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[Lectorog]

(Mario's "power-up box" is resource management comparable to roguelikes?? Really?)

Hey that's some stressful stuff man. Many seconds have been spent wondering what to put there.

I dont know if many people are actually trying to argue that Spelunky is more roguelike than platformer per se. I would argue that it is irrelevant and difficult to quantify, It felt like both a roguelike and a platformer to me.

I am arguing that Spelunky is not a roguelike at all. It's not a platformer with roguelike elements. It's just a platformer. It has unique elements, which all games do.

Perhaps an eternal problem is that I don't think a roguelike is the same thing that most of you think a roguelike is. I think the Berlin Interpretation is complete bullshit that fails to capture the essence of a roguelike.

Let's try something else.

Roguelike is a subgenre of dungeon crawling - small-scale tactics games with an emphasis on exploration.
- Spelunky cannot be a roguelike because it is not a dungeon crawling game. You may explore in it, but it's not a tactics game, it's a platformer.
- This means it cannot be a platforming roguelike either. In order for a game to be any type of roguelike it has to be a roguelike. It can't be a platforming roguelike if it's not a roguelike.
The most compelling arguments for Spelunky's "roguelike qualities" are its permadeath and randomly-generated levels.
- If permadeath means a game has roguelike qualities, then plenty of games before Rogue had roguelike qualities; in fact, every arcade game had roguelike qualities. Including the platformers. And since then, plenty of platformers have been released without save features. I have serious trouble believing all of those games are "platformers with roguelike qualities". Releasing a platformer with no save function is just releasing a platformer with no save function. I would welcome an argument against this, if anyone has a good one.
- Randomly-generated levels aren't even an element of roguelikes. If you refuse to abandon your grip on the Berlin Interpretation you're welcome to stop reading at this point. Randomization is an element of roguelikes. It works well in roguelikes because of the permadeath - it keeps things interesting and challenging because no matter how many times you have to go through the same level it's not the same as it was previously. Levels are randomly generated in roguelikes because there's no reasonable way to stock the game with enough hand-crafted levels to keep it entertaining through all of the expected deaths. Hand-crafted levels will always be of higher average quality than randomly generated levels because careful design offers much more control over the challenge presented. Randomly generated levels are a shortcut to the randomization of content found in roguelikes. Randomization of content is in no way exclusive to roguelikes; it's even present in many platformers, mostly through enemy behavior.

A shorter recap: Spelunky cannot be a roguelike (or platforming roguelike) because it's not a part of the dungeon crawling genre. Spelunky cannot be a platformer with roguelike qualities because those roguelike qualities would be its permadeath and random level generation, and neither of those is actually a quality unique to roguelikes.

My favorite part of the Berlin Interpretation is that it allows for any or none of its listed criteria to be present in any given rogue-like game.  So, according to that, this forum post is equally valid as being a rouge-like game.  I feel more roguish for having posted it.

Look what you've done. You've killed a perfectly valid word. It was injured, we were trying to revive it to full ability, but you killed it. The FBI have already backtracked you IP. Prepare to be tried for lexiconic murder of the first degree.

Criptfeind has convinced me. I agree with him now.

[freeformschooler]

I dont know if many people are actually trying to argue that Spelunky is more roguelike than platformer per se. I would argue that it is irrelevant and difficult to quantify, It felt like both a roguelike and a platformer to me.

Also why is important whether Spelunky is slightly more roguelike or slightly more platformer? I mean, it's obviously got roguelike elements and platformer elements (no, I don't agree with your incredibly restrictive definition of roguelike elements that invalidates some prominent roguelikes). Why is someone wrong for saying it's one or the other or both? As I've been trying to hint throughout the thread, the word doesn't fall apart if someone broadens it. If some person has only played Spelunky and thinks of that when they think "roguelike," feel free to educate them that there are more types of Roguelikes out there, similar to how there are many extremely varied types of games that are considered Platformers out there.

