I really love playing roguelike games. I have to say that the challenge of this type of game, is immensely satisfying if you can learn how to survive.
My favourite roguelikes were ADOM, Nethack, and Angband (Before ZAngband), in that order.
Permadeath is one of those things that's been a constant in roguelikes as far as I can recall. A lot of this stems from Dungeons & Dragons. Though, one thing that I've had a massive issue with, is the lack of ability to bring yourself back from the dead, and a lack of the inclusion of the other planes.
Another thing I don't care for about Roguelikes, is the focus on combat, and generally strict class/level systems. While yes, it does also stem from D&D, I don't enjoy the idea of playing a squishy bard in a game where monsters are going to gang up on my lonesome, and stomp on me. 90% of characters rolled in roguelike games are combat classes, because of the focus on combat.
My final beef with roguelikes is the lack of consistency in the world, and the lack of immersion into such inconsistent worlds.
Many roguelikes are created to be the equivalent of one D&D campaign, including a single bad guy, or item you have to track down and destroy/escape with. I'd much rather see the sophisticated random content generators working in a much more intelligent way. In this post, I intent to outline features I believe would revolutionize the roguelike genre.
World Creation
Instead of a static overworld with random dungeons, or just one random dungeon, I envision a fully randomized plane of existence based around the player's preferences.
The player will pick and choose what sort of world they wish to play in, a high magic world, a low-magic world, a world with no magic, a world without the fantasy races and monsters, etc.
The world then uses a random world generator to create a "large enough" section of the globe. The world generation will being where the player begins his mission. Cities, terrain features, etc. will be generated from that point outward.
Cities and nations will be created using leveled lists, and probability sheets to determine nation alignment, politics, economics, public relations, etc.
Missions:
Quests will be generated by factions being randomly generated, formed, and disbanded, then determining these factions interactions with the individual regions, everything down to individual people will create missions.
Of course, true randomly generated missions would be impossible, so a set of leveled lists would have to be created and continually updated, including some sort of a syntax for plot twists, betrayals, and other such things.
Truly changing worlds:
Each mission will rebalance or further unbalance the gameworld. By destroying an economic center, or capturing a valuable resource production center, one can cause a nation to crumble, or begin another anew.
Wars will rage across landscapes, changing national borders and populations, etc. Essentially, pre-defined behavior will intermix with probability and randomization to create an unpredictable, and ever-evolving world.
Multiple characters per world:
Players generate a world, and can choose in which world to play. Each world will be saved independently of one player. This will allow characters to interact with one another, such as simultaneous play of one or more characters by a single player. This will allow perma-death to become not-so-permanent, if the player can obtain the means by which to bring a dead player back.
This also allows players to use multiple characters to form a party.
Non-combat focuses
Players should be able to pursue goals that do not involve combat. Players should be able to create manipulative people that will use seduction, deception, etc. in order to complete their aims, be they political, economic, revolutionary, etc.
NPC conscription
D&D allowed for the use of NPC characters as conscripts, slaves, allies, and contacts. This is missing from most roguelikes. It would be really nice if a player could actually forge relationships with NPCs, from financial arrangements to courtship.
Bloodlines
I once played a D&D campaign that involved a particular bloodline which was carried through a story spanning six generations and three years of real time. If a rogeulike were to include courtship, one could create a bloodline, be they NPC, or as alternate characters strongly connected to their parents. Or even in a direct link to some of the "plot twists", as potential nemeses later on down the road.
This opens the door to a more complicated way to include some of the more "hated/unfair" aspects of D&D, halfbreeds, and monster/humanoid crossbreeding, also known as templating. Instead of having a billion races on the start menu, you would have to manipulate a relationship with a creature of that race using either playable character, a conscript/slave, or a dominated random.
Crafting
Online games are much simpler than roguelike games in a lot of respects, this is why I don't understand why roguelikes have yet to widely inherit crafting systems and construction into their codebases. After all, there are no graphical limitations or concern with roguelikes, and the size and speed of the game is considerably less important than those of action-rpg hybrids that have become popular in recent years.
Why not throw a fair bit more complexity into the genre?
