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Do you like 'roguelike' games?

Kitteh_On_A_CloudKitteh_On_A_Cloud Member Posts: 1,629
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! :)
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Comments

  • MadhaxMadhax Member Posts: 1,416
    When executed well, they can be quite fun in the right mindset. I got over eighty hours of playtime out of FTL: Faster Than Light, a "Roguelike-like" space exploration game on Steam, which I would highly recommend. It involves flying around in a little spaceship, dealing with challenges in a randomly generated galaxy, and perma-kills you when you make a tactical mistake.

    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.
  • PantalionPantalion Member Posts: 2,137
    I love 'em. I'm always on the lookout for new ones to try, even though as I grow older and more conservative with my dwindling lifespan I find myself less prepared to get into the more obscure ones like Dwarf Fortress. I'm currently eyeballing Terraria (http://www.terrariaonline.com) trying to decide if it's worth the buy.

    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.
  • scriverscriver Member Posts: 2,072
    Try Dwarf Fortress. You'll never need another game again.
  • EdwinEdwin Member Posts: 480
    Reminds me of the old "Temple of Apshai" on C64. I can hear my old data-cassette squealing.
  • TeflonTeflon Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 515
    Yes I like it.
    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.
  • ZarakinthishZarakinthish Member Posts: 214
    @Pantalion
    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.
  • Chaotic_GoodChaotic_Good Member Posts: 255
    edited January 2013
    For sure there is one coming out soon called The Age of Decadence It was posted on games you would suggest. I played the public beta it is awesome, and I think of myself pretty hard to impress.

    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
  • scriverscriver Member Posts: 2,072
    @Chaotic_Good -
    Age of Decadence is not a Roguelike.
  • Chaotic_GoodChaotic_Good Member Posts: 255
    edited January 2013
    The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by level randomization, permanent death, and turn-based movement. From the wiki page

    @scriver
    Edit: The rules seem pretty loose d1 didn't have perma death and it was not turn based.

    Post edited by Chaotic_Good on
  • ChowChow Member Posts: 1,192
    I've played Nethack for no less than a decade and won the game several dozen times. It manages to hold my interest by virtue of being the only game that I could ever have played that long, and finished that many times, and still be challenging to play. So I play it through regularly, a couple times a year.

    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.
  • WilburWilbur Member Posts: 1,173
    Angband has always been the roguelike game for me. I have tried playing Nethack a couple of times but the problem was I'm so used to Angband's interface and game mechanics that I just couldn't get really started with it. I will probably try it again at some point.
  • Montresor_SPMontresor_SP Member Posts: 2,208
    Ah, memories! I can't count the hours and days and weeks I wasted on Umoria. I still have a Windows-compatible copy lying around in an "Old Games" folder somewhere. :D

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umoria
  • scriverscriver Member Posts: 2,072
    @Chaotic_Good

    The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by level randomization, permanent death, and turn-based movement. From the wiki page

    @scriver
    Edit: The rules seem pretty loose d1 didn't have perma death and it was not turn based.

    Age of Decadence features neither level randomization, permanent death, or turn-based movement (in the sense roguelikes do - it has turnbased combat, but not turnbased everything).

    Diablo wasn't exactly a Roguelike either, even if it's a lot more like one than AoD.
  • WilburWilbur Member Posts: 1,173

    Ah, memories! I can't count the hours and days and weeks I wasted on Umoria. I still have a Windows-compatible copy lying around in an "Old Games" folder somewhere. :D

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umoria

    I played a lot of Moria when I was a kid before I started playing Angband and really liked it too.
  • O_BruceO_Bruce Member Posts: 2,790
    I've only played one roguelike game, and it was ADOM. It was pretty fun, but without the overall goal (or my English was that pat at the time that I haven't even noticed there was one), it bored me after sometime. Overall, concept behind roguelike games is pretty neat.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,675
    edited January 2013
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    I used to play a lot of Zangband, not a typo, back in my Amiga days :)
  • ChowChow Member Posts: 1,192
    Bhaaldog said:

    It is not necessarily a roguelike rig but I presume people still remember a game series called Thief. That had some interesting elements to it at the time it was released. In general though I do not particularly like roleplaying a thief.

    It's less roguelike, and more... thieflike.
  • Kitteh_On_A_CloudKitteh_On_A_Cloud Member Posts: 1,629
    Thank you for all of your replies thus far. I still do wonder though what appeals people in the concept of 'permanent death'? I don't get this, mainly because I spam the save button like crazy (I got about 1000 savefiles in my Skyrim folder and 500 savefiles for Dragon Age: Origins which are all overwritten several times , no kidding). What makes it so interesting to lose all of your progress? Is it the feeling of truly starting anew that appeals to people? I'd really like to know. :)
  • ChowChow Member Posts: 1,192
    edited January 2013
    It brings in an extra layer of challenge and feeling of mortality, when you can't just recover your character with the push of a single button. There's a thrill there that a save s* could never understand, when you are trying to flee from a dragon with your hit points in single digits, or finally bring down Master Kaen after a dozen monks before your current character died trying. Every mistake you make actually counts when you can't easily unmake them, you actually have to plan things through and prepare to waste your assets and one-use items, because there's no possibility of charging in and hacking everything, until you finally succeed after about ten tries - and consequently, success and doing well feels all the more sweet.

