Roguelikes are LIKE ROGUE

[jofadda]

Can we collectively stop tagging games that arent /like Rogue/ as "Roguelikes?"
This is rogue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(video_game)
Is your game predicated on fast paced action gameplay? Then its not a Roguelike as Rogue is by nature, by gameplay and by mechanics a strategy game.

Does your game eschew or lessen the impact of permadeath and/or procedural generation? Then its highly likely not to be a Roguelike, Rogue is a game of permadeath wherein the games very layout was predicated on procedural generation

Does your game have permadeath(partial or full) and/or procedural generation but lacks any and all other similarity to rogue? Use the damn rogueLITE tag instead.

Hell, one could say Antyoy, Battle for Wesnoth and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CIV are more like Rogue than half the games tagged as such here. They are not roguelikes as they're specifically predicated on unit management and as such the permadeath aspects of each dont matter.

[jofadda]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

Without strict definitions we get ruddy tetris lumped into the category. Its still not an actual roguelike. Though it is more of a roguelike than risk of vomit.

Without strict definitions it's not possible to delineate a boundary without first picking arbitrary criteria for said boundary.

What Steam has basically done is said "as long as enough people agree on this tag, we'll show it". So their criterion has, de facto, been a mild popularity filter.

I don't think there's a Tetris implementation on Steam but I suspect the popular consensus on it is that it wouldn't be counted as a roguelike, while Risk of Rain is.

Incidentally, the fact that Risk of Rain is tagged "roguelike" while its official product description says it is a game "with roguelike elements", is consistent with the way the "RPG" tag gets used -- again, it's basically being used as a trait label, rather than a full genre label. In other words, the tag doesn't mean "expect the game to be like Rogue" or "expect the game to be an RPG" -- rather, it's being used to mean "expect the game to have some things that remind you of Rogue", or "expect the game to have some things you've seen in RPGs".

Tetris would have more roguelike qualities than risk of vomit though. Its got full procedural generation AND permadeath! Thats a whole feature more than risk of vomit! :O

(and for those of you too stupid to tell that was sarcasm)

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

And metroidvania is a subtype of 2d sidescroller.

No, it's not. A metroidvania is an action/adventure game with an emphasis on exploring an interconnected world, generally in a sequence that can be described as non-linear due to needing to backtrack through areas one has been. Its most frequently prominent feature, beyond the focus on exploration, is the use of abilities (such as combat and movement abilities, sometimes rolled into the same thing) to proceed past progress gates, and the successive acquisition and accumulation of such abilities.

Nowhere in the core essence of what a metroidvania is is it mandated to exist in an up/down/left/right space. It may exist in a north/south/east/west space -- i.e. top-down view of a plane -- or it may exist in 3D space too.

It's just that the most common visual concept/representation of a metroidvania game derives from its most famous examples, those being the Metroid games (which are largely 2D) and seven Castlevania games of which all happen to be 2D.

If you've ever played Castlevania 64, you can start to think, what if we made the castle interconnected, and didn't compartmentalize the game into levels but instead gated access to various areas with the double-jump or access to certain subweapons?

And keep in mind that the "vania" part of the name is generally attributed to Symphony of the Night, which (according to its lead designer) was directly inspired by Zelda (which is top-down) rather than Metroid.

[jofadda]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

And metroidvania is a subtype of 2d sidescroller.

No, it's not. A metroidvania is an action/adventure game with an emphasis on exploring an interconnected world, generally in a sequence that can be described as non-linear due to needing to backtrack through areas one has been. Its most frequently prominent feature, beyond the focus on exploration, is the use of abilities (such as combat and movement abilities, sometimes rolled into the same thing) to proceed past progress gates, and the successive acquisition and accumulation of such abilities.

Nowhere in the core essence of what a metroidvania is is it mandated to exist in an up/down/left/right space. It may exist in a north/south/east/west space -- i.e. top-down view of a plane -- or it may exist in 3D space too.

