4th generation of roguelikes ?

[skoeldpadda]

A while ago, I was reading reviews about games like Binding of Isaac and, at the time, I wasn't convinced that the word "roguelike" should even be considered to describe them.
Months went by and, well, people embraced the term, rogulikes were hype, or at least the word was, and many games "with roguelikes elements" began to spawn from just about everywhere.

So now, taking ideas from that one post* on Roguebasin, with the releases of games like Risk of rain, Teleglitch or FTL and the fact that most gamers and journalists embrace them as roguelikes, can we talk about à fourth generation of roguelikes ?

It would begin with Binding of isaac and Dungeons of Dredmor, spread through many ideas to influence games like Spelunky or Desktop Dungeons to, finally and I guess that's the most important, make roguelikes known to everyone, and not just a bunch of us.

And if so, where would we put the likes of Prospector of Infra Arcana, games that are contemporary of the more "public" ones, and still are very "third generation", rooted in what could be considered "classic" roguelikes, as in, opposed to the "modern" ones.



So, there it is, a simple question, maybe a useless one, but one that I wanted to ask nonetheless.
Also, you'll excuse my grammar, like many of us here, english is not my first language.


Yan

-----
* http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Major_roguelikes

[Filip Dreger]

> So now, taking ideas from that one post* on Roguebasin, with the releases of
> games like Risk of rain, Teleglitch or FTL and the fact that most gamers and
> journalists embrace them as roguelikes, can we talk about à fourth generation
> of roguelikes ?

Speaking just for myself - I love the idea. Naming things is fun. The term could be abbreviated as 4GR. So one could say: "have there been any good 4GRs lately?" or "Oh, Binding of Isaak is a classical 4GR"..

Filip

[graspee]

> So now, taking ideas from that one post* on Roguebasin, with the releases of
> games like Risk of rain, Teleglitch or FTL and the fact that most gamers and
> journalists embrace them as roguelikes, can we talk about à fourth generation
> of roguelikes ?

I will never accept FTL, Isaac, Risk of Rain, Paranautical Activity etc. as roguelikes. I would welcome the term 4GR though because it would be a step forward to get fans of those games to recognize that they aren't proper roguelikes. I don't think anyone will ever get them to stop using "roguelike" though.

The problem is that the term "roguelike" is now so abused that the range of games described by it is so broad that the term is almost useless. Your proposed "4GR" would solve that, but I still think it would be wrong to allow them a term that included the term 'roguelike'.

[Michael Deutschmann]

On Wed, 5 Mar 2014, graspee wrote:
> I will never accept FTL, Isaac, Risk of Rain, Paranautical Activity etc.

> as roguelikes. [...] "4GR" would solve that, but I still think it would be

> wrong to allow them a term that included the term 'roguelike'.

Perhaps a better name for this genre would be "postroguelike".

Originally, roguelikes took the form they did either to be usable on
text-only terminals (in the old timeshared Unix world), or to allow all of
the computer's memory, storage, and CPU to be dedicated to game logic (on
personal computers).

As computers got better, it was no longer necessary to accept the surface
appearance of a roguelike to get the game logic complexity befitting them.
But roguelike fans had then adopted this surface simplicity as something of a
Dogme.

Postroguelikes use the roguelike principles of random levels and limited
saving as a jumping-off point, but also freely use ideas heretical to the
roguelike Dogme.


There's also a third category, which is distinct from roguelikes and
postroguelikes but might be confused with them. I call it Survival VR, and
its flagship example, Dwarf Fortress, is mistaken for a "3rd-generation
roguelike" by Roguebasin.

Survival VR games are diverse in surface form. Dwarf Fortress wears the
costume of a true roguelike, Minecraft the costume of an FPS, and Terraria
the costume of a metroidvania. What they have in common is that they try to
maintain a consistent and highly modifiable world for the player to interact
with. Consistency is a more coveted design value than balance or story.

---- Michael Deutschmann <mic...@talamasca.ocis.net>

[Filip Dreger]

> But roguelike fans had then adopted this surface simplicity as something of a
> Dogme.

I don't think this ever happened. As soon as it was technically feasible, graphical roguelikes appeared - I don'r recall any controversies over graphical Nethack.

Also, I don't think there is any dogma - there was a lot of discussions, and each IRDC I attended had a certain element of assessing roguelikeness of different games, but the topic is far from controversial. Nowadays most roguelike fans and developers agree on a set of qualities that remind us of rogue (and other classics). None of the rules is considered absolutely essential, but adhering to all of them makes a game close to original Rogue, while ignoring them altogether results in a game that plays very differently. Using ASCII is just one small bullet on the list.

> Postroguelikes use the roguelike principles of random levels and limited
> saving as a jumping-off point, but also freely use ideas heretical to the
> roguelike Dogme.

I don't think "heretical" is a good word. Such strong emotions evaporated about a decade ago.

> Survival VR games are diverse in surface form. Dwarf Fortress wears the
> costume of a true roguelike, Minecraft the costume of an FPS, and Terraria
> the costume of a metroidvania. What they have in common is that they try to
> maintain a consistent and highly modifiable world for the player to interact
> with. Consistency is a more coveted design value than balance or story.

sounds like some VR dogma to me :-)

Filip

[Filip Dreger]

> I will never accept FTL, Isaac, Risk of Rain, Paranautical Activity etc. as roguelikes. I would welcome the term 4GR though because it would be a step forward to get fans of those games to recognize that they aren't proper roguelikes. I don't think anyone will ever get them to stop using "roguelike" though.

What would you say about: http://7drl.org/2014/03/11/mysterrrrious-spaaaace-second-update/? :-)

Filip

[Michael Deutschmann]

On Tue, 11 Mar 2014, Filip Dreger wrote:
> I don't think this ever happened. As soon as it was technically feasible,
> graphical roguelikes appeared - I don'r recall any controversies over
> graphical Nethack.

