Giant Bomb Presents: Delving into the History of Roguelikes

Cool man. Good work!

You've added some much needed depth to the site.

Whoo! Really excited to listen to this. Have the book shipping my way. Traditional Roguelikes are my jam, my jelly, and my peanut butter.

Awesome...why is this in the forum though?

One day I hope to beat original Rogue...

Good stuff Austin! I'm always psyched when the topic of roguelikes comes up! Quality RL coverage!!!

I love how "National Public Radio" Austin's interview style is.It makes his stuff very listenable.

Personally I love the rouguelike gnene

Also you are my favorite newsman on GiantBomb

Been looking forward to this since hearing about it on the Beastcast. Cool piece of history.

Austin I just want to say I'm super happy with your work so far at Giant Bomb.

I've been reading your freelance stuff for a while, and I am very glad to see you blossoming into your role here.

This is amazing

Thanks, looking forward to listen to this!

Austin you are awesome. Love what you bring to the site!

Agreed, Austin has been a great addition to GB and is filling that Klepeck void that was left and more or less was swallowed into a Ryckert Vacuum.

Go Austin!

Can't wait to load this on my phone. It's going to make tomorrows train journey to work a whole lot easier.

Awesome feature!

This is a really cool feature.

Hell yes. I've been intrigued by this book ever since Austin mentioned it on the Beastcast and I'll almost certainly be picking it up from Amazon.

I'm looking forward to listening to this and have really enjoyed the content Austin has put out so far.

If you get here from the forum post the podcast autoplays.... Autoplay is never the right choice!

Thanks for all the love, everyone! Talking to Austin was a pleasure; I hold a great deal of respect for his work.

I lurk on GB much more than I post, but I thought I'd pop in and answer any questions you might have about Dungeon Hacks. Meanwhile, please enjoy the interview!

This is great! I'm really interested in reading Dungeon Hacks and will definitely pick it up.

Great interview!

Great discussion, thanks to you both!

Super interesting, great work Austin!!

Hey David! Really cool of you to show up here to answer questions!

I don't really have any myself, but I just wanted to say I'm really excited to read the book (it's winging its way to me from Amazon)! I'm incredibly psyched that there is an entire chapter on Moria - I grew up playing that game, and as far as I can tell it is pretty much unknown to the gaming community as a whole. I just want everyone to share the joy of farming white worm masses, bartering with ornery shopkeepers, and spiking doors, hoping the Umber Hulk that's chasing you won't just come through the wall.

@homelessbird: That's awesome! I hope you enjoy the book. I put an interesting format twist on the Moria chapter. You'll have to let me know what you think. (Moria is my favorite roguelike, by the way.)

Here lies Andy

Peperony and chease

@dlcraddock: Hi David. Just ordered the book on Amazon, can't wait to give it a read! I'm sure any question I have will be covered by the book itself, but I'd like to ask how you feel about the "Berlin Interpretation"?

Austin has the best taste in games

@planetfunksquad:It's a little hard and fast for my tastes. One topic I cover in One-Week Dungeons, which is a sort of companion to Dungeon Hacks, is that the definition of "roguelike" is and should be malleable--at least somewhat. Procedural content and permadeath are staples, and should remain staples. Developers can put unique twists on them, but they should be present in some form. However, any element beyond that--ASCII or tiles, turn-based or real-time, bump-based interactions or some other modality--should be open to interpretation. Genres have to evolve in order for publishers, developers, and consumers to remain interested in them.

NetHack is a cool game.

@dlcraddock: What do you think is the sweet spot between diversity & learning curve? Which roguelike does "easy to learn, difficult to master" best? Are there any roguelikes you feel have too many extraneous systems?

What Nethack? Who summoned me.

Thanks Austin, thanks David! I'm excited to read the book. I'll get the paperback soon and get started after I finish up Masters of Doom.

@mikelemmer: 1) Not spawning overly difficult enemies on the first few levels. Let players get their feet wet and play around with your systems before you start spawning dragons and such.

2) Probably ADOM II, especially for players new to roguelikes but accustomed to contemporary RPGs. They can roam a huge world, a graphical veneer to make them feel at home, and lots of deep systems to master once they've gotten their roguelike legs.