It's just that the most common visual concept/representation of a metroidvania game derives from its most famous examples, those being the Metroid games (which are largely 2D) and seven Castlevania games of which all happen to be 2D.

If you've ever played Castlevania 64, you can start to think, what if we made the castle interconnected, and didn't compartmentalize the game into levels but instead gated access to various areas with the double-jump or access to certain subweapons?

And keep in mind that the "vania" part of the name is generally attributed to Symphony of the Night, which (according to its lead designer) was directly inspired by Zelda (which is top-down) rather than Metroid.

And now you see the issue with lumping everything into the roguelike category when it just doesnt fit by the same metric of calling 2d sidescrollers metroidvanias.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

Without strict definitions it's not possible to delineate a boundary without first picking arbitrary criteria for said boundary.

What Steam has basically done is said "as long as enough people agree on this tag, we'll show it". So their criterion has, de facto, been a mild popularity filter.

I don't think there's a Tetris implementation on Steam but I suspect the popular consensus on it is that it wouldn't be counted as a roguelike, while Risk of Rain is.

Incidentally, the fact that Risk of Rain is tagged "roguelike" while its official product description says it is a game "with roguelike elements", is consistent with the way the "RPG" tag gets used -- again, it's basically being used as a trait label, rather than a full genre label. In other words, the tag doesn't mean "expect the game to be like Rogue" or "expect the game to be an RPG" -- rather, it's being used to mean "expect the game to have some things that remind you of Rogue", or "expect the game to have some things you've seen in RPGs".

Tetris would have more roguelike qualities than risk of vomit though. Its got full procedural generation AND permadeath! Thats a whole feature more than risk of vomit! :O

(and for those of you too stupid to tell that was sarcasm)

Such a view would be overly simplistic anyway because it presumes that all traits are of equal importance, while also neglecting that Tetris is presented as a puzzle game. Furthermore, Tetris has far less strategic complexity than Rogue does, has no overarching objective other than high score, and so on and so forth.

[jofadda]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

Tetris would have more roguelike qualities than risk of vomit though. Its got full procedural generation AND permadeath! Thats a whole feature more than risk of vomit! :O

(and for those of you too stupid to tell that was sarcasm)

Such a view would be overly simplistic anyway because it presumes that all traits are of equal importance, while also neglecting that Tetris is presented as a puzzle game. Furthermore, Tetris has far less strategic complexity than Rogue does, has no overarching objective other than high score, and so on and so forth.

So by the same logic we aught to exclude risk of rain. Also procedural generation and permadeath are equally important to the tag

Then there's also the fact that many traditional roguelikes often drew from puzzle games.
Nethack, POWDER and many other actual roguelikes often have sokoban puzzles within certain floors/areas

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

And now you see the issue with lumping everything into the roguelike category when it just doesnt fit by the same metric of calling 2d sidescrollers metroidvanias.

What I just gave you is what I think makes a metroidvania. If you go to /r/metroidvania you'll notice people with other definitions.

We hae a similar situation with the term "roguelike".

It wouldn't surprise me that a subreddit on roguelikes drew some lines in the sand just to make it easier to manage things. The metroidvania subreddit at the very least has a silly bot obtrusively reminding people "Dark Souls is not a metroidvania", and along similar lines we have stuff like MyAnimeList declining to include RWBY in their database.

But the point isn't that they have some sort of official capacity to determine a definition. Rather, they're just drawing a line in the sand because it's administratively more convenient to do so, compared to an endless number of arguments and headaches over the exact boundaries of a definition. Meanwhile, people continue to disagree and argue anyway; someone's opinion on the matter doesn't make the argument disappear.

[jofadda]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

And now you see the issue with lumping everything into the roguelike category when it just doesnt fit by the same metric of calling 2d sidescrollers metroidvanias.

What I just gave you is what I think makes a metroidvania. If you go to /r/metroidvania you'll notice people with other definitions.

We hae a similar situation with the term "roguelike".

