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Diablo came out over two decades ago and many gamers would say it wasn't a rogue-like at that time. However, with the many games that have come out and are associated with rogue-likes (or rogue-like-likes, or rogue-lites, or whatnot), where does that leave Diablo today?
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Diablo, is it or is it not a rogue-like? When it came out in 1997 it featured a lone hero entering the depths below the town of Tristram in an effort to battle the evil forces within - ultimately finishing with a climatic battle with Diablo, The Lord of Terror.
The hero would gain experience, equipment, and magical spells; getting stronger as they progressed further into the depths. The labyrinth of a dungeon entered would be randomly generated each time - with some degree of sanity to how dungeons were constructed but otherwise to the point where the player couldn't necessarily predict what the layout of the dungeon would be.
Yet, with quite a bit of similarity to the many rogue-likes this could be based on, there is quite a big difference to them as well. Notably at the time of its release, Diablo was a graphical game - not just in the sense of using ASCII or graphical tiles but full isometrical graphics with basic movement animation on sprite models. The game was played in real-time and one could also save their game, allowing them to resume from a save point if they died.
Many would point to the above as reasons for Diablo not being a rogue-like, but as the rogue-like genre has evolved, one can likely draw a lot of similarities between the rogue-likes of today and that of Diablo. Depictions of rogue-likes are no longer limited to ASCII or simple tiled graphics and one can find rogue-like games represented in isometric or even 3D. There are also several games near and close to rogue-likes that run in real time - usually with the added ability to pause on demand.
The only point that remains today from those old objections is the on demand saving and loading system that the game included. While Diablo (1997) came out after the Castle of the Winds (1993), the latter being called rogue-like both then and still to now. Arguably, there are no games really associated with rogue-likes today that have a saving and loading; at least, not without having a 'hardcore mode' where such a feature is disabled, something Diablo lacks.
Personally, I think that for the above reason of having a saving and loading feature while lacking a 'hardcore mode' is probably enough to justify the exclusion of Diablo from being considered a rogue-like; probably would also say the same for Castle of the Winds at this point too. But, how about you?
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Diablo was certainly one of my favorite games - probably one I should revisit with a Let's Play in the future now that the game is available on GOG. What are your thoughts? Post them and share!
So thinking about Diablo and other Diablo-likes from the last topic, one thing that really stands out is the ability to get back on your feet and get back into the action of the current run you are on. Time to talk about such things in this DYOR entry.
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Save systems, carryover mechanics, revive systems, and so forth have begun to make there way into rogue-likes; but are they appropriate for the genre? Sometimes such game elements can be included into a rogue-like without diminishing the game to the point where it can no longer be considered a rogue-like. Other times, not so much.
Talking about this I think of Castle of the Winds, Rogue Legacy, and Tales of Maj'Eyal. Castle of the Winds had a save system as well as an option to start halfway through the game. Rogue Legacy had its 'inheritance' system. Tales of Maj'Eyal had the Adventurer difficulty option which gave the player additional lives upon reaching certain levels; or bar that, an Explorer option that allows the player to respawn indefinitely.
Thinking about some more games I should also note Dwarf Fortress's adventure mode or Dungeonmans. These games are notable in that when you start with a run you are starting from a 'net zero' position; but the world would remember the history of what was done to it - completely in Dwarf Fortress and to partially in Dungeonmans.
Are all of the games above rogue-likes? Arguments can be made that they are or aren't. In some cases I think it can be argued that the game was better for it sometimes as well. Ultimately though, they were all certainly fun to play and memorable.
I should note that I think any developer should feel free to challenge the status quo when it comes to the rogue-like formula; as I feel this can't be expressed enough. I think of games such as FTL: Faster Than Light, Spelunky, or Dungeon of the Endless; games which I feel all hit the right notes for being a rogue-like despite how different to the usual formula they are.
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Comments, Thoughts, Opinions? Give me some responses if Rogue-like Spotlight interests you and help form the posts that I make!
