What makes Roguelikes fun?
Zen Clark
pretty fun. I have even started a collection of the games, but I just
cant really say what makes them fun, and to win a agrument with my room
mate (he thinks they are pointless and wasting my time) I was wondering
what makes them fun to all you out there. So, can any one help me there?
Rubinstein
How on earth can having fun be pointless and a waste of time? Sounds as
if your room mate is in serious trouble... what is *he* doing with his
time? Working all day and night? Politically involved? Religious? Busy
with helping other people in need? Whatever it is what he thinks is so
important: it is impossible to do something good or really important
unless one understands the real meaning behind the word FUN.
Now to your question about roguelikes in general, which of course I only
can answer for myself (I really don't know why *we* like them so much).
First off, I'm a gamer (not to confuse with a gambler). I just like
games, interesting games, challenging games, not only roguelikes but
also chess for example. If you would have asked why I prefer roguelikes
over most of the existing modern computer games, the answer would have
been easy. Unfortunately you didn't ask this question... ;-)
--
Rubinstein
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dreams are the true masters of the world.
Zen Clark
And he is also a big time gamer, he just thinks "these" games are
repetitive and pointless, even though it is quiet the opposite. He
likes games like halo and other more modern games. He is one who is
stuck in all the "graphics are what makes a game good" life. He seems
to think that fun only comes from winning or at lest being good, it is
really annoying because you cant play a game with out him being a part
of it. He can really become a bossy guy when your playing.
Rubinstein
> o.k, why do you prefer Roguelikes to other modern games?
One word, gameplay.
Gameplay has to be rich and non-repetitive.
At which point I really should stop since there isn't much more to say
about, but... (sometimes I just can't shut my mouth)
That what sounds so easy here, is actually something what eats up all
available time of the involved coder(s), and every little bit of time
going into advanced graphics is time which could have been used to
improve gameplay. Of course that's a very simplified view and there are
indeed some exceptions. One of these very rare exceptions was Wizardry
8, which had some very nice graphics (for the time it was published)
_and_ a rich gameplay. This game also holds the record (as far as I
know) for the longest development time in the history of computer games:
8(!) years, go figure. It also was a financial desaster which of course
is no wonder, as it wasn't made by hobby coders, and as usual with those
graphical advanced games, it had to be a huge team. We're not talking
about modern games, this was still one of the 'good old days'.
This game, while absolutely outstanding in its class, suffered from a
problem all graphical games can't really solve: it was repetitive. Even
though it had a lot of minor randomly created events, it was build
around a major plot, which never would change. Now compare this with a
really good roguelike: there is no storyline at all, everything is
randomly created, but the way how all this is created is an art in
itself. Everytime you start a new game, you'll have to deal with new
situations, new buildings, monster constellations, items and geometry,
while on the same time the game never feels like created by a mindless
machine, or in other words, we are talking about the fine art of game
coding here.
As I'm personally not a coder, it's not quite easy to understand *why*
this wouldn't be possible for graphical enhanced games, too. Obviuosly,
there is the aformentioned time and money factor, but that can't be the
whole story, there must be something else. The reason why I choose
Wizardry 8 for my comparison (and not one of those inferior, but
graphically breathtaking, modern ego shooters), is that its gameplay
actually came very close to a roguelike. But still, there is some big,
decisive restriction for the graphics department: it's almost impossible
to shuffle enhanced graphical elements around, unless you split up
everything into very small blocks. In a 3-D environment this would
looking utterly wrong, and even if it would be possible (with an
enormous efford of intelligent coding and cpu-power, it still would
looking quite boring: you also would have to randomly create the
textures, which is simply not possible yet, since this is the real
artwork. For roguelikes, that is so much simpler, as they just have to
create the skeleton for basic game functionality, the rest (walls,
textures, monsters) is all grown up in your head once you've learned to
"translate" all these pure functionality and symbols into pictures (an
automatic process which just needs a little time at first. Our mind is
conditioned to build structures where actually no structures are, that's
what we call imagination, basically very similar to reading a good
book).