3) Probably NetHack. Great game, but the saying "you need a PhD in NetHack to finish NetHack" is abundantly true.

I still remember David from IGN. So it'll be nice to hear from him again.

Look forward to hearing this. While I haven't really played and enjoyed a true roguelike in a long time, I do enjoy playing games like Spelunky and FTL which hit some of the same notes for me. I remember playing the original Rogue on a friend's PC for a few days each summer in the late 80s. Later, I played Dungeon of Doom, a Shareware game on the Mac. I didn't even really make the connection that it was similar to Rogue, but it totally was. It just had actual graphics instead of ASCII.

@csl316: Whoa. That was a long time ago. Glad you remember!

My very first roguelike was The Land, based on Stephen Donaldson's "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant". Without permission of course.

Great to see more in-depth roguelike coverage on the site, thought we'd lose all that after Ian left.

@dlcraddock after seeing that this book exists, I immediately bought a copy of it for my brothers birthday, I hope to read it once he's done with it.

I never understood the current definition of a rogue like game. To me it just seems like how games used to often be, except instead of multiple lives you get one life [although some rogue likes give you ways to get extra lives through in game events and other things]. I mean short of cheat codes, normally games you had to start at the beginning after a game over type situation, normally after a few lives. In the modern definition of a rogue like it seems all it means is that but one life, plus maybe long term upgrades [rogue legacy style or whatever].

Honestly to me what always defined a "rogue like" before it became the cool new trend was the whole moving one turn at a time [normally on a grid] and enemies generally move only at the same moment you move, along with permadeath. Permadeath to me was always the secondary aspect of that genre.

Permadeath games seem like a more apt description of "rogue-like" because that is all the word rogue-like seems to even evoke in games that are trying to be that in most cases. Or Permadeath+ [like new game plus] where the game has some progression even through death [unlocking new things for future runes, or potential for new things (risk of rain, rogue legacy, Tales of Maj'Eyal, ect), or stat upgrades over time].

@thepullquotes: That's great! Thanks for your support. I hope you (and your brother) enjoy the book!

Awesome interview. Gonna buy the book on my kindle as soon as it's done charging.

@alavapenguin: To me the reason games like Spelunky and BOI are roguelikes doesn't just come down to the permadeath aspect of it. It's the procedural generation and inability to predict things like your character progression and enemy placement because of it. You don't just learn a level, like in an old Mario game or a Castlevania. You progress by learning the systems, in turn making your chances of survival go up. Just like Rogue.

I'll play one from time to time, but I've never been huge into roguelikes. I do find it all insanely fascinating though simply as a fan of video game history so I'm about to buy the fuck out of this book.

I'm trying to build my own system based game right now and this was awesome to listen to! It's taking a long time... so it's always great to listen to something that reminds you why you spend your time trying to do this :p

I look forward to checking out the book!

@planetfunksquad@alavapenguin Developers and players get hung up on the definition of roguelikes. I believe the definition should be malleable, but the two fundamental components are permadeath, and procedural content. Procedural content across multiple game systems practically guarantees that those systems will bump into each other and cause interesting things to happen. Those interesting things, coupled with the risk/reward inherent in permadeath, are what keep players coming back to roguelikes and roguelike-likes. Everything else, from aesthetics to movement, is gravy.

After listening to this I can recommend Tales of Maj’Eyal as a starting point beyond the basics. It's graphical, but very much an old-school roguelike in play style. It's also pretty easy to get into the basics, but it's deep enough to last for a very long time if you happen to like it.

Hooray for more people liking Dark Souls 2, that game gets a lot of undo hate.

@shinluis: Hey, I like Bloodborne and LOVED Demon's and Dark Souls 1, too! I look for replay value in games first and foremost, and it's hard to argue that Dark Souls 2 has tons more replay value than any of the other games in the series based solely on its move sets. I also appreciate that Dark Souls 2 wasn't just more of Dark Souls 1--which is kinda what Dark Souls 3 is shaping up to be, for better or worse.

Yeah! I was actually hoping that you would sort of pick up the Roguelike banner after Patrick left. Listening this is making me want to replay Nethack. It's been some time since my last ascension.