I did a write up on it a while back which goes into more detail if anyone's bored:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/dxfgames/recommended/916040/
How long should the normal run of the game be? To me, the shorter the game length of the rogue-like, the better. Generally I think a game is better to play if it can be played in one play session; or at least if it is a long rogue-like, it can be broken down into segments (like Castle of the Winds with its part 1 and part 2, and ability to start from part 2).
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Typically I break down rogue-likes into one of four categories - Short Rogue-likes where a typical run is an hour or two, Moderate Rogue-likes that will last more then two hours but can be typically beaten without four or five, Long Rogue-likes that will take several hours to play but can possibly be beaten in a single play session (say 10 hours of play), and Epic Rogue-likes that a player won't be able to beat in a single play session and will require resuming through saves (+10 Hours).
Examining what the developer is trying to accomplish, they may want to watch just how much time a typical run of their game will take. Speaking for myself, the length of how long a rogue-like is will factor in to how much I will be inclined to play it. Specifically, if a game is extremely short and lacking in depth of any kind, I won't be all that interested in picking it up. Likewise, if a game is extremely long and will take several hours to play, I may not feel I have the time to play it.
What run length a game should be aimed for will really have to be intertwined with what the game is aiming to do. For some games that are depicting an epic grand adventure like that in Tales of Maj'Eyal, having the player transverse various areas and cross the lands (even for the Orc Campaign which was designed to be a shorter in length) makes some sense. A game like Cardinal Quest which by design was suppose to be a shorter rogue-like, has you plowing into a dungeon while playing with simple game mechanics.
The above said though, one thing to note is that it is possible to give options for the player to shorten or lengthen the game length. In Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup for example, the character in that game has to get 3 Runes of Zot to open up the Realm of Zot for their prize. However, should the player desire, they could get more then 3 Runes of Zot up to the maximum total of 15.
As noted in the previous topic, Castle of the Winds has the option of starting halfway through the game - specifically at the town of Crossroads outside of the Castle of the Winds. While the player would give up anything they would find exploring the Abandoned Mines or the Fortress in Part 1, they do get several levels and eventually they'll find better gear then what thy would have brought into Part 2 anyway.
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Comments, Thoughts, Opinions? Give me some responses if Rogue-like Spotlight interests you and help form the posts that I make!
Rogue-likes by there nature are usually very solitary experiences; yet there are usually communities of players interacting with each other outside of their runs. Usually this is due to some sort of mechanism in the game allowing them to compare their runs to each other in some form.
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How much gold did you have at the end of your run? What did you manage to slay with your character? How many turns did you survive? Did you manage to accomplish the task and win? If not, how far did you manage to make it before your untimely demise....
Rogue-likes are about more then the countless attempts to beat the game - or even beating the game. A good rogue-like will get you to play the game even after you have achieved victory. Yet, how does one compare one run from another?
At the end of a run, developers would do well to attempt to include some form of stat breakdown for the players playing the game. Not only is this important in helping to inform the player about what happen in a run (and thus helping to teach them about the game), it is helpful for those looking to score their performance.
As can be seen from the first paragraph above, there can be a lot of pertinent questions that may be had - depending on the mechanics of the game in play. Even more questions may also be asked as well depending on the tastes of the player - a speedrunner for example may be interested in knowing how much 'time' their run lasted.
On top of the statistical collection, sometimes highscore tables may also be important to include. Those can be helpful for players looking to compare how their runs compare to others. How in depth the leaderboards might go though should be based on how much the players care to have.
Something to also consider is variations of rule sets for runs too. I think of SYNTHETIK: Legion Rising here with all its variations of game modes a player can enjoy; which also translates into the difficulty modifier being adjusted with each change they make. D**MRL also gets a nod for its alternate modes too.
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Comments, Thoughts, Opinions? Give me some responses if Rogue-like Spotlight interests you and help form the posts that I make!
I like having play options and ways to gauge how I did in a run. Being able to adjust the difficulty in the game, having 'challenge' modes that the game has ready by default, and then being able to see a breakdown of the outcome of the run are all great little things to have in a game.