Well, that's all I have to toss out right now. I've got a LOT more ideas. Essentially, I want to create a computerized Dungeon Master. Sure, it'll never be quite as creative or diverse as the real thing, and it may not be nearly as flexible as D&D, but the more work I put into this engine, the better it's gotten. I've already spent about three years designing the roguelike in Java, and I'm just porting most of my work into BYOND right now, to speed production in order to help me understand balance issues, and to make development a fair bit easier.
Anyway, anybody else got some ideas or opinions on roguelikes? I am expecting a long bit of rebuttal and suggestion from at least two people here (Foomer and Lummox). I wish Lord of Water, Darke, and Flick were still active on the forums... I'd really like to talk to them about roguelikes.
I know a lot of my ideas are a massive departure from what makes it a roguelike in a lot of peoples' minds, but it's not in my mind.
After all, looking at the original inspiration for rogue, D&D, inclusion of aspects far too complicated for rogue at the time, doesn't seem like much of a departure at all, instead it is actually a reversion, going back to the original inspiration.
ID:152068
 Apr 7 2008, 6:24 am
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A lot of what you've described, as Jmurph points out, is the future plans for Dwarf Fortress. Dwarf Fortress was more of a diversion game that Bay 12 started to work on to distract themselves from Slaves to Armok, which was a (poorly-drawn) 3D roguelike game where creatures were randomly built out of body parts and a world was generated that would be different every time. However, because it was based in the same universe, eventually the plans came about to make Dwarf Fortress into Slaves to Armok II, and thus the roguelike aspects of it were born.
The goal of Dwarf Fortress is to make an internally-consistent game world which is living and breathing and which sustains itself. The player acts as a sort of "community will", in that he controls anything from a single person to multiple people and helps shape the denizens of the world in his own vision, but otherwise the concept is that you interact with the world and the world behaves according to its own spirit. The player is also supposed to be able to choose high magic or low magic, high tech or low tech (although Adams finds high-tech a bit sour to the taste), various species and civilisations (or get randomly-generated ones), etc., once the later "Arcs" get completed. Another "roguelike world simulator" that has had some new breath pumped into it is JADE, which had a video and a couple more screenshots posted (finally!) on March 23rd. It's still progressing very slowly, but he appears to want to release an alpha. JADE is much more focused in scope, however -- it's ADOM, but "open world"/"sandbox" instead of plot-driven. P.S. Lord of Water is still very active on these boards, although he plundered a new nickname. | |
I think the campaign nature of Roguelikes is largely their interest, in that a successful game becomes, in a sense, an epic story. Granted I don't think they really do enough to push the storytelling aspect of it, but still, it's one character (or a character and their party) against the odds.
You can have a game like Dwarf Fortress of course, but that's not really a Roguelike in any significant sense. Once you get more open-ended like that, ties to the Roguelike genre start to thin out. The focus on combat is as pronounced as it is because of the dungeon crawl being a survival epic. It doesn't have to be combat-based, though, for a clever designer. One of the major aspects of Roguelikes is that by using items you find or have with you, and can plunder from monsters, you can extend your ability to survive. It's very much about strategy. But a thief class is unlikely to sneak up on a horde of orcs and lift a healing potion from them in any game I've seen. And stealth typically isn't a real factor at all, whereas I think it'd be vital in this environment. When I wrote Below the characters' journey had several aspects to it, combat being just one of them. Avoiding combat was a bigger concern, since it slowed them down and was dangerous. (Stealth was slightly hindered by the need to use torches, however. It was mostly all about keeping sound from traveling a long way.) One of the magic items the party brought along was specifically for stealth, and it forestalled a showdown with a lot of armed goblins. Overall the foes were spread more thinly than you'd typically see in a game, but they were no less dangerous because of course it's not like real people can level up to godlike power. For this reason I tend to think a Roguelike that actually made stealth feasible and valuable would profit from the decreased focus on combat. On the flip side of that coin, you have to make that up with atmosphere, which is not always a Roguelike's best strength. If you decide to make your Roguelike more immersive with graphics and sound though, I think you can add huge tension to the stealth aspects of the game. Lummox JR | |
So, you intend to create a reality simulation? Good luck! I mean that. We eagerly await your first release.
