Rogueism

Kinda like Metroid, then, HUH.

Diablo and games like Fire Emblem or FF:Tactics are 100% linear or very nearly so - is extensive exploration really required to be rogueist? I can't figure it out because the linearity of Sierra adventure games really ticks me off, but the games above don't. The Baldur's Gate game I played through on PS2 was totally linear and pretty difficult at times, especially some of the "puzzles."

I'm not sure if I appreciate sheer difficulty as being Rogueist, though. I think perhaps the difference should lie in the puzzle solving. Dragon Warrior games are completely Non-Rogueist because seriously people it's nothing but level grind and a-button mashing. Earthbound/Mother is probably the exception. Diablo vs. Dragon Warrior, though - wtf is the difference besides realtime combat?

I'm way too fuckin' ontological for my own good.

I think Dan's point about inventory weighage-up vs copper->steel->rainbow stuff is useful here but like Diablo is hardly the paragon of roguishness anyway! Linearity seems like kinda a red herring to me, I mean both extreme linearity and extreme non-linearity strike me as potentially positive values, in rogueism...

do the "perfect run" movies circulating on the net represent rougeism?

pls tell me if you do!!

Completely, if they were in fact made in one single take. I'm sure a lot of people take their best times from seperate levels and paste them together into one video as if it were playing through as normal, though I have no proof of this.

and I've read the whole thread... sorry guys

For me, both permadeath and 'having to save all the time' are (at least potentially) rogueist bcz they represent rogueist response to the "problem" of "well, people can save, does this not trivialise the challenge of our game"? So one dude says "we shan't let them save!" while another says "right! well, we'll make them save ALL THE TIME THEN, so it is still challenging!". Whereas a non-rogueist response wld be "yes, but they probably won't save all the time, because that is No Fun"...

x-post yep!

Both roguists and non-roguists like Katamari, because the idea is simple and good and unsullied, and also it is really fun!

"- anti save game trendencies
- permadeath
- etc"

necessarily equal "beautiful ideas" or that more modern RPGs do not. I see it as more of a accommodating vs. ascetic binary, or even indulgent fantasy vs. gritty "realism" (e.g. you die, you DIE). There are plenty of games with "beautiful ideas" but also beautiful visual execution of those ideas, which are not "rogueist." In fact, are rogueist games even allowed to be pretty? Anyway, I have to catch a bus now, later.

yeah I think that's my problem too... I didn't start playing RPGs until like last week, so I got no references

Also where did this idea that playing rogue-like games isn't fun come from!? They're very enjoyable, and not in a masochistic liking-it-because-it's-hard sort of way, but because it is all intricate but makes enough sense w/r/t itself that an accumulated set of knowledge (preferably gained from playing but sometimes from spoilers, I admit) can make one a better player.

Dude you have a job now, I got the whole fuckin' Battle Chest for $19.99 at GameStop!

If you play the game a second time, nothing changes. You don't have much of a leg up, because the "leg up" you get in the game is entirely how many hours you put in, level grind and cashflow being based on pseudorandom combat encounters in which the primary decision you have to make is the timing of your potion drinking or whatever. Additionally, if you're not even given the option to pick the classes of your characters, or where they stand in a formation, or anything like that, you've REALLY got nothing. This also goes for games where you are given an "illusion of choice" like my experience with Front Mission 4, yeah I can customize the shit out of these mecha, but there's clearly one best configuration for each character since their skill path is fixed and bigger guns are bigger guns, for fuck's sake.

In Rogueist games, even though a game might be turn-based and thus require no application of reflexes, you get a "leg up" from additional knowledge acquired AS A PLAYER, so that right from the start you know how to do things better and know about mistakes you have to avoid besides the "I wandered into a desert full of high-level monsters before finishing the 4-hour level grind session in the imp forest" mistake, because that one's bullshit anyway. Knowing the map and where you get your ass kicked (enabling you to MAKE speed runs) isn't about being given valid choices.

I'm on my second attempt at Fire Emblem for GBA and I've already gotten a very different experience that's a lot less riddled with errors than my first one. FE lets you achieve lots of different solutions to the problems it presents and basically forces you to live with your bad decisions by autosaving after every phase of each turn. It is 95% linear in plot and geography, but by omitting the illusion of choices in that regard it makes room for more complicated options in the field.

That's Rogueist, to me. Having to micromanage my peeps' inventories and try carefully to not get them murder death killed is part of it, but mostly what Dan said about being able to be a "better player" on repeat attempts, besides just knowing the map and story chronology.

Roguists would prefer there to be more games that are based on ideas that are beautiful. Non-roguists believe that this is anti-fun, and are maybe right.

(Laura)
I think that's a really romanticized notion. I don't know how

"- anti save game trendencies
- permadeath
- etc"

necessarily equal "beautiful ideas" or that more modern RPGs do not. I see it as more of a accommodating vs. ascetic binary, or even indulgent fantasy vs. gritty "realism" (e.g. you die, you DIE). There are plenty of games with "beautiful ideas" but also beautiful visual execution of those ideas, which are not "rogueist." In fact, are rogueist games even allowed to be pretty?

Okay, you are right to call me on this, I meant a very specific type of beautiful idea, beautiful is maybe even the wrong word rather than say "pure". An example I can think of is Loom (which is pretty much straight-up LucasArts except instead of inventory manipulation you have to cast "spells" by playing "music" on yr distaff to solve puzzles, you learn more as you go etc). Anyway anyway, Loom has a normal and a hard mode, in the normal mode when spell stuff happens you get coloured lights and the musical letters show up etc so you can be all "oh right that's untangle". But on hard, all you hear is the notes, you have to have music-type pitch-hearing to do it.

Ok so, to be to me this type of "hard mode" is fundamentally different to the hard mode on say Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance where there are just more monsters and they have more hitpoints etc - if both games were released with only hard mode, BADA would be "difficult" whereas Loom would be "rogueist" because the hardness would be an *effect* of a decision to choose pureautiful idea over unfrustrating play...

1) Roguelikes: Roguelikes :: Rock : Rockism (a videogame rockist: Tim Rogers!)

2) In a DROD-style puzzlegame, to alter a puzzle from allowing five wrong moves to allowing three is not rogueist. To alter it from allowing three to allowing one is.

Also I should sound less like a wanker, throughout.

Your Loom analogy is elegant.

What about platformers, though. Are there any that even qualify as having roguelike qualities? I remember Clash at Demonhead having a great deal of ridiculous, challenging shit going on, and not letting up for even a minute, but really just being able to choose your own route to the end game a la Mega Man isn't all it takes, is it? It's still the same game over and over, knowing the map is about the only trick you pick up.

Remember in the DOS Red Baron on 5.25" disks the "Realism" settings that would make your plane have all sorts of quirks and shit. Totally!!!!!!