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So I'll note right off the back here that the game that I'm conceptualizing here would be one that I would aim to be quite short in length. Ultimately the goal of the player is to go to Point B from Point A and then return to Point A. If possible I want people to be getting to the halfway point of the game more often then not - before dying to the various creations of Native American lore that they would encounter returning to the start point; hopefully learning about them, their various mythological components, and overcoming them in the future.
At the heart of this game, this would be very much a learning experience. In many ways it would be in the same vein as Oregon Trail or other older edutainment titles that put emphasis on short runs. Part of the fun in the learning comes from the failure. Maybe as a nod to Oregon trail I might include gravestones of past failures; which wouldn't really make sense within the theme of the game, but as an option that could be toggled on it likely would be fun.
For such a game, I don't think that there needs to be any thought really given to saving or permadeath options. The game should be fairly quick; quick enough that players should just pick themselves up and start a new run without really caring too much for how much time they spent playing the last one. Being so short, there wouldn't really need to be an option to start later within the game. If players want to play each run longer then they can of course - though ultimately playing longer wouldn't necessarily mean that the game would be easier (or that much easier).
I'm not sure what if anything I would do in regards to scoring though. While I would be up for including some information like what 'encounters' the player might have come up to or maybe revisit the mythical creatures they came across with some hints towards helping overcome them or giving a history on where they derive from; I wouldn't necessarily be making this game for high scores. Part of the reasoning for this game and playing it again would be to find all the fantastical monsters of myth and defeat them. I don't think that players would have to aim to do much more then this.
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Feel free to contribute thoughts and ideas that you might have in regards to what I've written here; or produce a rogue-like, I'm always a fan of playing another rogue-like.
Rogue-like Spotlight: Dredgers
Dredgers is a real-time dungeon crawler that draws its influence from the classic rogue-likes or old. While there 'is' a boss that you can fight, and doing so will award you a chance to 'end the game' if you so wish, the main drive of this game is just an ever going pursuit to get as far into the dungeon, grabbing whatever you can to help you do this and getting stronger and stronger as you go.
The games features 30 races to unlock and play, 40+ classes that can be mixed and matched, and endless dungeon with different themed zones, 253 items and equipment to make use of, and a crafting system to boot. In regards to the Berlin Interpretation, one will probably note that several of the boxes get ticked off on this one too, which is nice.
The gameplay might come off as a bit simple, but with a plethora of combat ability available to the player it is actually quite complex. The game also makes an interesting use of Armor - being that armor works as a regenerative 'shield' type of defense that reminds me a lot of SYNTHETIK in how it plays.
Something nice to note for a change is that while this is a fully released game, the developer is still updating it after its release. perhaps a story mode or campaign might coming into fruition in the future? Maybe a basic save function might be incorporated (rather then just losing all ones progress because you had to quit).
Dredgers: https://pirate-rob.itch.io/
In many ways, Escape from Aeon isn't too far off from the Traditional Rogue-like model. However, instead of a one to one turn based system, EFA uses an action point system similar to the likes of X-Com - or The Depths of Tolagal of you can remember that ROTW.
Rogue-like Spotlight: Escape from Aeon[ghostknot-games.itch.io]
The concept for Escape From Aeon is a sci-fi experience based on colony ships headed to a new home due to the future of Earth being in peril. However, the game draws inspiration from horror movies as well, and mentions such lovely sources such as 'The Thing' and the 'Alien' series.
In the game, the player will make use of modern firearms and futuristic gadgets to aid them in their struggle of finding out about the circumstances leading them to their current predicament as well as information about the setting of the game.
Playing the game, on will notice that as one plays their turns, they will be able to take several actions before their turn ends. This isn't a simple system either as each turn is broken down into 'Chronounits', which can be modified via ones Agility stat or modifications.
Interestingly, the use of chronounits is quite interesting as every action one can take with their character will use some chronounits and some actions can be modified to take more or less chronounits as needed - for example, how one fires their weapon.
I'll note that in many ways, looking at gameplay footage of this game makes me think quite a bit of D**MRl, just with 'horror' theme instead of a demonic one. It is also quite short in gametime length too - being a game that will take roughly an hour to play.
The game is currently available on itch.io and is free to play. It is currently in development and a steam release is planned in the future.