I also think I already said it's best described a "roguelike platformer." The author of the game makes no intent to hide either its roguelikeness or its platformerness. Both are displayed very prominently in the relevant official information. Basically: what is the goal of this debate? What is gained if Spelunky is Somewhat More Platformer Than Roguelike? Are we all supposed to start instead calling it a Platformer With Randomly Generated Levels? Because that's more of a pain in the ass to write out than Roguelike Platformer and tells me a lot less about the game than Roguelike Platformer.

Roguelike is a subgenre of dungeon crawling - small-scale tactics games with an emphasis on exploration.

Worth noting is that Spelunky... is pretty much this, just in platformer format. I mean, what more do you want? Are you restricting tactics to turn-based click-this-choose-target-hope-for-a-good-roll tactics? Fun, you've invalidated even more semi-prominent roguelikes of their roguelikeness. Or does Spelunky not have enough exploration? It doesn't have any less than Rogue or Angband, for example.

Also, one last note: I can name hundreds of games fitting the definition you gave that are not considered "roguelikes." If you don't want to the term broadened to include, Spelunky, why broaden it to include heaps of early CRPGS, for example, many of which were literally "Small-scale tactics games with an emphasis on exploration?"

[Lectorog]

The author of the game makes no intent to hide either its roguelikeness or its platformerness. Both are displayed very prominently in the relevant official information.

The author of the game exploits the term "roguelike" to draw more game popularity and make players feel good about themselves, overall making himself famous and rich.

it's obviously got roguelike elements

at first i was like
but then

no, I don't agree with your incredibly restrictive definition of roguelike elements

so i was like

It's clear that you know how I'm going to respond and it will be entirely invalidated by your grip on the Berlin Interpretation and concept of "roguelike feel" so I guess the debate between you and me is finished, for now at least. I'll be waiting in case anything interesting comes up.

[freeformschooler]

It's clear that you know how I'm going to respond and it will be entirely invalidated by your grip on the Berlin Interpretation and concept of "roguelike feel" so I guess the debate between you and me is finished, for now at least. I'll be waiting in case anything interesting comes up.

Okay. Then instead of dodging the argument, respond to this, at least:

Also, one last note: I can name hundreds of games fitting the definition you gave that are not considered "roguelikes." If you don't want to the term broadened to include, Spelunky, why broaden it to include heaps of early CRPGS, for example, many of which were literally "Small-scale tactics games with an emphasis on exploration?"

I've already said Berlin Interpretation is just an interpretation. It is the most commonly accepted one. It's not the best one. I agree on that. I don't agree yours is the best one.

[Pnx]

Alright man, I'll bite, here's my very thorough opinion on this particular semantics debate.

So roguelike genre is really popular to make games for, mostly because it's simplistic enough in interface, but potentially complex enough in mechanics to make it interesting yet relatively easy to put together a game. This has led to hundreds of roguelikes, and most of them alter the formula in some way, which is what has led to previous debates about "what makes it a roguelike", because some of them have really bent the genre pretty far, spelunky being one of the more obvious examples.

When I said the "when does it stop being a roguelike" debate was a really old debate, I was serious, it's basically the same thing as the ship of Theseus, which I'll relate to you now.

Basically there were allegedly some ancient Greeks that claimed to own Theseus's ship. Theseus (if he even really existed), was long dead, and so was his original crew, and in addition every plank and nail of the ship had been replaced at one point or another, so that it could be said that no part of the ship when it belonged to Theseus was actually still around. But they still called it Theseus's ship, you might have heard this one as "my grandfather's axe", or "George Washington's axe", the handle was replaced, then the head was replaced, but it was still his axe.

The ancient Greeks held pretty lengthy debates about whether it was still Theseus's ship, and if it was not when it stopped being his ship (or would in the future), there's been a lot of proposed solutions to the problem, and I'll share three of them now.

1. It's a sliding scale.
Basically you can say that rather than being either Roguelike, or Not Roguelike, you can say something is 70% Roguelike, and once it loses all it's last Rogelike planks, it stops being a Roguelike at all.

The drawback: This can be confusing considering all things are essentially amalgamations of lots of other things, so Spelunky might also be said to be 20% Metroid, and a variety of other things.