It wouldn't surprise me that a subreddit on roguelikes drew some lines in the sand just to make it easier to manage things. The metroidvania subreddit at the very least has a silly bot obtrusively reminding people "Dark Souls is not a metroidvania", and along similar lines we have stuff like MyAnimeList declining to include RWBY in their database.

But the point isn't that they have some sort of official capacity to determine a definition. Rather, they're just drawing a line in the sand because it's administratively more convenient to do so, compared to an endless number of arguments and headaches over the exact boundaries of a definition. Meanwhile, people continue to disagree and argue anyway; someone's opinion on the matter doesn't make the argument disappear.

But Dark Souls IS a metroidvania by your "logic" on roguelikes. As is the megaman series. As is super mario, as is duke nukem: shrapnel city, and dont forget Robocop on the Sega Genesis...

you see the issue there right? or are you just slapping the blinders on?

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

What I just gave you is what I think makes a metroidvania. If you go to /r/metroidvania you'll notice people with other definitions.

We hae a similar situation with the term "roguelike".

It wouldn't surprise me that a subreddit on roguelikes drew some lines in the sand just to make it easier to manage things. The metroidvania subreddit at the very least has a silly bot obtrusively reminding people "Dark Souls is not a metroidvania", and along similar lines we have stuff like MyAnimeList declining to include RWBY in their database.

But the point isn't that they have some sort of official capacity to determine a definition. Rather, they're just drawing a line in the sand because it's administratively more convenient to do so, compared to an endless number of arguments and headaches over the exact boundaries of a definition. Meanwhile, people continue to disagree and argue anyway; someone's opinion on the matter doesn't make the argument disappear.

But Dark Souls IS a metroidvania by your "logic" on roguelikes. As is the megaman series. As is super mario, as is duke nukem: shrapnel city, and dont forget Robocop on the Sega Genesis...

you see the issue there right? or are you just slapping the blinders on?

1. I haven't actually played Dark Souls, but from what I've heard about it, I think I'd say it's sorta in the same ballpark kind of thing with an emphasis on exploration. Meanwhile, the main objections people have about considering it a metroidvania are that it only has beef (and key) gates, rather than ability gates, and that it's in 3D. I have yet to decide whether I agree with these arguments.

2. I don't consider Dark Souls either a metroidvania or not a metroidvania. I simply note that it's kinda like a metroidvania. Perhaps I have the luxury that I don't run a web community that requires me to draw a line in the sand, but given that I don't, I don't see a reason I should bother drawing such a line, when in reality it's more of a continuum.

3. The mainline and X series Mega Man games are divided into levels, which runs counter to the point about interconnectedness.

The Mega Man Zero games come closer, and Mega Man ZX is probably the first fully metroidvania-y game in the MM series.

The Super Mario games are generally divided into levels as well.

I've been considering an additional sub-category for "individual-level non-linear exploration", which would hold such examples as Duke Nukem 1 and Iji (and Crystal Caves etc.). But at that point it just feels like I'm getting into details too fine for them to be usefully generalizable.

I haven't played Genesis Robocop.

4. Similarly, I don't feel that Risk of Rain needs to be defined by either being "a roguelike" or "not a roguelike". We can simply take the tag to mean it has one or more of a certain set of features, because that is in fact what people mean when they tag something in this way.

[jofadda]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

But Dark Souls IS a metroidvania by your "logic" on roguelikes. As is the megaman series. As is super mario, as is duke nukem: shrapnel city, and dont forget Robocop on the Sega Genesis...

you see the issue there right? or are you just slapping the blinders on?

1. I haven't actually played Dark Souls, but from what I've heard about it, I think I'd say it's sorta in the same ballpark kind of thing with an emphasis on exploration. Meanwhile, the main objects people have about considering it a metroidvania are that it only has beef (and key) gates, rather than ability gates, and that it's in 3D.

2. I don't consider Dark Souls either a metroidvania or not a metroidvania. I simply note that it's kinda like a metroidvania. Perhaps I have the luxury that I don't run a web community that requires me to draw a line in the sand, but given that I don't, I don't see a reason I should bother drawing such a line, when in reality it's more of a continuum.