Uugh, did I say the answer is easy? Actually not, particularly not with
my broken english... next time I'll shut my mouth *promised to myself*
> And he is also a big time gamer,
Ahaaa, so at least he's not entirely lost... I was afraid he's a
manager, some kind of workoholic or even worse: your dad! ;-)
> he just thinks "these" games are repetitive and pointless, even though
> it is quiet the opposite.
Unfortunately, my comprehensive bubbling surely wouldn't make him change
his mind.
The main problem with those kind of players is that they used to be
sucked into a game, which simply isn't possible with roguelikes. Here
you have to *dig* in, which usually needs a week or two. But then, if
you had the luck to find the right game for your taste, it's more than
worth the efford: you will have *one* game for years, or even for the
rest of your life.
> He can really become a bossy guy when your playing.
So why don't you say that in the first place?
Just kick him out! ;-)
Jim Tran
> o.k, why do you prefer Roguelikes to other modern games?
>
> are repetitive and pointless, even though it is quiet the opposite.
> one who is stuck in all the "graphics are what makes a game
> good" life. He seems to think that fun only comes from winning
> or at lest being good, it is really annoying because you cant
> become a bossy guy when your playing.
I can respond to this question with some authority. Aside from being
an avid gamer, I'm a professional programmer, I have a strong
background in game design, and I've even done quite a bit of game
coding (game modifications for Microsoft's Dungeon Siege game engine -
reference my work at http://www.planetcopperhead.com if you're
curious).
There's two primary "layers" of fun - immediate fun, and long-term fun.
There are other intangible elements that constitute what makes people
like games, but I believe that the two factors I just mentioned are the
major contributors to what make people like games.
What your roommate deems as "fun" is immediate fun - this is what most
commercial games these days peddle. Flashy graphics, great audio, neat
gimmicks, (massively) multiplayer interactivity, etc. There's
absolutely no doubt that such features are appealing - the entire
backbone of the commercial game industry is filled with nothing but one
example after another of games trying to edge each other out, trying to
be the coolest, hippest, most talked-about kids on the block in any/all
of these categories. Industry conventions such as E3 buzz with nothing
BUT tales of just how amazing <insert game here> will be next year.
However, there's a second element of fun: long-term appeal, often
referred to as replayability, or the ability to play a game many times
without becoming bored. Many gaming purists, both inside and outside
the game industry (myself included), feel that this element has become
severely neglected in recent years. Very few commercial games these
days are produced with any sort of longevity in mind, and of the ones
that try, few succeed at this task. There are a lot of methods by
which this can be added to games; higher difficulty settings, expansive
content, random content, multiplayer input, etc. But underlying all of
these gimmicks, the core behind replayability is *good game design*.
Games must be easy to play, well-balanced, and offer an acceptable but
not insurmountable challenge to the player, or all the cool tricks in
the world will not make them replayable.
Taking your roommate's example: Halo
Halo is a slightly atypical first-person shooter(FPS) game series.
"Flash-bangs": Halo has excellent graphics, pretty good audio effects
and a decent soundtrack.
Story: Halo features a slowly unfolding, fairly well-written and
implemented storyline, with believable gameplay elements wrapped around
it. Not as well executed as, say, Half-Life 2, but not bad. Not
strong enough to encourage replay, however, as it is a completely
linear storyline.
Game play: Halo features a small spectrum of weapons (mostly pretty
vanilla as far as FPS games go). Nothing incredibly neat. Slight
innovation with the slowly regenerating shields, some new game play
twists with the swarming attacks of the Flood. Very strong
implementation of 2-player cooperative play.
Overall: I found Halo and Halo 2 to both be rather lackluster FPS
games, with little to recommend them aside from the great co-operative
and online play modes and some interesting but soon-tired-of graphics.
Now let's look at the typical roguelike:
"Flash-bangs": None. Roguelike games use the bare essential displays
necessary to convey information about the game world, using text icons
(or in some cases, graphical tile replacements for the former).
