[Nitpicking] This game is not a roguelike.

[Llamamoe]

I understand that the buzzword is a good selling point nowadays, but "roguelike" refers to a very specific kind of turn-based, tile-based games descending all the way from the original Rogue from 1980.

If you must, call it a rogue-lite, or roguelike-like, but please don't call it a roguelike.

[Llamamoe]

I'm at the very least aware of what I'm doing. The argument was a hyperbole, but the reality remains analogous. It's impossible to find real roguelikes among rogue-lites on Steam, most discussions about "roguelikes" are about very vaguely rogue-lite games, many games coming out are branded roguelikes because they have "that one feature similar to that one rogue-lite".

A better metaphor might have been "if motorcycles existed for several decades before someone invented cars, but most people didn't care about motorcycles, and just called cars motorcycle-likes, or eventually motorcycles for short". Of course, that'd still have bigger effects on the average person's life, but you get my point.

And you're wrong, it's all about the spirit. Something that the berlin definition does not address, being more of a reference than an actual definition. And for me it is simply impossible for a game to be a roguelike in spirit without having a "roguelike world", which is the specific style of turns in a tile-based map. There are games that approach the "roguelike spirit" without it, like Darkest Dungeon, but dropping it is like dropping racing from a racing game. At that point no matter how similar it feels, it's something else altogether.

Also, if you're feeling generous, you might want to note what my arguments have been a response to. Do you really think it was possible to rationally argue with D'Shanz? I don't.

[Gankatron]

I was primarily addressing the use of hyperbole as an ineffective argumentative tool, as well as my perception that there are far more shades of grey in the definition of a rouge-like than you seem to allow (basically none, only strict adherence to the Berlin convention).

I focused on your argument as you proposed Soulblight should not be considered a rouge-like, which I happen to disagree with (granted only based upon reading about it and watching trailers).

I feel you are a being splitter versus lumper here (both approaches have their merits), and so coincidentally my opinion falls more in line with what D'Shanz expressed in comment #5, but I don't like their highly confrontational style as it also detracts from logical discussion of the point at hand, and frankly I stopped fully reading (just scanned through) what they had to say at the point they CAPS LOCK ranted, as they seem to intent on wanting to use the discussion as a p*ssing match.

In the end I believe the most relevant words in any of these responses should be "in my opinion" as all of our conceptions of what constitute an enjoyable rouge-like experience are subjective, which is why I oppose categorization of a rouge-likes/lite game by unyielding adherence to the Berlin convention, as opposed to using it as a general guideline.

Reflecting back, I believe the reason I had a negative reaction to your thread title (past that I don't agree with your opinion) is it comes off as authoritative and arrogantly presumptuous, particularly as it feels you are doling out resolute and righteous life-lessons to a rouge-like (arguably -like) developer, and continue to do so even after they rather graciously explained their perspective.

I do not believe the definition of what game is considered a rogue-like benefits from binary cutoff thresholds, and will put more stock in the opinion of those who actually have played the game and then comment that it didn’t feel like a rouge-like to them.

Even in something as critical as the diagnosis of a specific life-threatening disease we do not discard the possibility if the patient presents with only 9 out of 10 of the classical signs/symptoms, actually quite the opposite, as such evidence would be considered strong support to classify it as such. Granted there are potentially some things that would be considered incompatible with a diagnosis, but such empirical-based exclusion criteria are unlikely to be applicable to what might 'feel' like a rouge-like game to any given consumer, i.e. this isn’t hard science.

So, in my mind your title should read “[Nitpicking] This game doesn’t feel like a roguelike in my opinion” and should be framed more as a question rather than a dogmatic accusatory statement (the accusation being the devs are disingenuously and willfully misapplying the term to boost sales), but I suppose we will all have to wait to play it to actually form an educated opinion whether our feelings are validated.

Thanks for listening.

