Do you like 'roguelike' games?
Kitteh_On_A_Cloud
Member Posts: 1,629
in Off-Topic
Hey everyone,
I know that many amongst you people are passionate RPG fans, some of you even dating from the time of the classic ol' pen and paper aka tabletop roleplaying games. Now I was wondering about a particular subgenre of RPGs, namely the so-called 'roguelike RPG'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike
I have recently been playing such a roguelike game, namely the recently released indie title 'Don't Starve'. This game is available on both Chrome and Steam and features a randomly generated world in which the character has to collect food and other resources available to survive as long as possible and, as the title of the game implies, of course to keep themselves fed.
The thing is, I adore the game, its characters and art style, but there is one feature I have difficulties with, and that is the 'permanent death' feature. I know that it is one of the most prominent features of a roguelike game, but I still find it hard to keep myself motivated to build up another base and explore all of the maps yet again whenever I die. Think of it as if dying in Baldur's Gate would teleport you back to the beginning chapter at Candlekeep. The point is: the first few times, dying isn't such a huge deal. You've only started afterall. You still got things to discover and who knows, you might be able to in this new playthrough! You might even explore some new islands this time with better equipment! So, full of enthusiasm, you start over again. Now try starting over again and again and again. Surely you'll lose patience and motivation after a while. Mind you, this also hugely depends on the type of person.
Some people don't mind to keep on going through the same repetitive gameplay over and over again. Others do and are more clinging to a good save game feature. It depends from person to person.
What do you think about roguelike games? Do you like them? Or would you rather spend your time on another game (like BG:EE)? Please discuss!
I know that many amongst you people are passionate RPG fans, some of you even dating from the time of the classic ol' pen and paper aka tabletop roleplaying games. Now I was wondering about a particular subgenre of RPGs, namely the so-called 'roguelike RPG'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike
I have recently been playing such a roguelike game, namely the recently released indie title 'Don't Starve'. This game is available on both Chrome and Steam and features a randomly generated world in which the character has to collect food and other resources available to survive as long as possible and, as the title of the game implies, of course to keep themselves fed.
The thing is, I adore the game, its characters and art style, but there is one feature I have difficulties with, and that is the 'permanent death' feature. I know that it is one of the most prominent features of a roguelike game, but I still find it hard to keep myself motivated to build up another base and explore all of the maps yet again whenever I die. Think of it as if dying in Baldur's Gate would teleport you back to the beginning chapter at Candlekeep. The point is: the first few times, dying isn't such a huge deal. You've only started afterall. You still got things to discover and who knows, you might be able to in this new playthrough! You might even explore some new islands this time with better equipment! So, full of enthusiasm, you start over again. Now try starting over again and again and again. Surely you'll lose patience and motivation after a while. Mind you, this also hugely depends on the type of person.
Some people don't mind to keep on going through the same repetitive gameplay over and over again. Others do and are more clinging to a good save game feature. It depends from person to person.
What do you think about roguelike games? Do you like them? Or would you rather spend your time on another game (like BG:EE)? Please discuss!
2
Comments
In general, I'm an adaptable-enough gamer that heavily consequential deaths, such as in Dark Souls, make the game more fun for me. You can theoretically throw your characters on suicide runs at powerful enemies in the BG series over and over until the dice fall in your favor, but in a roguelike every action has to be carefully weighed and planned out.
This is the first I've heard of Don't Starve. I might want to check it out.
One of the main reasons I enjoy Notrium, a top down survival game that is probably the ancient precursor to Don't Stave, is for its roguelike properties of random generation and absurdly unreasonable difficulty curve.
Concerning the "final death" issue you've suggested, two of my favourites, Gearhead and Elona are actually fairly lax when it comes to dying, you might want to give them a go if you enjoy giant mecha or completely inappropriate messed up situations, respectively.
Long time ago there was dnd roguelike game and it was fun since I can play new dungeon every time and plenty of loot. Doomrl is good rl game too.