2. It's all about the spirit.
It's a Roguelike if people feel it's a Roguelike, even if it's lost some of the elements of a Roguelike.

The drawback: This is that you may reach a point where it loses all it's Roguelike aspects, then you're stuck wondering why you're even calling it a Roguelike at all when it's nothing like Rogue. Some people may also wind up feeling it's a Roguelike, while others disagree, such as is happening now.

3. This is all sort of silly.
"Roguelike", or "Theseus's Ship" are all just categorizations, they're tools we use to organise the world, and they have no objective meaning. The universe itself does not care what we call things, humans put these categorisations on stuff and they mean whatever we want them to mean. Now while it's definitely necessary to have some agreed on conventions for what a category includes, but bickering over the exact details is honestly a little petty. It might be better to just accept that not everyone is going to have the same definition for a word, and not worry about it so much.

The drawback: You might get involved in fewer semantics debates. You may also accidentally experience a better quality of life because of this, except when you get drawn into sardonically berating people for having semantics debates.

[freeformschooler]

I disagree entirely on that last part; my quality of life has been greatly improved by making fun of people for one meaningless semantic debate right after finishing up participation in another.

[Lectorog]

Okay. Then instead of dodging the argument, respond to this, at least:

I didn't notice that part until after I posted. I honestly don't understand how I'm dodging the argument, but that's not the argument here.

The dungeon crawling genre is "small-scale tactics with an emphasis on exploration". By my interpretation, roguelike goes a step further: It is a dungeon crawl with no conventional or convenient save system that has high replayability due to randomization of content. By this definition, it must fit into the dungeon crawl genre, its save system must not make a run of the game easier than a lack of save system, and it must have randomized content that increases replayability.

I know of no CRPGs that fall under my definition that I don't think are roguelikes. I don't have any concept of the CRPGs you're mentioning at all. Please provide examples or a sufficient explanation, and I will respond duly.

Pnx, I can guarantee you that I will continue worrying about definition optimization for a long time.

[alexandertnt]

(Mario's "power-up box" is resource management comparable to roguelikes?? Really?)

Hey that's some stressful stuff man. Many seconds have been spent wondering what to put there.

You apologise for being offensive and then you are offensive again. Keeping up the "CIVIL DEBATE", I see .

But OK (ignoring the fact you missed my entire point) Spelunky is now not a roguelike at all. Happy?

[freeformschooler]

Okay. Then instead of dodging the argument, respond to this, at least:

I didn't notice that part until after I posted. I honestly don't understand how I'm dodging the argument, but that's not the argument here.

The dungeon crawling genre is "small-scale tactics with an emphasis on exploration". By my interpretation, roguelike goes a step further: It is a dungeon crawl with no conventional or convenient save system that has high replayability due to randomization of content. By this definition, it must fit into the dungeon crawl genre, its save system must not make a run of the game easier than a lack of save system, and it must have randomized content that increases replayability.

and it must have randomized content that increases replayability.

But... didn't you literally just say

- Randomly-generated levels aren't even an element of roguelikes.

Could you clarify this? Do you think randomized encounters/levels/other content are or are not a feature of roguelikes? I am getting confused by your intent.

[Lectorog]

(Mario's "power-up box" is resource management comparable to roguelikes?? Really?)

Hey that's some stressful stuff man. Many seconds have been spent wondering what to put there.

You apologise for being offensive and then you are offensive again. Keeping up the "CIVIL DEBATE", I see .

Whoa whoa whoa. You found my joke about the Stress of Mario resource management to be offensive?

@ffs
Any randomized content that increases replayability is an element of a roguelike under my definition. Fully randomized level generation is only one possibility.
Plenty of things outside of roguelikes have randomly-generated levels. Randomly-generated levels are not inherently a roguelike kind of thing.
All roguelikes have randomization, but not all games with randomization are roguelikes. It's also too common a feature to call it a roguelike quality when it's in another game.