Story: None. Dive into a dungeon, retrieve item X, get out alive.
Pretty simple.
Game play: Ah, the heart and soul of roguelikes. Not only is there a
nearly endless variety of roguelike games, with a flavor for every
taste, but each offers a completely different gameplay experience every
time you play. The dungeon elements are random, the enemies are
random, the items you find are random, and yet, because of the human
inclination to find patterns in chaos, we often refer to games as
having specific "themes". For those with the eyes to see, roguelikes
are a different game every time you play them; the essence of
replayability.
Overall: By modern gaming standards, roguelike games have only one
element that makes them appealing to gamers - their infinite variety of
game styles. That is why most gamers don't understand the appeal of
roguelikes, because they can't comprehend how having ONLY good gameplay
and replayability could make a game good.
For such gamers, the brainwashing is mostly complete - they pick up a
new game, go "wow" at the graphics/audio/gimmicks, and then move on to
the next shiny object that comes along. By extension, gamers like your
roommate have been convinced that this is "good" and "normal", and
never realize that after the first few hours, almost every game they've
played is *exactly the same* as its predecessers, minus a few bells and
whistles.
But for those of us who have broken free from this, and realize that
good gameplay and replayability are what we really value in games, the
allure of modern games stops becoming such a beckoning factor, and we
can see them for what they really are: marketing machines that have
corrupted the core of what makes for good gameplay in their pursuit of
profits.
Oh, and a quick aside for anyone who is a Calvin and Hobbes fan out
there: Roguelikes are the computerized equivalent of Calvinball. :)
Jim
Zen Clark
enough for what I need. Maby with this he will finaly see the light.
chanses are that he will not, but maby.
well, thank you for your input, I will get much use from it.
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
You're both right! Playing games is a pointless waste of time; it is
also fun if it is a game you enjoy.
--
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Igor D. WonderLlama
Rubinstein writes:
> As I'm personally not a coder, it's not quite easy to understand *why*
> this wouldn't be possible for graphical enhanced games, too. Obviuosly,
> there is the aformentioned time and money factor, but that can't be the
> whole story, there must be something else. The reason why I choose
> Wizardry 8 for my comparison (and not one of those inferior, but
> graphically breathtaking, modern ego shooters), is that its gameplay
> actually came very close to a roguelike. But still, there is some big,
> decisive restriction for the graphics department: it's almost impossible
> to shuffle enhanced graphical elements around, unless you split up
> everything into very small blocks. In a 3-D environment this would
> looking utterly wrong, and even if it would be possible (with an
> enormous efford of intelligent coding and cpu-power, it still would
> looking quite boring: you also would have to randomly create the
> textures, which is simply not possible yet, since this is the real
> artwork. For roguelikes, that is so much simpler, as they just have to
> create the skeleton for basic game functionality, the rest (walls,
> textures, monsters) is all grown up in your head once you've learned to
> "translate" all these pure functionality and symbols into pictures (an
> automatic process which just needs a little time at first. Our mind is
> conditioned to build structures where actually no structures are, that's
> what we call imagination, basically very similar to reading a good
> book).
You should check out the upcoming Elder Scrolls game. Granted, I
haven't played it yet; it isn't even out yet, but it claims to have
solved some of the problems you describe.
It is absolutely graphically spectacular. But beyond that, everything
is generated on the fly. Supposedly, almost nothing is hardcoded to a
specific location. Somehow they say that a forest is in this general
area, and a lake is in this one, and the game procedurally puts all the
details in place. It decides where various types of trees need to be,
and where fallen ones and stumps go, and where hills are, etc.
Granted, the game is still a single plot, single map deal. Being an
Elder Scrolls game, it will have more content than you can handle, but
won't change from game to game. I point it out more because it
demonstrates that it is possible to do a graphical, rich, and intuitive
world on the fly. Which would be a great thing for a future game with
some roguelike features.
I agree with you that gameplay is the most important thing. But
graphics do count for something, even if far less. If nothing else,
they speed up interpretation.