Tiles aren't the heresy I'm thinking of. In fact, I'd say a game on a
hexagonal grid could easily be a true roguelike, even though it would look
awful in text mode.

The main rule postroguelikes break, by roguelike standards, is that they
are often *arcade*.

In a true roguelike, the game waits for you to enter commands, and those
commands are quantum (not like a tower defense game where, even if it lets
you place units while paused, a pixel off can cost you a perfect run). This
means if you know what it is you have to do to solve a tactical situation,
you can just do it. You never have to worry about failing due to lack of
real-world precision or dexterity.

(A "multiplayer roguelike" can be forgiven for time limits on commands,
out of consideration to the other players.)

The Mysterrrrious Spaaaace "7DRL" you cited in another branch of this thread
is obviously arcade, and therefore only postroguelike.

The other important rule of roguelikes is that moves are irrevocable,
enforced by banning savescumming and re-randomizing the world on a new game.
But that's the rule postroguelikes keep. Survival VRs often honor this by
accident, because the savefiles are too big to scum casually.

> > Survival VR games are diverse in surface form. [...]

>
> sounds like some VR dogma to me :-)

Not really. Survival VR is a fairly open class, being defined by what the
game *has* rather than what it doesn't.

---- Michael Deutschmann <mic...@talosis.ca>

[Thomas Bartscher]

Am Mittwoch, 12. März 2014 03:58:31 UTC+1 schrieb Michael Deutschmann:
> Tiles aren't the heresy I'm thinking of. In fact, I'd say a game on a
> hexagonal grid could easily be a true roguelike, even though it would look
> awful in text mode.

I am working on a roguelike using a hexagonal grid. Walls are between tiles there,
though. I think it looks quite good, actually, especially when using unicode for
display:
⬣ ⬣
⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣
⬡ ⬣ ⬡
⬣ ⋱ ⋰ ⬣
⬣ ⬡ ⬣
⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣
⬣ ⬡ ⋮ ⬡
⬣ ⬣ ⋱ ⋰ ⬣
⬣ ⬡ ⬣ ⬡ ⬣
⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣
⬣ ⬡ ⋮ ⬡ ⋮ ⬡ ⬣
⬣ ⬣ ⋱ ⋰ ⋱ ⋰ ⬣ ⬣
⬣ ⬡ ⬣ ⬡ ⬣ ⬡ ⬣ ⬡ ⬣
⬣ ⬣ ⋱ ⋰ ⋱ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣
⬡ ⬣ ⬡ ⋮ ⬡ ⬣ ⬡ ⋮ ⬡
⬣ ⋱ ⋰ ⬣ ⬣ ⋱ ⋰ ⋱ ⋰ ⬣
⬣ ⬡ ⋮ ⬡ ⬣ ⬡ ⬣ ⬡ ⬣
⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⋰ ⋱ ⬣ ⋱ ⬣
⋮ ⬡ ⬣ ⬡ ⋮ ⬡ ⬣ ⬡
⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣
⬡ ⋮ ⬣ ⬡ ⬣ ⬣
⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣ ⬣
⬣ ⬡ ⬣
⬣ ⬣
⬣

[Gerry Quinn]

In article <%H-7H...@bagheera.talosis.ca>, mic...@talosis.ca says...

> In a true roguelike, the game waits for you to enter commands, and those
> commands are quantum (not like a tower defense game where, even if it lets
> you place units while paused, a pixel off can cost you a perfect run). This
> means if you know what it is you have to do to solve a tactical situation,
> you can just do it. You never have to worry about failing due to lack of
> real-world precision or dexterity.

I think there should be some thematic element to it as well.

It would be possible to make a turn-based tower defence game with atomic
commands. But for me that would be a strategy game unless there was
some roguelike colour to it. (Come to think of it, we have an example
of sorts in Zot Defence, though that's basically just a mutation of
Crawl code!)

Something like a spaceship wandering in a random universe is fine,
though, because you can have the classic character + found items versus
monsters mode.

- Gerry Quinn

[Michael Deutschmann]

On Wed, 12 Mar 2014, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> > In a true roguelike, the game waits for you to enter commands, and those

> > [...]

> > real-world precision or dexterity.
>
> I think there should be some thematic element to it as well.

Sure, there are other requirements to roguelikeness. I don't think I'd
call them "thematic", though.

Solitaire is unrushed, quantum, and irrevocable, but no one calls it a
roguelike. (Although some may define solitaire loosely enough they call
rogue a form of solitaire....)

I'm just focusing on the no-arcade principle because it is a rule most
postroguelikes clearly break. Also, aside from the requirement for some sort
of grid, I think the roguelike community gives more wiggle room on the
remaining possible razors.

---- Michael Deutschmann <mic...@talosis.ca>

[Sumio Kiyooka]

"Defenderlike" would be more accurate. Doesn't even look or play even remotely like Rogue.

[kalead...@hotmail.com]

On Thursday, December 5, 2013 8:44:10 AM UTC+11, Yan wrote:
> A while ago, I was reading reviews about games like Binding of Isaac and, at the time, I wasn't convinced that the word "roguelike" should even be considered to describe them.

These games get called 'rogue-lites' pretty often - is that the sort of idea you
had in mind? I think Rogue Legacy calls itself a 'rogue-lite', emphasising pretty
hard that it wasn't a 'classic' roguelike as many might know it.

[p.jef...@gmail.com]

> Perhaps a better name for this genre would be "postroguelike".

I really like this and I think I'm going to adopt it - it's simple, succinct, acknowledges both the debt to and differences from traditional roguelikes and manages not to drip with condescension or implications of inferiority.