[freeformschooler]

Any randomized content that increases replayability is an element of a roguelike under my definition. Fully randomized level generation is only one possibility.
Plenty of things outside of roguelikes have randomly-generated levels. Randomly-generated levels are not inherently a roguelike kind of thing.
All roguelikes have randomization, but not all games with randomization are roguelikes. It's also too common a feature to call it a roguelike quality when it's in another game.

  I am slain. I am simply too confused by your definition. Sorry. It seems good, but it also seems like working through an incredibly complicated function solely comprised of if, else and switch statements to determine the Roguelikeness of a Roguelike.

Here's my last-ditch effort at understanding the core of the debate:

The author of the game exploits the term "roguelike" to draw more game popularity and make players feel good about themselves, overall making himself famous and rich.

Is this why you hold games like Spelunky in opposition to the term Roguelike? As I understand it, you perceive Yu as Selling Out the term roguelike by applying it to something you do not consider a roguelike. Is this what really grinds your gears about the whole topic? Because if not, I'm lost on that, too.

[Lectorog]

I'll make a last effort to clear it up.

A roguelike needs the following three elements. If a game has all three elements, it is a roguelike; if it does not have all three in full, it is not a roguelike. None of these features is exclusive to roguelikes; it is only together that they create the genre.
1) The game fits into the genre "dungeon crawl".
2) The game lacks a conventional or convenient save system. If a save system is present, its presence must not decrease the difficulty of the game.
3) The game contains randomized content which increases the replayability of the game.

Spelunky does contain elements 2 and 3, which plenty of other games do as well. Because of the exclusivity of my definition, possessing those two qualities puts it no closer to being a roguelike than any other game; being a roguelike is an all or nothing deal under my definition. (Because I support the use of categorical definitions to actually categorize things and separate them from each other. I support individualization of games over the blending of genres.)

The author of the game exploits the term "roguelike" to draw more game popularity and make players feel good about themselves, overall making himself famous and rich.

Is this why you hold games like Spelunky in opposition to the term Roguelike? As I understand it, you perceive Yu as Selling Out the term roguelike by applying it to something you do not consider a roguelike. Is this what really grinds your gears about the whole topic? Because if not, I'm lost on that, too.

I think it's something thoroughly worth considering before deciding whether or not it should be a roguelike. "It doesn't fit the traditional view of roguelike, so why should it be called one? One reason is that the game creator stands to profit from it being called a roguelike. He's strongly perpetuating the claim that it's a roguelike. Hmm. I should make sure the evidence really fits before I side with him."

Really though I only exist to oppose. I don't even know if I believe the claim or not; it wouldn't make a difference.

The problem isn't solely Yu abusing the term "roguelike". His ability to do so is more the symptom of the real problem, which is a perfectly good word decomposing into indefinite broadness and lack of clarity.

[alexandertnt]

Whoa whoa whoa. You found my joke about the Stress of Mario resource management to be offensive?

Oh I see now, you were referring to the mario game mechanic, not the quality of my argument.

My bad.

1) The game fits into the genre "dungeon crawl".

I disagree with this definition.

The author of the game exploits the term "roguelike" to draw more game popularity and make players feel good about themselves, overall making himself famous and rich.

I thought it was roguelike-ey when I played it, having never (and still never) seen any of the advertising either directly or indirectly.
Maby we can call it a roguelikelike and all be happy.

[freeformschooler]

Okay. All of those things in your post there are perfectly reasonable, then. That's probably a very good definition of roguelikes and seems to include most if not all previous prominent roguelikes but not the ones you specifically don't want. Can't deny that.

I don't agree with the last bit and know nothing bad is going to happen to me by people being allowed to mix words with other words. If having strict categorizations for things which must not be transgressed is one of your causes, that is also reasonable. You could even get a job doing it if you wrote the DSM (see: "retard" debate). Please understand that most people, like me, are more lax about categorization and are fine with the usage of a word broadening or degrading over time. I have no attachment to the specific definitions of words at specific points in time - only to the way it affects my life, if at all.

[Neonivek]

I think the definition will fall wherever it lies.

I mean RPG is considered a full on genre even though it is a subgenre and no one complains.