Author Topic: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not  (Read 20798 times)

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #30 on: October 15, 2015, 06:41:13 am »
I like the term "procedural death labyrinth" .
At last! Someone said it!!!
Read this!
This page has so many interesting links, among them the Berlin Interpretation and its critisism.

Quote
In the year 2008 several men and women came together in Berlin to create the last, best definition of a roguelike. It failed…

I wish devs and community would use the term PDL... T_T
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Offline wwwhhattt

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #31 on: October 15, 2015, 10:26:09 am »
Still beats 'hardcore retro whatever' mind.

retro just means pixelated graphics, right?
I always imagine retro means nostalgia for a past I never had, but I never get far enough to check.

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #32 on: October 17, 2015, 04:24:40 pm »
It's a pretty pointless argument.

I believe that was my point.

Offline x4000

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #33 on: November 17, 2015, 12:03:41 pm »
Just a heads up that folks might be interesting in a redshirts phase of the alpha, which is around now: https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,18148.0.html
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Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #34 on: November 17, 2015, 01:35:06 pm »
I just read the description of the game on the sub-forum's description.
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procedurally-generated twin-stick shooter
I love this. I feel it's much more accurate and less debate-able than the shaky "roguelike-like".

GG, Arcen.
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Offline Captain Jack

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #35 on: November 17, 2015, 01:37:59 pm »
I just read the description of the game on the sub-forum's description.
Quote
procedurally-generated twin-stick shooter
I love this. I feel it's much more accurate and less debate-able than the shaky "roguelike-like".

GG, Arcen.
:P

Offline x4000

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #36 on: November 17, 2015, 01:51:56 pm »
I just read the description of the game on the sub-forum's description.
Quote
procedurally-generated twin-stick shooter
I love this. I feel it's much more accurate and less debate-able than the shaky "roguelike-like".

GG, Arcen.
:P

IIRC, it was indeed Watashiwa who came up with that. :D
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Offline steelwing

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #37 on: November 17, 2015, 01:57:52 pm »
Just for clarification:  This game will still be playable for mouse-and-keyboard types like me, right?

Offline x4000

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #38 on: November 17, 2015, 02:06:02 pm »
Just for clarification:  This game will still be playable for mouse-and-keyboard types like me, right?

Yes, very much so.  I anticipate mostly playing this with my 360 controller and generally prefer that style of play for this style of game.  However, since I'm testing most often while I'm also using my mouse+keyboard, I'm spending more of my time with the mouse+keyboard controls by a large margin at the moment.

So... yeah.  That is a potential Very Dangerous Thing with this sort of description, because it makes it sound like you need a gamepad, when really either works equally well.  If you're average proficiency with both, the mouse+keyboard is actually superior.  But for someone who is mainly used to the gamepad, there's just as much power there as with the m+k setup, which was very important to me.
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Offline steelwing

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #39 on: November 17, 2015, 02:33:50 pm »
Yay!  8)  Not able to volunteer for this one, but I'm likely to buy later.

Offline x4000

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #40 on: November 17, 2015, 03:18:47 pm »
No worries, and I appreciate it! :)

What sort of genre label would communicate to you what I just said, by the way?  I told you in-a-lot-of-words more or less what it is, but how would I tell you in 2-3 words? I'm really struggling with that, and twin-stick shooter is clearly conveying something very different from what it is.
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Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #41 on: November 17, 2015, 04:24:49 pm »
No worries, and I appreciate it! :)

What sort of genre label would communicate to you what I just said, by the way?  I told you in-a-lot-of-words more or less what it is, but how would I tell you in 2-3 words? I'm really struggling with that, and twin-stick shooter is clearly conveying something very different from what it is.
Can't we get rid of "twin-stick" and just keep "shooter"? I think "shooter" alone is enough to convey that. Or maybe "top-down shooter" or "2D shooter" to highlight the difference with First Personal, 3D shooters.

Also, with "procedurally generated" alone, I feel there is a need for the permadeath element. Maybe "procedurally generated" may be folded into "randomized" (also I prefer "procedurally generated") to make place for something like "hardcore" or "permadeath".

So here are my suggestions:
- Procedurally Generated Permadeath 2D Shooter (still too verbose, IMO)
- Randomized Ironman 2D Shooter (sounds dumbed down)
- Procedural Hardcore 2D Shooter (that kinda sounds catchy...)

The PDL tag may be risky because it's rarely seen, however it get my preference. But I understand why "nope-STFU-pumpkin!!!"
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Offline x4000

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #42 on: November 17, 2015, 04:37:40 pm »
I don't want to scare off people who think that ironman or hardcore sounds... not fun, though.  And honestly the game isn't that way any more than Rogue Legacy or similar is.  Our Darker Purpose, Isaac, etc.  Yeah each run is permadeath, but there's overall meta-progression between runs.
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Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #43 on: November 17, 2015, 04:39:24 pm »
I don't want to scare off people who think that ironman or hardcore sounds... not fun, though.  And honestly the game isn't that way any more than Rogue Legacy or similar is.  Our Darker Purpose, Isaac, etc.  Yeah each run is permadeath, but there's overall meta-progression between runs.
Yeah. I miss the old true-permadeath games. But that's just me. I guess I need to enjoy this new kind of "I must gain something extrinsic" instead of trying to change it.
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Offline GiftGruen

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Re: Please Not Market This As A Roguelike If It Is Not
« Reply #44 on: December 23, 2015, 11:01:45 pm »
I think Rogue Legacy is called a "roguelike RPG". *shudder*

I have to say that Chris' arguments were very convincing for me. I'm actually put off by many of these 'purist' discussions about some word or another, because, really, it's basically complaining about 'you do not use this word the same way I do', which I find narrowminded. It's the same way with every word: It has characteristics that it shares with similar words, its synonyms. It cannot be totally expressed by only combining any of its synonyms in any short way, it always has connotations that its synonyms lack. That's when you know that word is legitimately part of our vocabulary: It's needed to fill a hole in the web of meanings and connotations the other words of our vocabulary already form, the web being spanned by meanings and connotations shared by multiple words (yeah, I'm not very good at metaphors in English, but I hope you get my point).

For me at least roguelike means an at least partly randomized world with the implication of 'positional combat', whether it be turn-based or - like in Rogue Legacy - by quickly reaching the right distance to your enemy at the right time. It also implies managing some sort of resource, possibly one like hitpoints that you can deplete either very fast with bad play or very slowly with near-perfect play. Permadeath depends on the overall balance of the game and its length. I would consider a game with really cheap deaths (I-wanna-be-the-guy-style of cheap) to be very rude to also throw permadeath in your face, while a shorter or an easier game that e.g. focuses on good long-term planning and your ability to survive with the choices you made and the things you sacrificed to gain some other advantage would really lack its main gameplay element if it didn't threaten permadeath.