Escape from Aeon: http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Escape_from_Aeon
So I've talked a bit about enemies already. I haven't specifically talked about their actual make up though. How might one enemy differ from another enemy the player may face?
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Thinking a bit about enemies, they can be rather bland in some rogue-likes. Players might be forgiven in some cases of just likening enemies to just being a different set of stat numbers to face. However, some developers might opt to try to make everything a player may face unique and meaningful.
Perhaps the best way of making enemies differ from one and another is to give each of them some unique gimmick. Hoplite comes to mind here as a good example, where all the enemies you might face would have their own unique talents; resulting in different strategies to deal with them.
Another idea to go for is to make enemies use different mindsets when fighting the player. I think of Diablo here and the Fallen enemy you can encounter, where if they see another enemy killed they will flee. In Brogue you will have a pack of Goblins sit and wait at a chokepoint - waiting to ambush the player.
Yet another idea is making it so that enemies have different attributes that they can help or penalize. Thinking about DCSS, the size of both the player and enemies can range greatly. You wouldn't see Kobolds running around with Two Handed weapons while an Ogre will have few options for wearable armor.
One final idea I have to throw here, though I'm not sure specifically what to use an example for it: making it so that enemies belong to different factions. This could perhaps be the laziest way of making enemies distinct from one and another - not to mention one just shifts the problem to faction distinction.
I should note though that while making enemies distinct is a good thing, having a little conformity isn't a bad thing either. Class conformity is one thing that could be common - Dwarves might be able to be Berserkers, but perhaps Orcs could be too. Orcs might be able to be Bowmen just like Elves.
Of course, one could also make it so that not every class might be available to each specific race. Maybe Elves can't be Berserkers or Dwarves can't be Bowmen. Some classes might be exclusive to a race as well - maybe only Elves can be Sages and Dwarves can be Rifleman; and Orcs have no unique class at all!
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Comments, Thoughts, Opinions? Give me some responses if Rogue-like Spotlight interests you and help form the posts that I make!
Do you prefer that all of the opposition just be one giant faction to face? Perhaps instead you would rather see a vast world of enemies that might hate each other just as much as you. Maybe enemies could change into allies too.
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So sort of tied into the last entry, I made a brief mention of factions. Sometimes the developer might not bother having more then one faction, or the game might have different factions but you never really see them interact all that much with each other. However, sometimes a developer will have different factions in play and make them matter quite a bit.
There are a lot of ways that this could be approached. Using Tales of Maj'Eyal as one example, you could have it so that all the various actors in the game, including the player's character, belong to some faction or another. Each faction would have differing views between them and other factions - sometimes positively though undoubtedly sometimes negatively.
Now, in Tales of Maj'Eyal, faction interaction is fairly simple - things are hostile or they aren't, or through story elements that might change their view towards the player; or through the player simply attacking non-hostile actors. Sometimes there might be special conditions that might be play - such as with Halflings characters in the Ruined Halfling Complex ;)
Playing a game like Golden Krone Hotel, interaction is a bit more complicated. In those games like it, the player can 'change' what faction they belong to, thus changing how they will be perceived in the game. In Zombie Rogue for example, you start as a Human, fight against Zombies, and trade with Humans; but progressively you turn into a Zombie overtime, upon which you'll be friendly to Zombies and can trade with them but become hostile to Humans.
More commonly though, where factions might play a big role, the player will likely just be their own faction and be able to influence how other factions perceive them. Caves of Qud comes to mind here, with the player being able to adjust their relations with the various factions through wearing equipment, killing unique enemies, and through conversational interaction.
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Comments, Thoughts, Opinions? Give me some responses if Rogue-like Spotlight interests you and help form the posts that I make!
I'm of mixed opinions regarding unique enemies, mini-bosses, and bosses. Maybe you'll get some interesting battle setup or perhaps the boss will do something that can be challenging every time you encounter it. Other times it is mostly 'just another fight' to be dealt with.
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What might be the goal of your character in a specific rogue-like? In quite a few games that answer is easy, to kill the big bad boss at the end. Perhaps on the way you'll take on some mini-bosses or otherwise deal with a 'unique' enemy that stands out from the rest of the chaff you might fight. Or maybe the developer might opt to have little to no unique enemies.
