Difference between revisions of "What a roguelike is"

From RogueBasin
Jump to navigation Jump to search
 
(22 intermediate revisions by 14 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
"'''What is a roguelike?'''" is a tricky question; it is hard to conceive a roguelike '''definition''' with which everybody will agree as this is a gaming genre that has evolved and has a dynamic definition as well.
''This article is written and mantained by [[Slashie]], [[Guardian of RogueBasin]], and as such represents a personal interpretation of the question. However, please feel free to discuss ideas around it, and extend the "External links" with other interpretations.''


However, roguelikes do share some elements. Some of the most common elements in roguelikes are:
It is impossible to conceive a roguelike definition with which everybody will agree as this is a gaming genre that has evolved over time.  
* The [[User Interface]] : ASCII display of a tiled world has become a distinctiveness of roguelikes.
* The [[Game World]] : random world generation may be the most common feature of roguelike games. And they usually provide little plot.
* The [[Gameplay]] : turn-based gameplay and dungeon hack are most often proposed.


Even among the "[[Major Roguelikes|major roguelikes]]", it is not uncommon for one or several of the above guidelines to be broken, such as ASCII character display (many offer a graphical-tile alternative) or plotlessness ([[ADOM]] is heavy on plot).
Even back on 1993, when the term was coined, there was no consensus about what constituted a roguelike<ref>https://blog.slashie.net/on-the-historical-origin-of-the-roguelike-term/</ref>; the definition has been nebulous from the beginning, as ultimately a roguelike is a game that is inspired by another roguelike.  


== User interface ==
This nature of the definition would doom it to just become wider and wider over time, even more with the explosion of indie developers that took note of potential of the features of the then-existing roguelikes, and grew the genre into exciting new heights mixing elements from other genres.


* [[ASCII]] [[character display]]: games use no graphic tiles or 3D models but rather a two-dimensional character grid viewed from above, in which each [[character]] represents an entity. For example, a human may be plotted as a '@', a dragon as a 'D', etc.
The answers to "What is a roguelike", then, will depend heavily on the context of the question. That sprawling definition, however, is not very useful for the purpose of discovering or studying games that share several features together.  
* Narrated action: short text descriptions are given for almost all game events except ordinary movement.
* Front-loaded commands: the player has knowledge of and access to all (or almost all) commands at the start of the game, often long before acquiring the objects or powers that make the command useful.
* Keyboard based interaction: The keyboard is the traditional way to interact with the game world, as it provides the quickest way to access the several commands that a roguelike may have. There are certain [[PreferredKeyControls|popular schemas]] of keyboard usage.


== Game world ==
== Foundational Roguelikes ==
The term "roguelike" appeared as a way to group similar games over the USENET discussion forums back in 1993. The games that were grouped were: [[Rogue]], [[Moria]], [[Hack]], [[Nethack]] and [[Angband]].


* [[Random]] [[world generation]]: some parts of the world in which the action is performed are generated using a random algorithm; this is made for the sake of replayability, thus every gaming session is unique.
== Traditional Roguelikes ==
* [[Spatial Consistency]]: All the actions happen in a definite space. No warping to fight scenes or minigames on a different reality.
A certain kind of roguelikes evolved during the 90s and early 00s from the original foundational roguelikes; in certain circles of discussion the defining features of these games have come to be grouped under the umbrella of "traditional" roguelikes, as a way to preserve a notion of games sharing a substantial amount of gameplay elements.
* Little [[Plot|storyline]]: a gripping plot is not typically the selling point of any roguelike. The story is usually kept to a minimum to enhance replayability.
* [[World interaction]]: little or no objects lie as an adornment in the world; most of them have a use in the game.
* Setting: Some of the common settings for the world include the personification of a [[character]] fighting his way into a [[dungeon]] and adquiring [[item|items]] via monster treasures or [[town]] supply. The world commonly has [[magic]] forces of different kinds to increase the possible interactions.


== Gameplay ==
The [[RogueBasin]] seeks to become the main depot of all information regarding this style of games, including a collection of the existing projects and games, an encyclopedia of genre-related topics, a directory of developers, and a collection of development tips and articles.


