sell their inventions (separate from the regular shop) and
the game creates a file with the item that the player then puts online
for other players to slot into their own game and 'buy' the item or
plans for an item or whatever. So the warriors won't rely only on
drops but can search the common marketplace for item they need but
can't make. The files can expire after sometime so the market is not
flooded but that are still just dreams...
The version on the site is still more or less just the engine (and the
readme is incomplete), so the important things like creation and a
massive database of items are yet to be done. I am not a programmer, I
started this as a side hobby using the programming language I use in
my studies (Python) and I am constantly amazed at how far I have
gotten. I keep a full archive of versions, the first ones being only
an empty place with walls and a @ walking around :), and I tell you,
these were the hardest moments to overcome.
Hope to get your opinion too.
zircher
pursued. Exploration, resource collection, building (ala Dwarf
Fortress), you can also create environmental hazards that require
different degrees of puzzle solving. For example, a lava flow could
be crossed by flying, teleporation, using firewalker boots, or simply
having enough healing potions and herbs to tough it out. Static
creatures such as magical thorn bushes, man eating plants, or troll
bridges could be traditional adversaries or impassible terrain with
personality. Of course, the whole 5th level messenger boy gimmick can
be used for random conversations and missions. Exploring trickery and
puzzle solving as a viable game mechanic has potential; poking out
cyclop eyes, riddle telling with a sphinx, trading out the bag of sand
for a golden statue, answer these questions three, plus a whole
plethora of puzzle traps in assorted tombs.
--
TAZ
R. Dan Henry
<chr.m....@gmail.com> wrote:
>What do you think?
I think before you try to eliminate combat, you need to define what it
is about combat that you don't like. If you are simply hoping to offer a
game to your kids that doesn't involve killing strangers on sight and
looting their corpses, simply redefining of events can take care of
that. "You tickle the rainbow pony! The rainbow pony drops its candy!
The rainbow pony falls down laughing!" If there is some other aspect of
roguelike combat you dislike, create a game that avoids those features
may be difficult (and may not involve eliminating combat).
--
R. Dan Henry = danh...@inreach.com
If you wish to put anything I post on your website,
please be polite enough to ask first.
chr.m....@gmail.com
> I think before you try to eliminate combat, you need to define what it
> is about combat that you don't like. If you are simply hoping to offer a
> game to your kids that doesn't involve killing strangers on sight and
> looting their corpses, simply redefining of events can take care of
> that. "You tickle the rainbow pony! The rainbow pony drops its candy!
> The rainbow pony falls down laughing!" If there is some other aspect of
> roguelike combat you dislike, create a game that avoids those features
> may be difficult (and may not involve eliminating combat).
I never said i disliked anything about combat. I love hacking away at
the hordes and enjoy games whose main point it is to bash things on
the head. It's just that i wondered if there are any principles/ideas/
themes that would make a nice roguelike game on their own whithout
just being "combat substitutes", just out of curiosity.
So far, stealth/hunting/being hunted (avoiding combat), survival,
trade, farming seem to be interesting possibilities.
A quick sketch at a possible combatless roguelike:
The player is a merchant at a huge, crowded oriental/asian bazaar. He
has to make money buying and selling stuff to and from other
merchants, various customers and tourists, often having to cheat on
them out of habit in order to maximize his profit. The more people he
betrays, the more his reputation value lowers and his customers start
hunting him down (which he has to avoid). To deepen the game
experience, there might be excentrics, which offer a lot of money if
the merchant fulfills their wishes (simple quests). For example, if
the excentric wants to have a magic monkey tail, the merchant has the
choice of buying a magic monkey tail elsewhere (expensive), going to
the jungle and hunt a magic monkey (dangerous if lacking hunting
skill) or getting a regular monkey tail and a magic scroll (or just
fluorescent paint) to enchant the tail himself (cheating, dangerous if
lacking magic skill). If the player fails the quest within the given
time, there is a chance that his reputation drops and the customer
tries to hunt him down...
Christopher Charles
IsaacKuo
<chr.m.char...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I never said i disliked anything about combat. I love hacking away at
> the hordes and enjoy games whose main point it is to bash things on
> the head. It's just that i wondered if there are any principles/ideas/
> themes that would make a nice roguelike game on their own whithout
> just being "combat substitutes", just out of curiosity.
What about a combat-less roguelike which is more or less just
rogue without the combat? Besides being killed by a monster,
you can die of thirst or starvation or poison or traps or disease...
So instead of a dungeon populated by lots of monsters, consider
the challenge of trying to make it all the way down to the bottom
level and back, but without all those monsters to fight/loot. It
thus becomes a game of resource management and managed
risk. You can't afford to constantly check every step for traps.
You can't afford to carry cures for everything on you.
Isaac Kuo
Jeff Lait
Well, rogue would be a bad example as its traps are uninteresting as
obstacles. However, the seven day roguelikes to the rescue:
http://kadwiell.nrkn.com/sevenweeks/
In Seven Weeks, Kadwiell successfully demonstrates a combat-free
roguelike which instead focuses solely on outwitting a bunch of traps
and equally deterministic robots.
I also think it particularly clever how the author manages to
procedurally generate trapped maps without fear of accidentally making
"impossible" maps. Impossible maps are instead turned into a feature
where you are expected to retreat from the map rather than solving.
Ido Yehieli
> http://kadwiell.nrkn.com/sevenweeks/
>
> In Seven Weeks, Kadwiell successfully demonstrates a combat-free
> roguelike which instead focuses solely on outwitting a bunch of traps
> and equally deterministic robots.
Very interesting idea(s), somewhat lacking in implementation. The
detector beams were invisible for me, meaning I couldn't really play
the game much at all.
-Ido.