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[slashie]

Hello all!

I invite you to please participate on the 2013 Roguelike World Activity Survey!

Let the world know what roguelikes you play!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13T_HBmkgg2RaJaTalUB4QAhZtjBoBo8dyRxcK4yYj84/viewform

Thank you for your participation!

[Nightscar982]

Does not have New Zealand as country option, I am most sad

[slashie]

But it has Antarctica

[Max White]

Does not have New Zealand as country option, I am most sad

NZ can't into country apparently...

Anyway I would question just how roguelike some of these games are. The essence of a roguelike is to try and carefully build your character well enough to withstand the onslaught of RNG, while some more recent games take the exact opposite approach and use RNG to build your character and then you hope that combined with your skill can withstand the levels... Playing an iconic roguelike such as 'Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup' or 'ToME' requires careful thought about where you put your skill points, what kind of gear you are going to use, when to fight and when to run. Games like 'Risk of rain' and 'The Binding of Issac' however don't have that at all, you get what you get. I guess one of the core features of a roguelike is that while you can't predict the world around you, you can, to some degree, predict your own character.
Others here are just outright survival games, rather than anything that even came from roguelikes. Looking at you, 'Don't starve'!

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Max's point is cogent. I appreciate the insight, I hadn't thought about that aspect of Roguelikes before. How would you explain that Roguelikes give random equipment and some random environmental effects give you bonuses and penalties, which reduces the player's self-determination? Or would you consider that to be part of the RNG environment, and equipping gear and sipping potions is simply using the environment?

[Max White]

I would say that certainly adds to the players self determination, because you can only use one of each type of gear at a time. When you find a fancy new sword, you need to look at the stats and make a decision about whether that fits your character better or worse than your current one. You need to make another decision, just like when deciding to enter a side branch of a dungeon or picking a new skill tree. It is all about the choices you make, and every item you can pick up presents a new choice.
Self determination defines pretty much every aspect of a good rogue like, it is why a procedural environment and permadeath are so important. It essentially stops you from ever being in the exact same position twice, meaning you can never go back and change your mind. If you can have both outcomes of a choice, you don't really have a choice.

This is far less so in Risk or Rain or The Binding of Issac where you pick stuff up and hope it is good enough to carry you. Rarely will there be real choice...