Themes

Possible themes for a roguelike, presented in an orderly way:--Rdanhenry 22:15, 8 May 2005 (CEST)

Please feel free to adopt one of these for your own roguelike project, select one of the zillion worlds described on a world construction hobbyist's website, or come up with your own ideas. I hope on the wiki, this list will finally grow.

MYTHOLOGY AND FOLKLORE

 African mythology
 American Folklore (Tall Tales, Historical Legends, etc.)
 Arabian (e.g. Arabian Nights)
 Arthurian legend
 Asian Blend (Chinese, Japanese, maybe Korean, Indian, SE Asian)
 Australian (Aboriginal myth, more recent folklore, and/or the pop myth of Aussie-land)
 Aztec Mythology
 Celtic Mythology
 Chinese Mythology and Folklore
 Egyptian Mythology
 European Fairy Tale Setting (could be more Disney, could be more Brothers Grimm)
 Greek Mythology (or the Romanized version)
 Indian Mythology
 Japanese Mythology
 Norse Myth
 North American Indian Myths
 Traditional English folklore
 Russo-Finnish Mythology (esp. the Kalevala)

HISTORICAL AND PSEUDO-HISTORICAL

 Aerial Warfare (First World War might be ideal)
 Alternative History: we've discussed an alternative Middle Ages, where Egypt ruled the Mediterranean instead of Rome, leaving behind a rather different cultural heritage when it fell
 Ancient Egypt
 Ancient Rome
 Dinosaurs (semi-realistic)
 Gladiator (simple setting, combat intensive, time for the highly detailed and lethal "realistic" combat model)
 Gold Rush!
 Heian-Era Japan
 Medieval Setting
 Organized Crime action, probably in the Prohibition Era USA
 Pirates
 Pre-Columbian North America, with whatever borrowing from native mythologies
 Renaissance
 Solo infiltration mission into a Nazi held castle (I think some game may have used this premise before :-)
 Stone Age (hunter-gatherer)
 Stone Age (primitive agricultural)
 Stone Age (Mesoamerican level)
 Wild West

FANTASY

 *D&Dish stock fantasy world
 Children's Fantasy (Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, etc.)
 Conan-style world (mighty swordsmen, relatively rare (but powerful) supernaturalities, very human dominated)
 Dinosaur Sword and Sorcery (with semi-humanoid hero dinos)
 Fantasy, but PC is a monster (dragon, gryphon, demon) who must grow from the weakness of childhood by rampaging across the countryside, terrorizing the peoples, defeating or avoiding the bold knights and cunning wizards and sneaky elves, gathering a hoard of treasure, and establishing oneself as Monster Supreme
 Fantasy in modern high school (ala many Japanese/Korean fantasies)
 Fantasy, non-cliche, centered on exploration rather than combat
 Fantasy with small animals as protagonists
 Gothic
 Lovecraftian Horror
 Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories
 Middle-Earth
 Modern + supernatural (e.g. Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
 Narnia (can take talking animals, human children, and mythological creatures and make a new "Narnian" world)
 Oz
 Underwater: fantasy (sea elves, merpeople, no fire elementals)
 Vampire Gothic (modern "gothic")
 Wild West + supernatural
 World without spells
 World without magic items
 Wuxia (Chinese kung fu action fantasy)

SCIENCE FICTION

 A universe of giant bug theme races. No humans.
 Alien invasion of Earth
 Aliens ripoff: fight alien monsters in underground passages
 Barsoom ripoff
 Cyberpunk
 Fantastic Voyage ripoff (get shrunk and travel the human body)
 Fugitive on an alien planet
 Fusion of Mad Max and Cyberpunk
 Futuristic dystopia
 Gamma World style post-appocalypse
 Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
 Huge "generation ship" sci-fi setting
 isolated interstellar colony (no FTL)
 Jack L. Chalker's Well of Souls, specifically the mix of many "worlds" into a single world, multiple races, technologies, etc.
 Mad Max style post-appocalypse
 Martian colony
 Mecha
 Paranoia RPG's Alpha Complex
 Play a sentient starship
 Red Dwarf
 Robot World
 Salvage mission into alien base/starship
 Space exploration and commercial exploitation
 Space Opera
 Starship Troopers ripoff: fight alien monsters in a very powerful and cool powered battlesuit
 Steampunk
 The AIs have turned on humanity! (or for bonus originality points, the AIs have turned on some alien species!)
 Time Travel
 Ultratech Sci-Fi (advanced biotech, nanotechnology)
 Underwater: science fiction (bioengineered or just properly equipped)
 Virtual Reality setting

OTHER (THE UNUSUAL, THE CROSSOVERS, THE HARD TO CLASSIFY)

 Alien planet where battle is sex to submission by orgasm
 Anime themes
 Antarctica (penguin based?)
 Atlantis has resurfaced. Explore.
 Cartoon based
 Completely new world "as little related to ours as possible"
 Dimensional crossover (mixing themes)
 Dream world: may be used as a solo idea or in conjunction with another world concept
 Escape from Hell (after arriving via clerical error)
 Furry (any other theme, but races are anthropomorphic animals)
 Highlander (set in present day or progressing through a series of temporal settings) [note: would not be hard to change the premise a little to create a new semi-immortals battle across history background]
 Indiana Jones style archeological digs
 James Bondesque (or Austin Powersesque) "spy" adventures
 Jungle Adventure
 Lost Valley (PC explorer from modern times, Victorian, 1920's etc.)
 Pimp roguelike (and yes, that's pimp in the literal sense)
 Pulp Adventure
 Rescue Worker: could be fantasy or sci-fi setting, but your job is to deal with crisis situations and rescue people, animals, and property
 Shakespearean Roguelike
 Sports (including futuristic or fantasy): try a career as a jockey, a charioteer, a stock car driver,zero-gee soccer/football note: this would be a difficult theme to pull off, IMO, but doable
 Superheroes
 The Quest to Get Laid: Probably modern, seek out and explore strange new sex partners; requires parental warning label (sex could work, romance elements could be used in a roguelike, but can't be central because sex is the mechanics, romance is too intangible for the RL world to adequately handle)
 Underwater: alien (create your own exotic realm of the deep)

Some of these ideas can be combined, others are obviously incompatible.