[Llamamoe]

I don't care about the berlin definition - if anything, my personal definition is considered very liberal among roguelike crowds - most people consider permadeath and procgen to be 100% mandatory, whereas I only define roguelikes by the gameplay dynamic(roguelike turns, tiles), which I think is reasonable - it's how most genres are defined.

Also, from your perspective, people caring about the use of the word roguelike is pedantic and arrogantly authoritative. But from the POV of roguelike fans, it's an issue that is destroying the ability to find, discuss, promote games of the genre, on top of inserting a wedge into the whole niche ecosystem of roguelikes.

If you've never played a roguelike, you don't care about people calling games not even remotely similar to roguelikes "roguelikes", but to people who have... it matters. Sharing a few traits is not enough to classify a game. You don't call Dark Souls a racing game because it's possible to speedrun, Faster Than Light a 4X game because it has 3 out of 4 Xes, or any arbitrary game any genre just because it has some traits that another game had that was inspired by something roguelikes commonly have.

Like you said, this isn't hard science. It's about how a game plays and feels. It's not about a checklist but you nonetheless cannot call a third person brawler an FPS because that is just straight-up wrong. Games like Soulblight share traits with roguelikes, but they're not even similar anymore that anyone would make the connection without being told about it beforehand. And that's what makes them not roguelikes.

For what it is worth, I do not blame the devs. Words largely mean what people know them to mean, and Soulblight shares more traits with roguelikes than most rogue-lites(which in itself has come to mean a top-down permadeath shmup), but I just refuse to accept that the fight is lost because I care about roguelikes.

[Gankatron]

"Also, from your perspective, people caring about the use of the word roguelike is pedantic and arrogantly authoritative."

First of all, perhaps you are confusing my statements with D'Shanz's as he actually defined your opinions as "pedantic"?

Nonetheless, even as the focus of your logical fallacy, I agree that "people caring about the use of the word roguelike" do not have to be "pedantic and arrogantly authoritative", it is only so if the person conveying their opinion is acting pedantic and arrogantly authoritative.

The problem with you using this as the basis of a counter-argument is that I never made such a global statement.

This is an example of a Straw Man argument where you attempt to argue against statements and sentiments I did not specifically express, once again relying upon hyperbole to make my opinions seem unreasonably harsh (as if I stated anyone who cares about word definitions is “pedantic and arrogantly authoritative”), with the obvious problem being that they aren't actually my expressed opinions, while also attempting to make yours more reasonable than originally expressed (revisionism redefining an authoritative statement of fact and accompanying admonishment of devs as an expression of “caring”).

Clearly you have a specific definition of what you 'feel' a rogue-like should be, which is absolutely fine, and not inherently "authoritative and arrogantly presumptuous", whereas in contrast, the presentation of your opinions comes off just so, starting right from the first line of your post when you state your feelings as if they were a statement of fact.

Perhaps you don't see it, but it is disingenuous to consistently use hyperbole as a Straw Man device to exaggerate the POV of those arguing against you, while attempting to diminish the magnitude and inflexibility of your original statements, as if to make them more reasonable if only by degree.

As such you would like to portray yourself as being "very liberal", only "caring about the use of the word roguelike", and not "authoritative", which seems all very reasonable until one reads back through this thread and finds your rigid statement of fact instructing the devs that "This game is not a roguelike" and requesting they not call it a roguelike as it doesn’t meet your criteria of inclusion.

Do you not recognize anything authoritative or arrogant about your approach?

The reality is that most people on this thread likely do care about the use of the term rouge-like, but we just have varying opinions as to the definition.

Also we don't present those opinions as statements of fact, nor in the dev's discussion boards admonish them for "Butchering the definition for use as marketing buzzwords", as well as being involved in "Cheap publicity stunts that harm the ability to actually find and enjoy "real" roguelikes", while simultaneously stating "I do not blame the devs".

It feels like you are trying to “win” an argument, as opposed to just accepting that there aren’t any absolutely correct definitions of a rouge-like, a point you unwittingly demonstrate when you disagree with certain point of the Berlin convention.

