The whole saying "Rogue-Like" thing has to stop, it is silly.

[almighty chigglajesus]

The phrase "Rogue-Like" has been so misconstrued and over-used in an age where 90% of the people saying it have never played "Rogue" or were even alive when it was made.

Seems like people attach "Rogue-like" to a game if it has permanent death. This is silly. Every game was a "Rogue-like" before the days of memory to write savegames to and battery backups for them in cartridges. (Legend of Zelda for NES probably earliest example)

People need to stop using this silly generalization. If the game is inspired by ROGUE, and plays very very very very similar to ROGUE, then it is 'Rogue-Like'. Permanent death does not mean "Rogue-like"

Not saying this title isn't true to the "genre" (if you want to even call it a genre, I don't). It's just this bee ess has to stop, the children are confused and its annoying me, and probably anyone else who has stopped to think this through.

I can give examples of developers/kids/schmucks calling their games "rogue-like" when they damn well shouldn't have been. But I'd rather not call them out and leave that up to following replies.

[Ben!]

Nah, this is dumb. Of course it's a genre. If you're going to rant you should go probably do it on a discussion board for a game that isn't so obviously a roguelike.

[almighty chigglajesus]

Originally posted by Ben!:

Nah, this is dumb. Of course it's a genre. If you're going to rant you should go probably do it on a discussion board for a game that isn't so obviously a roguelike.

I guarantee you didn't read my entire post, and I guarantee you werent alive for Rogue, and have never played Rogue. You sir, have hopped on a bandwagon!

[wayne]

do you understand why the term 'rogue-like' is used though, even if wrongly? well.. it's strongly linked to this sort of game experience and, at this point, is essentially necessary to use for marketing reasons.

this is actually a tired argument and you would be naive to assume that everyone (especially developers) didn't know better.

[76561188078797539]

Really, mate, you make a post, then you make a whole thread about naming?

Oh, well. I'll just drop a "I disagree" on this. By the by, I'm not the only one that thinks the name to be well-defined: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike

[arcadus]

calm down old man
yes people seem to put games in the roguelike genre too easily. correct me if i'm wrong but that's not the case for this game. it's turn based, has permanent death, randomly generated levels, and i'd expect it to have unidentified potions/scrolls. should it be made entirely in ncurses too? should the levels consist of rectangular rooms with 1 tile wide pathways connecting them? these things are archaic and the genre has moved on to better things and has even influenced other genres (sometimes incorrectly called roguelikes)

[almighty chigglajesus]

Originally posted by Sheepify:

Really, mate, you make a post, then you make a whole thread about naming?

Oh, well. I'll just drop a "I disagree" on this. By the by, I'm not the only one that thinks the name to be well-defined: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike

Yeah, I did. Cut and paste is great. Also, it gets the discussion going having my own thread and not hijacking rudely someone else's.

[almighty chigglajesus]

Originally posted by arcadus:

calm down old man
yes people seem to put games in the roguelike genre too easily. correct me if i'm wrong but that's not the case for this game. it's turn based, has permanent death, randomly generated levels, and i'd expect it to have unidentified potions/scrolls. should it be made entirely in ncurses too? should the levels consist of rectangular rooms with 1 tile wide pathways connecting them? these things are archaic and the genre has moved on to better things and has even influenced other genres (sometimes incorrectly called roguelikes)

I never said I had an issue with this game, It clearly states otherwise. I'm speaking in general terms. But there are titles claiming roguelike that arent, at all. Pixel Piracy, even Rogue Legacy is borderline.

[arcadus]

did you forget that this is the dungeonmans forum

[76561188078797539]

Originally posted by kingchoc:

Also, it gets the discussion going having my own thread and not hijacking rudely someone else's.

Why would you post such a thread in the forum of a game that, even by brief initial impression, is very much a Rogue-like?