Maybe the goal of the adventure doesn't even have a boss at the end to defeat; it could be a simple romp to fetch the 'Amulet of Yendor' and get out. Maybe if unique enemies are in the game, the only real difference between them and everything else is there name and perhaps some increases stats or better equipment? Or perhaps they are just a randomized bundle of fun to deal with.
In general, I think an important question should be asked when it comes to unique enemies - what will they add to the game? Sometimes unique enemies might be added in for the sake of progression: I think of the two 'Lieutenants' in the first part of Cardinal Quest 2 for example, holding the keys you need to open the big door leading to the Minotaur Boss.
Another reason they might be added - to chase and kill you. Thinking of the game MicRogue, there was one unique enemy in that game, the Dragon. At the top of the tower you were raiding, he slept in the middle of the room, and within 5 turns would wake up. Unkillable and dangerous, once woken you would be chased relentlessly until your character either managed to escape or was killed.
Outside of the structure of the game, a unique enemy might be added for thematic reasons. Thinking of Tales of Maj'Eyal, when you managed to reach Dreadfell you would inevitably run into one of the former adventurer's that had attempted to raid the tower. Aletta, Borfast, and Filio basically only exist to help nail home the point of the nature of the zone's boss.
They could also be added to spice things up for the player. Diablo II had this down to an artform with its myriad of champion monsters and random unique enemies that featured a variety of improvements (Physical Immunity = fun times). Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup has a lot of pre-set unique enemies that would commonly have the same setup each time (everyone loves Sigmund).
I don't have any examples for this last thing of note, but one last thing to note that uniques can do is something extraordinarily dangerous. Perhaps the developer had a concept for regular enemies to do - yet decided against adding it in because it was too powerful. Giving it to a unique and making it optional can be an interesting challenge for players to deal with should they choose.
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Comments, Thoughts, Opinions? Give me some responses if Rogue-like Spotlight interests you and help form the posts that I make!
One can do a lot with enemies. I'm mostly discussing rather general concepts with them here as one can go a lot further in depth with their enemies to make their game stand out.
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In many ways, the game that I've been describing would have fairly distinct enemies. Each enemy would have its own varying personality. You might have a situation where the game spawns a bear. In many ways the bear would act like the Witch does from Left 4 Dead - sort of ignoring the player and doing its own thing; until you invade its personal space too much, at which point the bear might begin warning the player to back off, or just outright attack them.
I described wolves previously in that they would likely hunt the player. A lone wolf or a pack of them might come up from behind the player in stealth, and upon the player detecting them, they may attempt to put an intimidation buff on the player - with success linked to how close they might be and number of wolves in sight of the player. If they manage to put the buff on the player, the player begins to move in the opposite direction and has to make a save to attempt to break the buff. If the wolves fail, they become neutral.
Later on with the mythical stuff, they would act in whatever way their lore describes them as acting. You might have a Deer Lady appear and attempt to charm the player. A Skinwalker might turn into a random animal and take on a hostile mix of that animals characteristics. Then there is the Wendigo - which you might kill, but if you fail to burn its remains it will likely rise like a phoenix and hunt you down again.
Now likely in regards to factions, there might be a 'wild' faction for the wild animals and a 'mythical' faction for the supernatural; but honestly it could be made that there is just an enemy faction and that is it. Enemies for the most part would act based on how they are programed to act - being neutral if that is what is called for and becoming hostile when attacked, or just being hostile.
I'm not sure there would be any sort of boss enemies that might appear - this really isn't a game where they are truly needed. The basic enemies themselves should be interesting enough to encounter that some grand boss fight on top of it likely wouldn't be able to do enough to be worth it. But perhaps if a good idea could come along, it could go in.
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So, I want to note at this point that I'm running out of ideas for DYOR. I do have a few more ideas coming out in the future but I may be tying this up mostly in the future and trying out some other ideas for write up blurbs. Let me know what you think about these write ups - both what you like and don't like.
