Respect

I've just finished listening to a detailed discussion on the Another Castle podcast about Shiren the Wanderer (with the always excellent Anna Anthropy aka auntie pixelante; who'd be on my top 5 game designers worth reading along with David Sirlin, Clint Hocking, the sadly no longer writing Ted Vessenes and only infrequently blogging Soren Johnson) and I was reminded, again, about the incredible amount of respect people have for the roguelike genre.

It feels like everytime a roguelike peeks above the parapets into more mainstream gaming circles, the comment threads are filled with people relating their positive experiences of Nethack, Zangband, Shiren or some other great example of the genre. And game designers especially seem to love roguelikes, for ways they push game design in directions few others seem willing to explore.

Sure, there is the odd person who dismisses the clunky graphics or user interface problems, but they are in the minority.

I hope as a roguelike developer I'm producing something worthy of that level of respect.