[almighty chigglajesus]

Originally posted by arcadus:

did you forget that this is the dungeonmans forum

No, thats why I stated so in the OP. More like, do I care or does it really matter? The topic is relevent. This game is probably the only (mainstream) one in recent memory that is using the original rogue as inspiration. Which is why I posted, and which is why we are discussing the fallacy of calling titles "RogueLike" when they have no idea what "RogueLike" actually is.

[76561188078797539]

I can give examples of developers/kids/schmucks calling their games "rogue-like" when they damn well shouldn't have been. But I'd rather not call them out and leave that up to following replies.

Going by your edits to the OP and general tone, somebody needs to stamp a big "trololol" all over it.

Also, "Risk of Rain is also a rogue-like."

[almighty chigglajesus]

Originally posted by Sheepify:

I can give examples of developers/kids/schmucks calling their games "rogue-like" when they damn well shouldn't have been. But I'd rather not call them out and leave that up to following replies.

Going by your edits to the OP and general tone, somebody needs to stamp a big "trololol" all over it.

Also, Risk of Rain is also a rogue-like.

Ok, but this is my point, WHAT IS A ROGUE LIKE? FOR REAL. Stamping "RogueLike" on anything with permanent death is just silly. Every old game is roguelike then, and apparently roguelike was the most popular genre, even before it was a genre. Hell, even before ROGUE came out.

That is my issue with the whole thing, that is what I explained in my OP, if you actually took the time to read it. People need to stop calling everything roguelike for no reason. Especially when they have nothing to do with rogue. This title is one of the few who are keepin it "Rogue".

We don't call every online rpg "WoW-Like" now do we? No we don't that would be silly right? RIGHT? But hey, damn near every MMO since has been a cookie cutter copy of WoW, right? This is the fallacy that needs to be corrected. Descriptive language or an easy to use acronym needs to be coined to describe this apparent "genre"

[Pelerin]

I don't like that games that aren't like Rogue at all, get called Rogue-likes - they may have some of the same mechanics, random-generation, perma-death, etc. But that doesn't make them a Rogue-like. Which is why I like the term Rogue-lite, it works well for a lot of these games releasing in recent times.

I definitely consider Rogue-like a Genre. I don't think however that shooters, platformers or whatever else can be called Rogue-likes regardless of what mechanics they share with the Rogue-like Genre, because they aren't like Rogue.

I also definitely consider Dungeonmans a Rogue-like.

[76561188078797539]

In all seriousness, I think arguing about precise definition of what a "rogue-like" game is is equivalent to arguing what a "cRPG" is.

Everybody's going to have their own interpretation. Most of them will overlap, but get pretty blurry on the "edges" of the definition.

Unless some title is blatantly claiming the genre name without any validation for it whatsoever, I don't see a problem, though.

[almighty chigglajesus]

Originally posted by Pelerin:

I don't like that games that aren't like Rogue at all, get called Rogue-likes - they may have some of the same mechanics, random-generation, perma-death, etc. But that doesn't make them a Rogue-like. Which is why I like the term Rogue-lite, it works well for a lot of these games releasing in recent times.

I definitely consider Rogue-like a Genre. I don't think however that shooters, platformers or whatever else can be called Rogue-likes regardless of what mechanics they share with the Rogue-like Genre, because they aren't like Rogue.

I also definitely consider Dungeonmans a Rogue-like.

This is precisely my point. Calling a genre "Rogue-Like", makes no sense at all whatsoever. It is practising improper phonetics in doing so. It is not an actual description of gameplay (like ALL other genre names) but just a vague comparison to something that came before it.

If this was the norm, we would call all FPS's "Doom-like, or Quake-like" , all MMORPG's "WoW-Likes" and so on and so forth. This is the stupidity I speak of, and this is why we are discussing it right now, it needs to stop.

For example, in the early FPS days, before the term "first person shooter" was coined and widely used, people used to call them "Doom Clones". This made for much confusion and aggrivation from anyone in the industry, for so many reasons. They then shifted from calling all games similar to Doom and Wolf3d, "Doom-Clones" to the acronym we use today, FPS or first person shooter.