* [[Permadeath]]: once your character dies your savefile disappears; this encourages careful choosen [[tactics]], cold sweat when fighting big baddies and curses when your character dies; as well as a great sense of accomplishment in every [[win|Ascension]].
=== Temple of the Roguelike interpretation ===
* Freedom: the player may choose to do anything he wants in the game; there are no fixed plots, you can roam freely or look for the final game goal.
* [[Turn-based]]: the time freezes in order to take the best of decisions when time comes.
* Dungeon hack: your goal is to kill [[monster]]s and find powerful treasures in order to kill stronger ones and repeat the process.
* Tactical single character play: the unit of action is based on the individual adventurer. The game is not twitch oriented (like Quake, rewarding reflexes and well trained actions) nor is it strategy oriented (like Civilization or Warcraft, requiring working on the large picture).


== Roguelike Definition, the Berlin Interpretation ==
For the purpose of documenting one of many possible interpretations in roguebasin, here's a copy of the interpretation I posted at Temple of the Roguelike, as of 2023. Note that instead of an authoritative checklist of features, it's made up of aspects that support each other.


*THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS*
Please see other definitions linked at the bottom of the article.


===Preamble===
[...] here are what I believe to be the core aspects of traditional roguelikes:


This definition of "Roguelike" was created at the International
'''1. Permanent Consequences'''
Roguelike Development Conference 2008 and is the product of a
discussion between all who attended. The definition at
http://www.roguetemple.com/roguelike-definition/  was used as the
starting point for the discussions.  Most factors are newly phrased,
new factors have been added, some factors have been removed.


===General Principles===
The outcome of any action you take into the game cannot be rolled back by reloading a saved game (including death).


"Roguelike" refers to a genre, not merely "like-Rogue".  The genre is
This encourages both careful tactical play and long-term strategies and planning and increases the excitement of advancing through the procedural content generated by the game.
represented by its canon.  The canon for Roguelikes is ADOM, Angband,
Crawl, Nethack, and Rogue.


This list can be used to determine how roguelike a game is.  Missing
'''2. Character-centric'''
some points does not mean the game is not a roguelike.  Likewise,
possessing some points does not mean the game is a roguelike.


The purpose of the definition is for the roguelike community to better
The player controls a single character in the game at a time, this is in contrast to both a.) games where the player doesn’t control person-like characters or vehicles directly (for example puzzles) and b.) “god” style games where the player is an abstract entity creating and managing multiple discardable “units”.
understand what the community is studying. It is not to place
constraints on developers or games.


===High value factors===
Being character-centric helps the player establish a strong relationship with the individual characters, increasing the impact of the permanent consequences.


====Random environment generation====
'''3. Procedural content'''
The game world is randomly generated in a way that increases replayability. Appearance and placement of items is random.
Appearance of monsters is fixed, their placement is random.
Fixed content (plots or puzzles or vaults) removes randomness.


====Permadeath====
Increases the replayability of the game by having most or all of the world be generated by the game for every new gameplay session.
You are not expected to win the game with your first character.  You start over from the first level when you die.  (It is possible to save games but the savefile is deleted upon loading.)  The random environment makes this enjoyable rather than punishing.


====Turn-based====
In addition to providing an incentive for players to dig into the game, procedural content serves as a tool to prevent the player from being frustrated by the harsh effect of permanent consequences, reflected in having to start gameplay sessions from scratch frequently.
Each command corresponds to a single action/movement.  The game is not sensitive to time, you can take your time to choose your action.


====Grid-based====
'''4. Turn-Based'''
The world is represented by a uniform grid of tiles.  Monsters (and the player) take up one tile, regardless of size.


====Non-modal====
Gameplay is similar to a board game where you can think about your actions carefully, having infinite time to reflect on your available options to face the situations presented by the game using the resources you have at hand.
Movement, battle and other actions take place in the same mode.  Every action should be available at any point of the game. Violations to this are ADOM's overworld or Angand's and Crawl's shops.


====Complexity====
This is relevant given consequences are permanent, and the intent of the game is not to test how quickly the player can take an acceptable decision but rather to challenge him to think out the best move he can make in critical scenarios.
The game has enough complexity to allow several solutions to common goals. This is obtained by providing enough item/monster and item/item interactions and is strongly connected to having just one mode.