Rubinstein
>
> Rubinstein writes:
>> [doubts about the possibilty of an interesting, non-repetitive 3-D
>> environment]
>
> [talking about "Oblivion", the upcoming newest Elder Scrolls game]
I've read your post early in the morning (first cup of coffee in front
of mine) and just wanted to get a first glance about it. So I started to
watch the second movie (that with the forest). I was sitting there, with
an open mouth, and then I started to watch all 6 movies, chapter 1-6
and... my coffee got cold - undoubtetly indicating there's something
really exciting going on. Impressive is not the right word for it...
Actually, this looks like a game which could make me doing all kind of
crazy things, like selling my last pants only to buy a new computer (my
poor 1Ghz athlon won't do it anymore here). Also looks like there never
will be a Linux version (I won't bother asking why, the answer is always
the same: "small market"). Anyway, I was more than glad to see that
CRPGs are not dead, rather than the opposite: this looks far ahead of
everything I've seen so far when it comes to graphics, interactive
physics and even gameplay for this genre.
Still, we start comparing apples with bananas or, probably more
appropriate, books with movies (with books on behalf of roguelikes).
Also, most roguelikes are not exactly RPGs, they just share some basic
elements (mainly character generating and development).
In light of this just let me oracle that, while movies and graphical
games will further evolve, they never will displace books and roguelikes
which all have their very own place in universe, with almost no (or very
few at most) interferences.
> I agree with you that gameplay is the most important thing. But
> graphics do count for something, even if far less.
Of course they do, otherwise my coffee wouldn't have getting cold. ;-)
> If nothing else, they speed up interpretation.
Agreed. Pure imagination on the other hand provides innate diversity.
Also, what pulls you in fast, usually throws you out fast as well (with
the exception of some really nasty drugs).
Christopher Brandt
> Zen Clark wrote:
>
>>o.k, why do you prefer Roguelikes to other modern games?
>>
>>And he is also a big time gamer, he just thinks "these" games
>>are repetitive and pointless, even though it is quiet the opposite.
>>He likes games like halo and other more modern games. He is
>> one who is stuck in all the "graphics are what makes a game
>>good" life. He seems to think that fun only comes from winning
>>or at lest being good, it is really annoying because you cant
>>play a game with out him being a part of it. He can really
>>become a bossy guy when your playing.
>
>
>
> There's two primary "layers" of fun - immediate fun, and long-term fun.
> There are other intangible elements that constitute what makes people
> like games, but I believe that the two factors I just mentioned are the
> major contributors to what make people like games.
>
> referred to as replayability, or the ability to play a game many times
> without becoming bored.
I don't really think that long-term appeal is just replayability. Long
Term appeal also means to want to talk about the game in newsgroups and
forums, exchange your current game progress and thoughts about the game,
release Guides and Faqs (the Adom-GB is one of the most advanced and
longest guides i've ever seen). There is a much smaller number of people
who play RLs than people who play actiongames, though there are much
more posts containing information about game progress, tips, hints and
stuff about RLs than such posts concerning actiongames. It is not only
the random-factor that makes RLs fun (I sometimes wish there was more
story - but not as much as in CRPGs) but also the gaming-system behind
the enviroment.
> Now let's look at the typical roguelike:
>
> "Flash-bangs": None. Roguelike games use the bare essential displays
> necessary to convey information about the game world, using text icons
> (or in some cases, graphical tile replacements for the former).
> Story: None. Dive into a dungeon, retrieve item X, get out alive.
> Pretty simple.
> Game play: Ah, the heart and soul of roguelikes. Not only is there a
> nearly endless variety of roguelike games, with a flavor for every
> taste, but each offers a completely different gameplay experience every
> time you play. The dungeon elements are random, the enemies are
> random, the items you find are random, and yet, because of the human
> inclination to find patterns in chaos, we often refer to games as
> having specific "themes". For those with the eyes to see, roguelikes
> are a different game every time you play them; the essence of
> replayability.