Also your passive-aggressive presentation style isn’t lost on me, like when you state, “If you've never played a roguelike, you don't care about people calling games not even remotely similar to roguelikes "roguelikes", but to people who have... it matters.”

I think you recognize that people actively engaged in a discussion about rouge-like definitions have indeed played rouge-likes and do care about the definition, so stop acting like you are some uniquely enlightened martyr to your particular opinion, which of course coincidentally must be the absolutely correct one. It is purposefully insulting and not conducive to a civil discussion.

Also, do you actually believe Soulblight is "not even remotely similar to roguelikes", and if not, what was the point of the statement? A convincing point of argument should be pertinent.

And again, you don’t seem to understand how analogies are most effective when the are proportional in degree to what you are comparing them to, that is unless your point of using hyperbole is to Straw Man your perceived opponent out of the argument.

Who would ever define Dark Souls as a “racing game because it's possible to speedrun”, no one that’s who, so why bother with such an inane analogy? Although it pains me to have to point out the obvious, a 4X game has a specific universally agreed upon definition, you know the 4 X’s, and so this analogy is non-sequitur, it does not support the point you are attempting to make, which is far more subjective than you are willing to admit.

I believe the reason you are unable to come up with an appropriate analogy devoid of hyperbole is that if you did it would actually illustrate just how subjective the points you hold to be immutable really are.

All of these words up to now distill down to this, you ‘feel’ at a minimum a rouge-like definition requires turns and tiles, and some here agree with your subjective opinion while others disagree, the majority of the rest of the verbiage are alternating cycles of passive-aggressive revisionism, in an attempt to save face and "win" an argument.

Yes, I do believe your description of your past problems with being nitpicking and not letting an argument go, as these traits are still evinced in your responses in this thread.

[Llamamoe]

The analogies I've brought up is precisely because Soulblight is to classic roguelikes what FTL is to 4Xs. It has most traits, it has much of the spirit, but it's missing the most crucial pillar of them all that defines the entire dynamic of the game. In that aspect, the analogies really were not too far out of proportion, and I'd say the 4X one was almost perfectly on point.

Also, you're reading far too deep into what I am saying. People are imperfect, they get angry, passive aggressive, dismissive, and use hyperboles all the time. Your analysis of me is not wrong, I'm a person with heavy physical and mental health issues, and I'm not chastising you, I just fail to see the point in pursuing that.

Out of curiosity, what roguelikes have you played? How many entries from the following list? DCSS, IVAN, POWDER, Infra Arcana, Nethack, Slash'Em, Rogue, ADOM, Elona, Brogue, CDDA, CoQ, Cogmind, DoomRL, ToME, TGGW, UrW, Angband.

That's all currently major roguelikes, with a few more well-known ones for the sake of leniency.

[Gankatron]

I apologize if I am being too critical on you, particularly over a matter of little real-world importance.

Analogies may allow the listener to be taken out of a potential myopic perspective by logically demonstrating a proportionally appropriate logically consistent comparison, functionally providing distance to a subject matter they are closely invested in, particularly emotionally.

In arguments, especially on the internet, people can be more interested in “winning” and enforcing their emotional state on others rather than gaining insight, and therefore may design nonsensical analogies sharing tenuous threads of similarity by first thinking of a situation they ‘feel’ is extreme/unfair/unreasonable or otherwise would infer a negative character judgement by comparison (like to Hitler for instance), and therefore try to discredit the argument and/or the speaker as being extreme/unfair/unreasonable or a horrible person over disproportional differences.

Here you took a game that meets a majority high-value factors as defined by the Berlin interpretation, i.e. it is far more similar to a rouge-like definition than dissimilar, and try to convince your audience the magnitude of difference is like that of a TV remote to an automobile, two extremely dissimilar objects.

Not only didn’t you make an honest effort to find objects that are also far more similar to each other than dissimilar, which would mirror that actual situation, you purposely chose objects that are vastly dissimilar to make a point, but that point can only be as valid as the validity of the comparison.