====Resource management====
'''5. Clean Runs'''
You have to manage your limited resources (e.g. food, healing potions) and find uses for the resources you receive.


====Hack'n'slash====
The consequences of death are permanent. This includes losing any progress you had made in the game. There is no “meta-progression”, as a player you don’t acquire any advantage to be applied to characters on subsequent runs, other than the knowledge you have acquired about the game.
Even though there can be much more to the game, killing lots of monsters is a very important part of a roguelike.  The game is player-vs-world: there are no monster/monster relations (like enmities, or diplomacy).


====Exploration and discovery====
The player represents a character, not an entire legacy of them. The games are designed so that you are rewarded for how you use your growing knowledge to adapt to the procedurally generated challenges, obtaining drastically different results compared with your initial runs while keeping the same in-game starting conditions.
The game requires careful exploration of the dungeon levels and discovery of the usage of unidentified items. This has to be done anew every time the player starts a new game.


===Low value factors===
== Roguelites ==
Likewise, the term "roguelite" has gained position as a way to refer that games that take elements from the foundational or traditional roguelikes, but introduce critical changes such as real-time gameplay or meta-progression.


====Single player character====
It should be noted, however, that games continue to be labeled as just "roguelikes" as it's impossible to define what constitutes a "critical change" as it's always going to be subjective.
The player controls a single character. The game is player-centric, the world is viewed through that one character and that character's death is the end of the game.


====Monsters are similar to players====
==External links==
Rules that apply to the player apply to monsters as well. They have inventories, equipment, use items, cast spells etc.
Many people have tried to define roguelike games.  Here is a collection of links to pages that purport to do just that:
 
====Tactical challenge====
You have to learn about the tactics before you can make any significant progress.  This process repeats itself, i.e. early game knowledge is not enough to beat the late game.  (Due to random environments and permanent death, roguelikes are challenging to new players.)
The game's focus is on providing tactical challenges (as opposed to strategically working on the big picture, or solving puzzles).
 
====ASCII display====
The traditional display for roguelikes is to represent the tiled world by ASCII characters.


====Dungeons====
* Wikipedia's definition: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike link].
Roguelikes contain dungeons, such as levels composed of rooms and corridors.
* Slashie's 2018 "Core Traditional Roguelike Values": [https://blog.roguetemple.com/what-is-a-traditional-roguelike/ link]
 
* Slashie's 2014 "Classic Roguelike interpretation": [https://blog.roguetemple.com/roguelike-definition/ link]
====Numbers====
* 2008: A group of roguelike developers met in Berlin, Germany, and came up with the so-called [[Berlin Interpretation]], which has mistakenly being used to attempt to define roguelikes for years.
The numbers used to describe the character (hit points, attributes etc.) are deliberately shown.
* Slashie's 2008 "Roguelikeness Factors" [https://blog.roguetemple.com/roguelike-definition/roguelikeness-factors/ link]
 
* Jeff Lait's list of features in the context of explaining what [http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about POWDER] is.
== External links ==
 
Many people have tried to define roguelike games. Here is a collection of links to pages that purport to do just that:


* See [[Roguelike Alphabet]] for some other minor aspects of roguelikes, and how they relate to each other.
== See also ==
* [http://www.adom.de/adom/roguelike.php3 ADOM's] definition.
* [[Roguelike Alphabet]] for some other minor aspects of roguelikes, and how they relate to each other.
* [http://users.tkk.fi/~eye/roguelike/index.html The Guide to Roguelike Games] definition.
* [http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about POWDER's] definition.
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike Wikipedia's] definition.


[[Category:articles]]
[[Category:articles]]

Latest revision as of 21:23, 11 November 2023

This article is written and mantained by Slashie, Guardian of RogueBasin, and as such represents a personal interpretation of the question. However, please feel free to discuss ideas around it, and extend the "External links" with other interpretations.

It is impossible to conceive a roguelike definition with which everybody will agree as this is a gaming genre that has evolved over time.

Even back on 1993, when the term was coined, there was no consensus about what constituted a roguelike[1]; the definition has been nebulous from the beginning, as ultimately a roguelike is a game that is inspired by another roguelike.