> Overall: By modern gaming standards, roguelike games have only one
> element that makes them appealing to gamers - their infinite variety of
> game styles. That is why most gamers don't understand the appeal of
> roguelikes, because they can't comprehend how having ONLY good gameplay
> and replayability could make a game good.
Yeah right, by modern gaming standards...
<snip>
I agree with everything from here on.
> Jim
>
----
Christopher Brandt
Screenshots to my upcoming RL DungeonHunter (working title):
http://home.arcor.de/dungeonhunter/Screens/
Christopher Brandt
> Jim Tran schrieb:
>
<snip>
> <snip>
>
> I agree with everything from here on.
>
Sorry I meant I agree with everything I snipped.
smar...@yahoo.com
1. They play quickly. There isn't much lag between starting the game
and playing it. One thing I dislike about the Civilization series is
that as they've become more complex they have more downtime to let the
computer work. So, in a way, no graphics equals more gametime.
2. Variety. Crawl has 28 classes and 13 races, something not at all
unusual in RLs. Hundreds of different items, too. The customization
possibilities are more than I'll ever get around to fully exploring.
I'm guaranteed to find combinations that suit me.
3. Shopping. Hey, I like to shop. Gonna make something of it? Most RLs
have stores and I enjoy looting, er, looking at them. Diablo was a
great shopping game, by the way, and that's something they got from
RLs.
4. A lack of handholding. A lot of games sort of beg you to finish
them. The puzzles are easy, hints are laying all over the place,
eventually you're going to win it if you keep at it. I've been playing
RLs off and on for years now and I've won exactly once. Every other
game I've really gotten into eventually became beatable even on the
highest difficulty.
5. Moral ambiguity. Most of the CRPGs I've seen limit your choices to
keep you pretty much on the side of the virtuous. In roguelikes, you
can be a troll, orc, or some sort of horrible underground elf. Even the
goodies do stuff like eat corpses, including humanoids, and often their
own species. Raw!
6. They're free. I think I've heard tell of RLs that cost money--
there's a shareware one but I can't remember the name. Anyway, I have a
hard time justifying spending AU$80 on a game I might not even like.
Content-wise, I'd say that RLs rival many commercial games, at least in
size.
7. When you die, you lose. OK, so this ties into #4 but I'm padding
this out so I'll get 10 points. It always struck me as sort of stupid
that in most games you die and the worst thing that happens is you get
set back a ways. Other than items like ADOM's amulet of life saving,
there's no such thing as a free life in RLs.
8. No saves. Yes, this is more padding. In most computer games, you're
actually encouraged to save the game a lot. This sometimes just
increases the tedium factor-- reload until you get the result you're
looking for.
9. Durability. I'd bet that the guys who programmed NetHack, Angband,
etc. didn't expect there'd still be a healthy interest about their
games all these years later. Sometimes I'll look for information on an
old game-- strategy tips, manuals, whatever-- via Google and find next
to nothing. Even forums devoted to wildly popular games eventually dry
up-- particularly when the sequels are released. Yet even Crawl, one of
the less popular RLs, generates at least a couple new Usenet posts
every single day. If I want to jabber about a particular RL, somebody
will read it with interest and the response won't be "LOL y do u still
play that???"
10. Intelligent players. OK, now I'm padding, complimenting myself by
implication, and sucking up to the reader. But you are! You're a
smartie, yes you is! I like how you're not foul-mouthed
twelve-year-olds, yes I do!
Britto
Consider book vs. movie adaptation.
The book doesn't lose any appeal due to lack of graphics. You rely on
your imagination for that.
Why I still enjoy roguelikes, and Dungeoncrawl in particular:
You're playing a game of strategy and economics with plenty of
randomness that you need to be able to adapt to. But it's turn based,
so you can enjoy and chew over every new predicament. That's a rare
thing outside of great boardgames: the emphasis on strategical
flexibility without time pressure.
And although it's a solo game, the strategy and economics are still
rich. Also a rare feature.