Your process was based in an effort to discredit this game as a rouge-like, as such you started by choosing analogies that would unequivocally demonstrate the dissimilarity of two things, and then sought to force them upon the game, as opposed to first objectively identifying a proportional analogy, and then considering if it was significantly dissimilar.

In short, you set out to discredit a comparison through a disreputable analogy and as such it was your opinion that came across as disreputable instead.

Stating a game isn’t providing you a rouge-like genre ‘feeling’ is valid because who can say you don’t feel what you feel, but trying to convince others that it would be like considering Dark Souls a racing game comes across as ludicrous, which if you are honest, is the feeling you were hoping to elicit, just not upon the logicality of your own argument.

In any case, analogies are unlikely to be effective if the person in heavily emotionally invested in the matter of discussion (patently illogical analogies even more the case), hence Bertrand Russell's statement:

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.” - Bertrand Russell

…the origin of FOX News also may be explained in a similar fashion.

I hope we both enjoy this game regardless of what genre we feel it should fit into.

[Gankatron]

Here is a thoughtful article that expresses many of my personal opinions about the rouge-like definition.

Given its title ("Screw the Berlin Interpretation!"), not surprisingly it tends to represent a more evolving approach to the definition and as such may be more lenient than you may accept:

http://www.gamesofgrey.com/blog/?p=403

[Llamamoe]

You're not wrong in saying that I perhaps just wan to win. I openly admit to being severely screwed up. I'm extremely apathetic about most topics, but the few I cared about a lot when my "opinion freeze" happened are things I continuously flip out about around the net.

Nonetheless, I most certainly do not disregard evidence, it's just that as someone who has played most major classical roguelikes out there, games like FTL, Spelunky, Nuclear Throne, Enter the Gungeon, or Soulblight in question, share little more than extremely superficial similarities. The whole mental representation of the game world that they create in your head is different, the "feel", as abstract as it is, is different. Many people care about specific mechanics, or the Berlin interpretation, for me it's about how a game plays.

And you really got to tone that analysis down, you've gotten more right than wrong which I've got to credit you with, but you've still went overboard. I am aware of most fallacies and biases, and I avoid most. Overblown hyperboles are the biggest of my failings, and stating that they invalidate the entire argument is wrong, especially when they serve to higlight the perceived by me importance of my remaining, calmer arguments, rather than supersede them as the part that's supposed to convince you. Because yes, to me, rogue-lites and roguelikes are extremely dissimilar.

For what it is worth - if you played a few classical roguelikes, you would see that the Dark Souls argument is not as insane as it sounds - present-day roguelites are games that have common, but not defining, elements from the roguelike genre, passed down through first-generation roguelites, which were rather loosely inspired by, usually(not in Soulblight's case) made by devs who have not actually played any roguelikes. Calling Dark Souls a racing game because it has elements passed down from somewhere in the racing genre is, yes, something of a hyperbole, but nonetheless a valid metaphor in this respect.

Anyway, this conversation is probably not productive at all, and I'd suggest we both just drop it rather than spam the Soulblight forums. If you'd like to continue, I'd really be interested in hearing how many roguelikes from my list you have played, to see what kind of perspective you have, and if you do, it'd probably be best done over PMs, e.g. add me as a friend on Steam.

[Billy Blaze]

Peoplel like you still exist? xD
Oh dear...

If someone calls it a roguelike, you know nowdays what this word contains.
And if you are not blind, you can see at the screenshots that it isn't a turn based dungeon crawler.

[Ryan Dorkoski]

I agree with Llamageddon. The way people throw around the term 'roguelike' nowadays waters it down to almost be meaningless. All that is guaranteed is some level of permadeath (and sometimes metaprogression, which is more of a variant of permadeath anyways), and some sort of proc gen.

I think we should have:

1. Roguelikes - this is the classic genre as defined in the Berlin Interpretation.
2. Roguelites - shares a number of Berline Interpretation traits (oh, say a minimum of 3) but not turn based.
3. Rogueish OR Procedural Death Labyrinths- an even more broad term. This could literally just be permadeath and some random elements.