This nature of the definition would doom it to just become wider and wider over time, even more with the explosion of indie developers that took note of potential of the features of the then-existing roguelikes, and grew the genre into exciting new heights mixing elements from other genres.

The answers to "What is a roguelike", then, will depend heavily on the context of the question. That sprawling definition, however, is not very useful for the purpose of discovering or studying games that share several features together.

Foundational Roguelikes

The term "roguelike" appeared as a way to group similar games over the USENET discussion forums back in 1993. The games that were grouped were: Rogue, Moria, Hack, Nethack and Angband.

Traditional Roguelikes

A certain kind of roguelikes evolved during the 90s and early 00s from the original foundational roguelikes; in certain circles of discussion the defining features of these games have come to be grouped under the umbrella of "traditional" roguelikes, as a way to preserve a notion of games sharing a substantial amount of gameplay elements.

The RogueBasin seeks to become the main depot of all information regarding this style of games, including a collection of the existing projects and games, an encyclopedia of genre-related topics, a directory of developers, and a collection of development tips and articles.

Temple of the Roguelike interpretation

For the purpose of documenting one of many possible interpretations in roguebasin, here's a copy of the interpretation I posted at Temple of the Roguelike, as of 2023. Note that instead of an authoritative checklist of features, it's made up of aspects that support each other.

Please see other definitions linked at the bottom of the article.

[...] here are what I believe to be the core aspects of traditional roguelikes:

1. Permanent Consequences

The outcome of any action you take into the game cannot be rolled back by reloading a saved game (including death).

This encourages both careful tactical play and long-term strategies and planning and increases the excitement of advancing through the procedural content generated by the game.

2. Character-centric

The player controls a single character in the game at a time, this is in contrast to both a.) games where the player doesn’t control person-like characters or vehicles directly (for example puzzles) and b.) “god” style games where the player is an abstract entity creating and managing multiple discardable “units”.

Being character-centric helps the player establish a strong relationship with the individual characters, increasing the impact of the permanent consequences.

3. Procedural content

Increases the replayability of the game by having most or all of the world be generated by the game for every new gameplay session.

In addition to providing an incentive for players to dig into the game, procedural content serves as a tool to prevent the player from being frustrated by the harsh effect of permanent consequences, reflected in having to start gameplay sessions from scratch frequently.

4. Turn-Based

Gameplay is similar to a board game where you can think about your actions carefully, having infinite time to reflect on your available options to face the situations presented by the game using the resources you have at hand.

This is relevant given consequences are permanent, and the intent of the game is not to test how quickly the player can take an acceptable decision but rather to challenge him to think out the best move he can make in critical scenarios.

5. Clean Runs

The consequences of death are permanent. This includes losing any progress you had made in the game. There is no “meta-progression”, as a player you don’t acquire any advantage to be applied to characters on subsequent runs, other than the knowledge you have acquired about the game.

The player represents a character, not an entire legacy of them. The games are designed so that you are rewarded for how you use your growing knowledge to adapt to the procedurally generated challenges, obtaining drastically different results compared with your initial runs while keeping the same in-game starting conditions.

Roguelites

Likewise, the term "roguelite" has gained position as a way to refer that games that take elements from the foundational or traditional roguelikes, but introduce critical changes such as real-time gameplay or meta-progression.

It should be noted, however, that games continue to be labeled as just "roguelikes" as it's impossible to define what constitutes a "critical change" as it's always going to be subjective.

External links

Many people have tried to define roguelike games. Here is a collection of links to pages that purport to do just that:

  • Wikipedia's definition: link.
  • Slashie's 2018 "Core Traditional Roguelike Values": link
  • Slashie's 2014 "Classic Roguelike interpretation": link
  • 2008: A group of roguelike developers met in Berlin, Germany, and came up with the so-called Berlin Interpretation, which has mistakenly being used to attempt to define roguelikes for years.
  • Slashie's 2008 "Roguelikeness Factors" link
  • Jeff Lait's list of features in the context of explaining what POWDER is.

See also

  • Roguelike Alphabet for some other minor aspects of roguelikes, and how they relate to each other.
  1. ↑ https://blog.slashie.net/on-the-historical-origin-of-the-roguelike-term/
Retrieved from "http://roguebasin.com/index.php?title=What_a_roguelike_is&oldid=52976"