3. The mainline and X series Mega Man games are divided into levels, which runs counter to the point about interconnectedness.

The Mega Man Zero games come closer, and Mega Man ZX is probably the first fully metroidvania-y game in the MM series.

The Super Mario games are generally divided into levels as well.

I've been considering an additional sub-category for "individual-level non-linear exploration", which would hold such examples as Duke Nukem 1 and Iji (and Crystal Caves etc.). But at that point it just feels like I'm getting into details too fine for them to be usefully generalizable.

I haven't played Genesis Robocop.

4. Similarly, I don't feel that Risk of Rain needs to be defined by either being "a roguelike" or "not a roguelike". We can simply take the tag to mean it has one or more of a certain set of features, because that is in fact what people mean when they tag something in this way.

Well then its settled, by your standards tetris is a roguelike(its got more factors, and factors of equal import than risk of rain)
Cory in the House is an anime(I mean its a TV show, that's a factor)
and Clydesdale is a breed of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bunny-rabbit.(I mean they're both mammals)

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

1. I haven't actually played Dark Souls, but from what I've heard about it, I think I'd say it's sorta in the same ballpark kind of thing with an emphasis on exploration. Meanwhile, the main objects people have about considering it a metroidvania are that it only has beef (and key) gates, rather than ability gates, and that it's in 3D.

2. I don't consider Dark Souls either a metroidvania or not a metroidvania. I simply note that it's kinda like a metroidvania. Perhaps I have the luxury that I don't run a web community that requires me to draw a line in the sand, but given that I don't, I don't see a reason I should bother drawing such a line, when in reality it's more of a continuum.

3. The mainline and X series Mega Man games are divided into levels, which runs counter to the point about interconnectedness.

The Mega Man Zero games come closer, and Mega Man ZX is probably the first fully metroidvania-y game in the MM series.

The Super Mario games are generally divided into levels as well.

I've been considering an additional sub-category for "individual-level non-linear exploration", which would hold such examples as Duke Nukem 1 and Iji (and Crystal Caves etc.). But at that point it just feels like I'm getting into details too fine for them to be usefully generalizable.

I haven't played Genesis Robocop.

4. Similarly, I don't feel that Risk of Rain needs to be defined by either being "a roguelike" or "not a roguelike". We can simply take the tag to mean it has one or more of a certain set of features, because that is in fact what people mean when they tag something in this way.

Well then its settled, by your standards tetris is a roguelike(its got more factors, and factors of equal import than risk of rain)
Cory in the House is an anime(I mean its a TV show, that's a factor)
and Clydesdale is a breed of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bunny-rabbit.(I mean they're both mammals)

But that's not what I think.

For starters, Tetris is an abstract puzzle game, and one which when I play it has none of the same tension or mechanical depth that a roguelike provides me.

To my knowledge, Cory in the House is live-action, nor does it have the art style of anime.

And after that you're just misrepresenting my point in your head and then coming up with absurd things to say.

[jofadda]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

Well then its settled, by your standards tetris is a roguelike(its got more factors, and factors of equal import than risk of rain)
Cory in the House is an anime(I mean its a TV show, that's a factor)
and Clydesdale is a breed of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bunny-rabbit.(I mean they're both mammals)

But that's not what I think.

For starters, Tetris is an abstract puzzle game, and one which when I play it has none of the same tension or mechanical depth that a roguelike provides me.

To my knowledge, Cory in the House is live-action, nor does it have the art style of anime.

And after that you're just misrepresenting my point in your head and then coming up with absurd things to say.

Tetris may be an abstract puzzle game but it still fits more roguelike elements in it than a lot of garbage in this cesspit you call a gaming platform. If those games are roguelikes, then so is tetris. Tetris is not a roguelike ergo those games should not be either.

you also did say one feature. being a TV show is in fact "one feature"

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

But that's not what I think.