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Yes, I've been following JADE, as you can see from my post, I'm a huge fan of ADOM. As a matter of fact, Thomas Biskup's column written on Roguelike architecture in C was the thing that started me writing roguelikes. What really pushed me to the next level was Michael Hues (of dungeondweller.org), and his articles about immersion, NPC depth using a system of goals, wants, and needs combined with a schedule system.
Lummox's recent articles on Cellular automata actually inspired me to take another look at seeded content. I realized that I could generate massive worlds that were relatively the same each time I used the same seed, and save little data to the HDD until the player had made significant changes to that world. I've been researching for about two years now, the final design concept, and I think I'm close to a set of goals to attempt to meet. Of course, I'll start out finishing the engine, but then move on to making it more flexible, and adding more aspects to it. I'll definitely take a look at dwarf fortress. | |
Yes, I agree with a lot of your points, as per usual, Lummox.
The main point I'd like to analyze is your section about stealth. Stealth has always been a huge part of any game of this genre I've tried to design. I realized the strength of a character once you remove him from sight early on, when I was playing D&D. Most of my friends made fun of my low-level fighters that had more ranks in sneak, a cross-class skill, than in any other class-skill, or for having higher dexterity than strength. I had realized what they wouldn't be able to understand until they saw me in action at around level 10-15 and up. I'd been focusing so much on not being seen up until then, that I was killing beasts that were meant for a party of my level --alone. The simple truth of the matter is, a poisoned dagger when caught in a surprise round, is more effective than ten swings of a broadsword. Why? Because when a monster isn't expecting you, it can't protect itself. I also noticed that two weapons are better than a shield. I did a little bit of math, and two weapons made me 25% more effective in combat (due to the miss-chance). I noticed that this aspect also made me take LESS damage, because I would kill a monster (presumably of my leve) in 25% less rounds, thus negating up to 25% of the damage coming toward me. This simply meant, that if the puny 2-3 AC bonus didn't stop more than 25% of that damage, it would be completely pointless to use a shield. Test after test, the shield stopped no more than 10% more hits on a monster the same level as I. In this way, tactics became a huge part of my in-game strength. I had characters who fought with stealth, dexterity, and superior tactics. I made quick work of armies of monsters, alone because I would find choke points, allowing me to go one-on-one. As an added bonus, I'd grease the ground on which each monster had to pass through to get to me, in order to give me attacks of opportunity when they slipped and fell. I'd take advantage of other dexterity skills in combat, such as tumbling, in order to pass through crowds of enemies unharmed. Fusion of skills was another trick I became quite good with, Jumping into a crowd of enemies and using a swift whirlwind attack was more my style, rather than just great-cleaving everything, and taking that 5 foot step to do it again. Climb and Grappling became an ally later as well, I'd climb walls and pull guards to their deaths. I'd use my friends' skills to my advantage as well, The wizard would cast spiderweb on a group of enemies, I'd throw an alchemist's fire and ignite the web, and the sorceror would create a blinding flash, or a choking cloud of smoke, or even turn the fire into a powerful explosion using pyrotechnics, and while the enemies are failing their saving throws, I'd wade in, blind-fight and a bubble from the tensir's spellbook, allowing me to breathe and not be harmed by the smoke. Using blindfight, I'd mop up what was left. All of these are great tactics when used. I see a lot of roguelike games that do a great job implementing certain aspects, like stealth, and combat, and crowd control. Unfortunately, what many roguelike designers fail to understand, is that these systems are USELESS alone. Without tying them together, without thinking of both the inherent, and the abstract uses for spells, items, and skills, the designer is actually limiting the creativity of his players. | |
Have you begun any work on your "computerized dungeon-master"?
The moderators will probably have my head on a pike for this necro, but I must know. | |
Nah, necromancy is now prevented automatically by the "Archived Thread" system. Anything that you can still reply to is fair game.
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Jtgibson wrote:
Nah, necromancy is now prevented automatically by the "Archived Thread" system. Anything that you can still reply to is fair game. Good. I have grown rather attached to my head. I certainly hope this guy (or girl, as the case may be) come through with this, or I'll have to do it myself. This sounds like too much fun. Just don't make it an MMO, please. That would spoil the whole thing. | |
Dwarf Fortress