{"id":1994,"date":"2014-06-11T14:22:18","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T19:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hilbertthm90.wordpress.com\/?p=1994"},"modified":"2022-06-21T15:05:42","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T20:05:42","slug":"why-play-roguelikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2014\/06\/why-play-roguelikes\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Play Roguelike Games?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
In the past, I’ve written<\/a> about<\/a> video games as an important experience for people who value art. Roguelike games are particularly great examples of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In honor of junethack<\/a>, a month-long NetHack tournament, I want to defend roguelike games in general, and NetHack in particular, as a means of providing an experience that is difficult to get from most art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I should first tell you what a roguelike game is. Roughly speaking, it is a game that reproduces a few of the key innovations from Rogue<\/a>, a game that released in 1980! <\/p>\n\n\n\n There’s a lot of debate about what constitutes a roguelike game, but that is beside the point of this post. For us, there are two main ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first is that the levels are randomly generated. This means that every time you play you will have no idea what the levels will look like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This makes the process of discovery fun even after playing it 100 times. In fact, your character is often randomly generated along with items, weapons, and so on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This means that no matter how many times you play, you will have to think on your feet for how best to deal with the situations you are given (this will come up later).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other main, and arguably the most important, feature is so-called “permadeath,” which stands for permanent death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This means that if your character dies, then the game is over. You must start all over again from scratch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can’t save and restart from where you made that mistake. You don’t have multiple lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This feature is probably what turns most modern gamers off of the style. It is brutal and unforgiving. One small mistake made while you zoned out for a few seconds can cost you hours or even days of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the seemingly unfair nature of these games (randomness + permadeath can mean something totally out of your control ends hours of work), they still seem to thrive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n People in my circles enjoy modern indie roguelikes such as The Binding of Isaac<\/em>, Spelunky<\/em>, and FTL (Faster than Light)<\/em>. Every year there is the 7 Day Roguelike Challenge<\/a> where you create a roguelike in 7 days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This brings me to the current NetHack tournament (which is just for fun). NetHack<\/a> is one of the earliest roguelikes. It was released in 1987, yet it’s difficulty and complexity make it widely played to this day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I wouldn’t put its artistic merit in the same camp as those earlier posts which focus on traditional aspects like story, music, and visuals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Don’t get me wrong. You better be familiar with classic literature and mythology if you play this. This ranges from basic things like don’t look at Medusa or you’ll be turned to stone to more obscure things like don’t touch that cockatrice<\/a> or you will turn to stone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, the internal story is not its strong point, though.<\/p>\n\n\nRoguelike Games<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why Play?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
NetHack<\/h3>\n\n\n\n