For starters, Tetris is an abstract puzzle game, and one which when I play it has none of the same tension or mechanical depth that a roguelike provides me.

To my knowledge, Cory in the House is live-action, nor does it have the art style of anime.

And after that you're just misrepresenting my point in your head and then coming up with absurd things to say.

Tetris may be an abstract puzzle game but it still fits more roguelike elements in it than a lot of garbage in this cesspit you call a gaming platform. If those games are roguelikes, then so is tetris. Tetris is not a roguelike ergo those games should not be either.

you also did say one factor. being a TV show is in fact "one factor"

1. your anger is showing
2. i'm not sure why you're directing your anger at me calling Steam a gaming platform (which I actually haven't done at all; I'd call PC the platform and Steam is just a digital store)
3. I already said above that not all factors are equally important. and in fact if someone wants to be a stickler they can find an arbitrarily high number of similarities as well as an arbitrarily high number of differences between two things. the number of differences is not actually significant.
4. I never said Tetris is a roguelike.
5. FYI I've never played Risk of Rain anyway.

I get the feeling that you're presuming that I'm arguing to say that those games you don't think are roguelikes are roguelikes. Except you'd presume wrong since I'm not doing that.

I'm simply observing that (1) the definition isn't fully agreed upon by everyone, (2) Steam's expansive use of the term is the result of many people applying their own definitions, and (3) it's more useful to see it as a trait tag than a genre tag.

The only thing I'm arguably "against" here is joining in your feeling of outrage over this issue.

[ReBoot]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

Without strict definitions it's not possible to delineate a boundary without first picking arbitrary criteria for said boundary.

What Steam has basically done is said "as long as enough people agree on this tag, we'll show it". So their criterion has, de facto, been a mild popularity filter.

I don't think there's a Tetris implementation on Steam but I suspect the popular consensus on it is that it wouldn't be counted as a roguelike, while Risk of Rain is.

Incidentally, the fact that Risk of Rain is tagged "roguelike" while its official product description says it is a game "with roguelike elements", is consistent with the way the "RPG" tag gets used -- again, it's basically being used as a trait label, rather than a full genre label. In other words, the tag doesn't mean "expect the game to be like Rogue" or "expect the game to be an RPG" -- rather, it's being used to mean "expect the game to have some things that remind you of Rogue", or "expect the game to have some things you've seen in RPGs".

Tetris would have more roguelike qualities than risk of vomit though. Its got full procedural generation AND permadeath! Thats a whole feature more than risk of vomit! :O

(and for those of you too stupid to tell that was sarcasm)

It's not turn-based though. By your definition, it can't be a roguelike then. Since you're contradicting yourself here, let's consider the discussion done, you've painted yourself to the wall here.

[jofadda]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von ReBoot:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

Tetris would have more roguelike qualities than risk of vomit though. Its got full procedural generation AND permadeath! Thats a whole feature more than risk of vomit! :O

(and for those of you too stupid to tell that was sarcasm)

It's not turn-based though. By your definition, it can't be a roguelike then. Since you're contradicting yourself here, let's consider the discussion done, you've painted yourself to the wall here.

No, /I/ dont consider tetris a roguelike, I would just say that its more of a roguelike than risk of rain.
<sarcasm>I mean its got a whole TWO features in common with Rogue! TWO thats ONE MORE than risk of rain has!</sarcasm>

[ReBoot]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jofadda:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von ReBoot:

It's not turn-based though. By your definition, it can't be a roguelike then. Since you're contradicting yourself here, let's consider the discussion done, you've painted yourself to the wall here.

No, /I/ dont consider tetris a roguelike, I would just say that its more of a roguelike than risk of rain.
<sarcasm>I mean its got a whole TWO features in common with Rogue! TWO thats ONE MORE than risk of rain has!</sarcasm>

Wait, so you're counting features now? Ok, Binding of Isaac has procedural generation, permadeath and, I might add, the top-down view. That's 3. How many features does a game need to be considered a roguelike by your standards?