    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.
    Post edited by mlnevese on
  • Kitteh_On_A_CloudKitteh_On_A_Cloud Member Posts: 1,629
    edited January 2013
    @Chow: Please refrain from using the term 'save s*'. It's really a condescending and offensive term, especially for people like me who don't have the luxury of time to lose everything in a game over and over again. I play with a goal: to see the progression of a story and evolution of my character. So what if I want to save my progress? It saves me precious time in between work and chores at home. I don't see the point of spending hours on a game only to then make one tiiiiny little mistake only to have to start over again. Maybe I could play such games when I was younger and more carefree. Now I have college for which I have to prepare daily for classes and study for exams, I ocassionally have to help around the house and I have a relationship to take care of. It's all easier said than done. I just don't have the luxury of time and energy anymore to spend on a never-ending repetitive game. If I really want to do something repetitive, I can just as well do the dishes or the laundry, because such things NEVER end, heh. No, I want to do something useful with the time I spend on games. I want to feel satisfied with what I have accomplished in that time I have reserved for games, instead of quitting a roguelike game while I know somewhere deep inside that it'll probably go wrong sometime soon anyway and that a re-start is imminent and unavoidable. Just the point of view of an ordinary 'save s*'.
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    edited January 2013
    Ok people, no need to turn this thread into a flame war... Everyone has the freedom to play as they like, so @Chow bad choice of words, refrain from using such terms in the future, @Kitteh_On_A_Cloud just calm down.
  • ChowChow Member Posts: 1,192
    edited January 2013
    Well, it all depends on the game. Something heavily story-based would do really badly if it deleted your saves every time you died, and the entire thing wouldn't go very well there... but for something with story no better than "You need to get this amulet. Go." it fits in just fine. Likewise, those games aren't really repetitive, because they generate each game anew when you play, making every experience unique: again something that wouldn't fit for Skyrim or Dragon Age or the sort, because they are heavily story-based. Nethack, however, is all but repetitive and I do enjoy playing it from the beginning over and over again. It also probably doesn't hurt the time matter all that much, because it just becomes a short time-waster instead of a long epic project, where you can play through one game when you have the time - perhaps leave it halfway if you're doing really well. I do that even when I have very little time, and it works quite nicely.

    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.
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    edited January 2013
    @Chow No problem... English isn't my first language and sometimes I have to have a native speaker explain to me why what is an innocent term in my own language is offensive if I use the English equivalent... Even in my own language sometimes I have to think if a word may be offensive in some region of the country.

    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.
  • ChowChow Member Posts: 1,192
    edited January 2013
    No offense meant. I've used the term casually for many years, and seen it used like that, and this is the first time anyone was offended. So it's kind of a surreal experience, even if I try to be receptive to other people's wishes and feelings.

    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.
  • CorianderCoriander Member Posts: 1,667
    I've been playing nethack casually for about 10 years. Haven't won yet, that'll be awesome if it ever happens. I really enjoyed FTL but I don't think it will have the same lasting power. Same with games like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon or Chocobo Dungeon.

    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/
  • Chaotic_GoodChaotic_Good Member Posts: 255
    Most games these days are far two long for perma death but as much as I hated d3 we all felt that adrenaline when we were about to die and the sorrow when we realized we had another 20 or so hours of grinding to get back after a dc; I love being emotional attached to my games and I think dark souls has a good balance. I only played HC D3 but it didn't really have lv randomization just door shuffle.
  • WilburWilbur Member Posts: 1,173
    Coriander said:

    I've been playing nethack casually for about 10 years. Haven't won yet, that'll be awesome if it ever happens.

    Wow. I'm not sure if I want to start playing it if it can be that difficult to finish. Is it worth it even if you keep dying over and over again? Can the game still be enjoyable even if can't win it?
  • ChowChow Member Posts: 1,192
    edited February 2013
    Wilbur said:

    Wow. I'm not sure if I want to start playing it if it can be that difficult to finish. Is it worth it even if you keep dying over and over again? Can the game still be enjoyable even if can't win it?

    The fact that someone can play it for a decade without winning, yet also not giving up and keeping on trying regardless, should answer that question to you just fine.

    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.
  • WilburWilbur Member Posts: 1,173
    Chow said:

    Wilbur said:

    Wow. I'm not sure if I want to start playing it if it can be that difficult to finish. Is it worth it even if you keep dying over and over again? Can the game still be enjoyable even if can't win it?

    The fact that someone can play it for a decade without winning, yet also not giving up and keeping on trying regardless, should answer that question to you just fine.

    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.
    I have heard nothing but good things about Nethack so I think I have to try it again. I just have to prepare myself mentally :)

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