So since Card Rogue-likes have taking off as well as they have, I've been on the lookout for Card Rogue-likes to play on my smartphone. I'll note that this one is... mostly a rogue-like only through an optional game mode - but then Dwarf Fortress' Adventure Mode was technically an option, and I did a ROTW for that as well, didn't I?
As for Aura of Worlds, it feels very much like Spelunky, but with a much heavier emphasis on combat! This looks like it could be a lot of fun but much can likely change in Early Access.
Rogue-like Spotlight: Aura of Worlds
A rather interesting action sidescroller that has you exploring a vast amount of levels. You are proceeding through an ever-charging death labyrinth filled to the brim with enemies, and perhaps there might be some other gimmick that may have you escaping lava, swimming through rising water, playing in a real dark level...
Really, the notable thing about the game comes from its use of weapons and fighting styles. Each 'world' you visit has you select a a loadout with a primary weapon and a utility item. These combinations are random each time, but all of them are fun to play and can help you overcome obstacles.
Want to play defensive? Equip a shield and poke an enemy with a spear. Want to play sneaky? Equip a dagger and blink behind enemies. Want to just stay afar? Equip a Crossbow and hide behind a forcefield. There is a plethora of items to list here so you'll have to see for yourself what they can do.
Note that a major emphasis on the combat will have use basically figuring out how to navigate the level and use it to the best of your advantage to survive. This may be made easier with certain utilities and skills you choose - where in a dark level you might take shadowsight to see things in the dark or double jump to transverse big jumps.
The game is in Early Access but it already looks quite promising so it is definitely worth checking out.
Aura of Worlds: http://www.auraofworlds.com/presskit/sheet.php?p=auraofworlds
Rogue-like Spotlight: To Arms!![toarms.games]
A quick note before I jump into the excerpt for To Arms!! - there 'is' a rogue-like component to this game, but you won't find it until you get the 'Crawl' Mode unlocked. The Campaign and Battle modes that precede it are likely good for learning the game, but you'll always have the same scenarios popping up for them.
Anyhow, To Arms!! is a deckbuilding game where you are essentially trying to defeat the 'initial' enemies coming for you. To do this you need to recruit an array of characters to help build up your economy and eventually your fighting power to crush them. Notably as well, there are also some items and powerups that can be used under certain conditions as well.
In each game that you do, you'll have a set of 12 specific characters to recruit from; and they make up the centre field of the game. This is where you your powerful recruits will reside and where a lot of the random generation will happen. Each time you pickup a character from the centre field, a new card representing the 12 specific characters of that game will appear.
Other stuff can also appear in the centre field too. 'Intruding Monsters' can pop up which can cause you all sorts of headaches (and sometimes benefits) for you to deal with. A lot of strategy will also go on into what specific recruits you pick up as some cards will combo with each other to give more powerful effects. They may also do things you may note desire either.
The game is free on Google Play and I consider it a fun game to delve into. Check it out if you are looking for a Mobile Phone Game to kill time with, I certainly have killed a lot of time with it.
To Arms!!: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.latahunden.toarms&hl=en
I'm sure anyone who has been frequenting other parts of this board has likely noticed some of my posts and threads; thus they have likely noticed I'm at least a 'bit more liberal' then most when it comes to defining what rogue-likes are. What this write up is about goes 'beyond' that.
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I'll note that only just recently I was playing Vambrace: Cold Soul (at the time of writing this), a game advertised as a 'rogue-lite'; which at the very least allows me to give them more of a nod then most other developers calling their games rogue-likes when they aren't. However, after playing through Vambrace from start to finish it made me think:
How many steps removed does a game have to be before it is not Rogue-like, and also, not a rogue-lite (or rogue-like-like, or procedural death labyrinth, or what not)?
Playing through Vambrace, it has a lot of elements that can be found in other Rogue-like and Rogue-lite titles such as: a rebel fleet and a health and fuel mechanic (fuel being vigor) similar to FTL: Faster Than Light, graphics and gameplay similar to Darkest Dungeon along with similar positioning and attack range gameplay mechanics.
