In IRDCon of Roguelike Radio was an interesting idea that roguelike is "major" when it has a lot of players. It's of course not like that. I think a strict definition is both unneccessary and funny, but when the game has complexity level of Nethack it can be called a major roguelike. However in my opinion even Nethack is too simple in a way. It has lots of items and enemies, but I've always thought that as "vertical" complexity. The "horizontal" complexity comes from the number of ways you can interact with the items and game world. It's an area that has a lot of room for improvement and I believe it's more important than the amount of stuff. You can have something like 300+ items, but the gameplay can still be extremely simple.
I'm working on several projects, but I haven't abandoned Teemu. It's a nice project, because it doesn't have to be anything like Kaduria which is really a seriously major project. I can put any wild ideas in Teemu and remove too complex ideas that would take too long to create (in the current version). Teemu has 23 issues to solve ranging from minor bugs to entire level themes. It's not that much, but there are always those difficult features that require more work.
3 comments:
So would you consider CataclysmDDA and Dwarf Fortress: Adventure Mode to be the most major roguelikes? I can't think of any others with more complex interactions.
My problem of course with this complexity idea is that it doesn't necessarily lead to good gameplay. Indeed, it can be quite the enemy of it, since the more interactions and objects you add the more likely you are to result in optimal paths that make all other choices irrelevant. I prefer a small number of balanced interactions with emergent complexity than a base complex game that collapses to simple gameplay.
complexity idea is that it doesn't necessarily lead to good gameplay.
+1000!
Even more, thoughtless expantion of features list leads to disgustingly unfunny gameplay.
However certain level of complexity is a thing in role-playing games and the quality of the gameplay is an unrelated question.
I don't know Cataclysm:DDA, but it seems to be quite complex. DF is.. DF-like game.
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