Comment by bitofhope | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bitofhope | Hacker News Reader

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Procedural generation + permadeath includes Tetris and Solitaire.

I just try and avoid the whole word nowadays. The Berlin interpretation was a fairly decent guideline when there were just a bunch of turn-based tile-based dungeon crawlers with randomized levels, many of them with text-based graphics and/or developed under early free software models. Then Diablo came along, brought a real time aspect into it.

Personally, I think the procedural generation aspect is overrated when it comes to the genre definition. Say you fork Rogue and hardcode the level layouts, item and enemy placements and so on. It would probably be an inferior game, but still in the same genre of game, I think. At least the game would change less than if you made it real time or somehow removed the grid lock.

I tend to say something like "turn-based dungeon crawler". This way I can talk about games that are like Nethack or DCSS without having to clarify I don't mean platformers, twin stick shooters or -- god forbid -- deck building games of all things. I like action games just fine, often more than turn-based dungeon crawlers, but the itch they scratch is a different one.

The Berlin Interpretation significantly postdates Diablo II and was written by people deeply familiar with the breadth of the traditional roguelike genre, from the direct Hack and Angband descendents, to lesser-known PC crawls like Telengard and Castle of the Winds, to the non-English descendants via Fushigi no Dungeon. You can (probably should!) argue with its definition but the suggestion that Diablo upended it is silly.

> I tend to say something like "turn-based dungeon crawler".

Like Wizardry, Eye of the Beholder, and MegaTen, got it. (Wait...)

Late reply, but I'll bite.

I was under the impression that BI was a few years older than it is, so thanks for making me check. Actually, the fact it was made so recently and by people so familiar with the diversity of the genre makes me less forgiving of its weird specifics and priorities.

I do not and never did think Diablo single-handedly upended the definition, but I do believe it (and its sequel):

1) Took so many of its design elements from roguelikes that in the context of its time, it was not unreasonable to consider it a new take on that genre's formula

2) Was a major, if not definitive influence on many of the roguelites that would follow afterwards

Actually, if Hades and Angband were both called "diablolikes" instead, there would probably be much less fighting over it. ("Less" not implying none. Genres can always be fought over and naming genres after specific works rarely works well anyway)

As for Wizardry, EotB, Megami Tensei, I genuinely think they look closer to a quintessential roguelike than a lot of roguelites do. If those are the smart-ass edge cases, I'm pretty happy with my wording. I didn't even intend the description to be synonymous with roguelike, but "turn based dungeon crawler" seems to include almost all games I consider to be true roguelikes and less games I don't consider roguelikes than the most actual attempted definitions of roguelike I've seen around.

If it turns out that first-person dungeon RPGs with combat-specific interface are actually an especially prevalent subset of the turn-based dungeon crawler category, I might have to start differentiating the ones with top down perspective or non-modal gameplay. So far I haven't found that to be an issue.

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