Hacker News Reader

Comment by lmitchell | Hacker News Reader

And if that's not good enough, there's the one whose game basically opens with 'Losing is fun!': http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Losing

View on HN

Kind of off topic, but the thing I like about the "Losing is fun!" mantra of DF is that "losing" is not the end of the game. It's just another point in history. So "losing" really just advances the story plot -- which is why it's fun. Conversely, "winning" means that you don't have anything left to do and it's "boring". I don't know any other game with this point of view.

Thia is just the general rule for simulation games, in free play mode.

Reach a point where all core problems are solved, and then create your own problems (and try to solve them).

Its just DF community that claimed it as their mantra, and their primary marketing of the game. But all sim games (d)evolve to this.

Kinda like Lucky Strike's "it's toasted!" slogan

Both of which were influenced in their attitude towards losing by a little game known as Nethack [1].

Although I understand Souls doesn't have permadeath, therefore it's probably only half the fun of Nethack.

__________

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetHack

Which in turn took from rogue. Which in turn came from DnD first edition / advanced edition, when DnD was more about navigating dungeon traps than fighting monsters (and not at all similar to modern DnD, which resembles Besthesda RPGs much more than roguelikes)

But Original DnD is where my inspiration-knowledge stops

D&D is descended from wargaming.

And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame) is a pretty old one.

https://alt.org/nethack/ is probably the best way to play it (or watch others do so, which is a pretty cool feature)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com