People that say it doesn't matter and get salty about us that nitpick - I believe they really never got into, or tried to get into, any of the classic pillar roguelikes. Once you see the magic of what they are (historically, and otherwise), you quickly don't want to disrespect that genre by lumping in 90% of modern indie games.

[Billy Blaze]

Originally posted by Ryan Dorkoski:

I agree with Llamageddon. The way people throw around the term 'roguelike' nowadays waters it down to almost be meaningless. All that is guaranteed is some level of permadeath (and sometimes metaprogression, which is more of a variant of permadeath anyways), and some sort of proc gen.

I think we should have:

1. Roguelikes - this is the classic genre as defined in the Berlin Interpretation.
2. Roguelites - shares a number of Berline Interpretation traits (oh, say a minimum of 3) but not turn based.
3. Rogueish OR Procedural Death Labyrinths- an even more broad term. This could literally just be permadeath and some random elements.

People that say it doesn't matter and get salty about us that nitpick - I believe they really never got into, or tried to get into, any of the classic pillar roguelikes. Once you see the magic of what they are (historically, and otherwise), you quickly don't want to disrespect that genre by lumping in 90% of modern indie games.

"The way people throw around the term 'roguelike' nowadays waters it down to almost be meaningless."
Good sir... it is meaningless in the first place.
It was a term to describe a genre of games, and now, it isn't so strict anymore and people know exactly what they have to expect when they read "roguelike", except they were frozen in the last years.

But making such a big deal of such a meaningless thing is beyond stupid.

[El Mythical 23 k.s.c.]

the meaning of words change over time deal with it. Its like how you stopped using the word joke or gag and now everything is a f'in meme. welcome to 1984

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Originally posted by Nero:

Originally posted by Ryan Dorkoski:

I agree with Llamageddon. The way people throw around the term 'roguelike' nowadays waters it down to almost be meaningless. All that is guaranteed is some level of permadeath (and sometimes metaprogression, which is more of a variant of permadeath anyways), and some sort of proc gen.

I think we should have:

1. Roguelikes - this is the classic genre as defined in the Berlin Interpretation.
2. Roguelites - shares a number of Berline Interpretation traits (oh, say a minimum of 3) but not turn based.
3. Rogueish OR Procedural Death Labyrinths- an even more broad term. This could literally just be permadeath and some random elements.

People that say it doesn't matter and get salty about us that nitpick - I believe they really never got into, or tried to get into, any of the classic pillar roguelikes. Once you see the magic of what they are (historically, and otherwise), you quickly don't want to disrespect that genre by lumping in 90% of modern indie games.

"The way people throw around the term 'roguelike' nowadays waters it down to almost be meaningless."
Good sir... it is meaningless in the first place.
It was a term to describe a genre of games, and now, it isn't so strict anymore and people know exactly what they have to expect when they read "roguelike", except they were frozen in the last years.

But making such a big deal of such a meaningless thing is beyond stupid.

Well just wait until we all make nothing of your favorite thing. Then we can see eye to eye.

[Billy Blaze]

Originally posted by Ryan Dorkoski:

Originally posted by Nero:

"The way people throw around the term 'roguelike' nowadays waters it down to almost be meaningless."
Good sir... it is meaningless in the first place.
It was a term to describe a genre of games, and now, it isn't so strict anymore and people know exactly what they have to expect when they read "roguelike", except they were frozen in the last years.

But making such a big deal of such a meaningless thing is beyond stupid.

Well just wait until we all make nothing of your favorite thing. Then we can see eye to eye.

Buuhuu, someone calls a game a Roguelike, even if it isn't a game like Rogue from 1980.
Childhood completely destroyed.

First world problems...

[Gankatron]

If you try to make nothing of my favorite thing, I'll have to take matters into my own hands, ...wait it already is, gotta go.