But, one thing it doesn't have is procedural map generation - that being the layout of rooms in the areas you explore are always the same. Now, the rooms themselves might be different (on one run, the first room might be a supply room; but in another run you might have a special event in the same room); but an area will always be setup the same way. In many ways it reminds me of playing Left 4 Dead or Contagion - the levels are the same but what you might find and where you may find it might be different.
I'll note that another thing of reference is how perma-death and stored items work. That reminds me a lot of the Enchanted Cave in its orientation - where each successful run will help you build up your equipment and items, and each time you fail you are just set back to before that specific run occurred.
Now, before continuing I want to give a shout out to this video here as one to check out to pick your brain in regards to how we define things: Roguelikes, Persistency, and Progression | Game Maker's Toolkit. In Game Maker's video, he lays out some extremely basic ways people will define rogue-likes from rogue-lites: both genres having Procedural Generation and Permadeath; but rogue-likes having no persistent upgrades (apart from cosmetic or those that don't change the difficulty of the game) while rogue-lites do.
Perhaps that could be the basis for determining what makes rogue-lites and rogue-likes different? Who knows, but something to note here is that Procedural Generation is mentioned as something both rogue-likes and rogue-lites have. To me, I believe that one has to have a sufficient amount of Procedural Generation in play - including the world your character explores. For me, that is probably where I would say Vambrace isn't a rogue-like or rogue-lite myself.
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So I have some test ideas coming up starting next week where I essentially go through some developer interviews and try to get at the inner thoughts of how their games are made. Give me feedback on what you think about it.
Will the mechanics I discuss definitively be from 'rogue-likes'? I'll certainly try to aim for those we might find in the rogue-likes we play, but no guarantees here that rogue-likes will be exclusively focused on.
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Rogue-like Spotlight - Rogue's Origins I - Origins Entry 1
Before beginning this write up, I'll note that a lot of the information I'm going to be throwing in here will be derived from this podcast discussion by the Spelunky Show -
24: Going Rogue with Glenn Wichman[thespelunkyshowlike.libsyn.com].
For those who don't know, Glenn Wichman was one of the co-creators of Rogue, being there from the start with Michael Toy (and this being despite the fact that Glenn didn't know how to even code at the time of Rogue's creation). I likely also suggest referring back to the podcast if you want to verify anything that I do state here; though I'll try to include as much information as possible here that it won't be necessary.
With the above said and jumping into the topic proper, I'm sure most people know at least some iteration of how Rogue came to be: that when they were creating a game that was inspired by the many text adventures, Sierra titles, and RPGs of the time; but they also wanted to create a game that they themselves could play. However, they had the problem of whenever they created a game, they already knew how to solve the puzzles in their game because they created those very puzzles. Thus, they wanted to create a game that would create puzzles that they didn't know how to solve.
But, before we delve any further on the above, I'll jump into some of the influences on Glenn Wichman. Glenn notes that in high school (prior to college), Glenn was a Dungeons & Dragons player, and then in college (where he met Michael Toy) he learned about computers (and text adventures). From that, the initial game they were making was one that would play Dungeons & Dragons (thus a lot of the common RPG elements); though eventually they did change a lot of the D&D content to make it their own and not get into trouble with Gary Gygax.
It is also important to note that there were hardware and resource limitations that had to be met for Rogue - and not just in the initial release. It was first written in C for Unix running on a PDP-11/70 computer (Glenn couldn't remember how much ram the computer had but he remember the game using all of it). When the game was ported to Macintosh it had to run in 60k of ram however. The display the game had to run on had to be less then 80 characters wide and 24 characters tall and was limited to ASCII characters.
I'll note that Glenn would mention that because of the resource limits, there was no room to save previous floors that the adventure had visited - thus when ascending the game would simply make new floors instead. He also opined that had Michael been given more technology to work with he likely would have created something much more complicated then the original Rogue; ie, Rogue wasn't simple by design but rather it was simple by limitations.
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There will be a continuation of Rogue's Origins in the next write up. A lot of what I wrote here was just the basic stuff that I expect most people either suspected or knew. The next one will contain a lot of tidbits that I don't expect people to know as much about so definitely stay tuned for that.