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[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I am curious, what we would wind up with if every one of us tried to construct a horror game within the roguelike genre?

If I need to move this to another section of the forums, please tell me where it would be more suitable.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Would we be able to keep it strictly horror?

If we did make one, I feel there would be some random !!FUN!! stuff in there that would either instantly kill the player

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

If we did make one, I feel there would be some random !!FUN!! stuff in there that would either instantly kill the player

Of course, but placed properly, such as a random lever spawning it, that !!fun!! can be used to fuel paranoia, which will help with the horror aspects.

Here's one idea: if you lose to a rare enemy type, sometimes, the 'game over' screen will display a screen along the lines of saying there was a harddrive crash, but then, a sound is played, with the track of something beating on the monitor.  Slowly, the 'harddrive crash' will be torn open, a single eye looking through.  The monster's hands/claws/tentacles tear the opening wider and wider, continually beating on the monitor until the 'game over' is completely torn up, silencing to black.  A few seconds later, it will either flash, with the creature not there, or use the webcam to display the creature over in the corner of your room.  Then it returns to the main screen.

[Tawa]

That would be very difficult to do in ASCII.

[Sirus]

Not all roguelikes need to be in ASCII y'know.

[Tawa]

It's kinda the main point of a roguelike to be in ascii.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

That would be very difficult to do in ASCII.

In the context of this, I am using Roguelike to cover permadeath and having randomly generated characters.  Gameplay could be first-person with 3d elements, a side-scroller, etc. within a prebuilt open-world area.

[Tawa]

Ok, that even breaks the Berlin interpretation. You might as well give your minecraft character a random skin, set it to Hardcore, grab a custom map, and call it a roguelike.

[martinuzz]

It's kinda the main point of a roguelike to be in ascii.

That does not really rhyme well with Tome4 winning the roguelike of the year award twice (or is it even thrice) in a row. Tome4 is definitly not ascii.

[Tawa]

Was it tile-based?

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Ok, that even breaks the Berlin interpretation. You might as well give your minecraft character a random skin, set it to Hardcore, and call it a roguelike.

I was stating a very minimum to keep in mind.  The only thing we would need to break from the Berlin interpretation is the turn-based part, as turn-based allows a person to adjust to a situation, which, for the most effective horror, in my opinion, would not be too effective.  For the random-generation, to make the most level of horror, we would need to have it be going through a number of rooms (or even none) before reaching an 'atmosphere' room containing apocalypse logs, a permanent or temporary change in game mechanics, etc.  Could have a few that don't show up until you have already gone through certain other rooms, e.x. for ordering of apocalypse logs or certain mechanic changes relying upon something of the such already having happened, or the inverse, with certain rooms, ex. dungeon, not being able to show up for X number of rooms after you have encountered a certain type, ex. throne room.

[Tawa]

'kay. That makes sense.

Although, if you ask me, the only way that calling a game a roguelike and involve an element of horror would to make it Lovecraftesque-- that is, psychological horror, such as the death of thousands of people, many of whom have been given long, emotional backstories, or a horrifying descent into insanity for some character dear to the player, possibly their own, instead of 'traditional' methods like jump scares and frightening images. Otherwise, you're better off making a horror game and implementing permadeath instead of labeling it a roguelike horror game.

Otherwise, that would be like having an action movie about a chain-smoking demon who sweats blood, runs over people in a motorcycle with spiked wheels, has a mohawk-sporting, blood-stained stoner rabbit who sits on his shoulder, and wields a machine gun that never runs out of ammo, then calling the film a childrens' film because of the bunny.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Although, if you ask me, the only way that calling a game a roguelike and involve an element of horror would to make it Lovecraftesque-- that is, psychological horror, such as the death of thousands of people, many of whom have been given long, emotional backstories, or a horrifying descent into insanity for some character dear to the player, possibly their own, instead of 'traditional' methods like jump scares and frightening images. Otherwise, you're better off making a horror game and implementing permadeath instead of labeling it a roguelike horror game.

Psychological Effect: The atmosphere rooms could be wielded for that psychological effect.  Some of them could be consistent, but with different effects, ex. a single eye-like structure along a wall that, if observed, would show one or two different scenes, ranging from a field of burning bodies to a innocent dream that slowly turns into a nightmare.

Other Characters: If we work the atmosphere rooms carefully, it could work.  A character could be introduced in one and, if you manage to get them to survive long enough, more and more atmosphere rooms along their route could display their backstory.  If they do die, you could come across a different set, which show ghostly flashbacks and messages from the rest of their group.

Otherwise, that would be like having an action movie about a chain-smoking demon who sweats blood, runs over people in a motorcycle with spiked wheels, has a mohawk-sporting, blood-stained stoner rabbit who sits on his shoulder, and wields a machine gun that never runs out of ammo, then calling the film a childrens' film because of the bunny.

I could see the point with the Minecraft, but here you're going full out strawman fallacy.

[Tawa]

I like overreacting. My point there was mostly referring to your "worst case scenario/minimal circumstance" of " Gameplay could be first-person with 3d elements, a side-scroller, etc. within a prebuilt open-world area", which is not a roguelike at all. Otherwise, I think you see what I mean, so I'm out.

Bye!

[TheDarkStar]

The idea of this reminds me of a certain SCP. IDK which number it is, but it's that pendant that turns mirrors into doors to another world. As you read the exploration logs, you learn that it is a mostly-dead world, and then you learn why it happened.