I highly recommend Terraria. It is especially fun when you can gather up some friends and play together. The first time I played it, I ended up staying awake all night because it is so addictive.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e-Oz5Jn3JQU
Site: http://irontowerstudio.com/
Vote for it on steam if you like it: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=93102452
Thanks @Anton for sharing it with us
Age of Decadence is not a Roguelike.
@scriver
Edit: The rules seem pretty loose d1 didn't have perma death and it was not turn based.
I've tried several others. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup held my interest for a while, but in spite of claiming to have reduced the randomness inherent to this style of games, it actually is far more random than Nethack, and in spite of managing to almost get the Orb of Zot once, I haven't ever gotten an ascension-worthy character: when even the max-leveled champion of Trog, decked in the best armor in the game and wielding basically the best weapon it could hold, holding near-maxed resistances to everything, is still absolutely trounced by some enemies, it's kind of discouraging. Ten times so when getting all the resistances and best equipment are pretty much purely based on luck.
Incursion is also pretty great: a reasonably faithful rendition of 3rd edition D&D with amazing character development and one of the best pantheons I've ever seen anywhere. Unfortunately, it's pretty much in its earliest alpha version that can barely stick together with chewing gum and crashes twice an hour, and hasn't seen anything new in three years. Yet if only the earliest possible version can be this much fun to play, I have pretty high hopes for the new stuff - now if only I could see something on this decade.
There have been others. I tried ADOM several years ago but it was just too random to keep me in it for long (it's not fun how easily my items can be destroyed). Doom Roguelike was fun for a while, but I sort of lost interest to it lately for no particular reason. I played a couple games of Berserk, but it's tiny. And I tried Dwarf Fortress once, but couldn't make heads or tails out of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umoria
Diablo wasn't exactly a Roguelike either, even if it's a lot more like one than AoD.
It took me four years to win Nethack for the first time. Never have I felt such bliss for beating any other game, before or since.
As for the character development, I actually think throwing in some genuine mortality would work pretty well for that: it helps getting into the game all the more, and actually get attached to your character because you know that they can be killed for good. Nethack has very little plot and no character personality whatsoever, so it's all in your head, and the fact that the character is mortal compensates for a lot. Just like seeing a terrifying dragon in a simple capital D, it becomes a thing of imagination, something you build more yourself rather than let the game do it. And when they do die, you feel genuinely sad, instead of "Meh, load game", especially if the game had gone for a while. It's less about the road the game has set upon you and what the writers had in mind for the character, and more about their life and death without any limits but those you put on them.
I apologise about the use of term, and certainly did not mean anything offensive with it. I didn't even know it could be an offensive term: in our modern Internet society, I seem to be learning new words like that every day. Still, I'll not use it again unless I'm told by someone it's okay on them at least.
I'm more worried with intention to offend than with the use of a word actually.
Of course if a word can have no other meaning and there's a clear intention to be offensive then there's no discussion on what has to be done.
Edit: With that said, I guess I can see where Kitteh is coming from, because I also save very often in Skyrim and Baldur's Gate. On Nethack I never save unless I need to stop playing for some reason, and in games such as Doom and Duke Nukem I only ever save at the start of each level. I guess it depends on the game, the amount of story, and the level and type of difficulty.
Also, it's worth noting that in Nethack, and most other roguelikes, save scumming is actually legitimately cheating and extremely frowned upon, so if we were to talk entirely in the context of those games, then yes, I suppose it would be a derogatory term - and anyone it was thrown at would deserve it, too. But in the case of other sort of games, I've not thought it as bad, because everyone does it, myself included.
Today they announced the dates for 7DRL, which is a competition to make a roguelike in a week. I played some of the entries last year.
http://7drl.org/2013/01/31/we-have-dates-for-7drl-challenge-2013/
It depends on the person. Give it a try, see if it's your kind of a thing: that's really the only thing I can say.