Wednesday, 9 January 2008

Poll results for 'What is your favourite commercial roguelike?'; new poll

No surprises here.

Azure Dreams
4 (3%)
Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon
0 (0%)
Chocobo's Dungeon 2
0 (0%)
Diablo
17 (16%)
Diablo II
49 (48%)
Dragon Quest: Shōnen Yangus to Fushigi no Dungeon
0 (0%)
Dungeon Hack
7 (6%)
Fatal Labyrinth
1 (0%)
FATE
9 (8%)
FastCrawl
2 (1%)
Hellgate: London
4 (3%)
Izuna: Legend of the Unemplyed Ninja
2 (1%)
JauntTrooper
1 (0%)
Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals
6 (5%)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Mysterious Dungeon
0 (0%)
Mysterious Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer
6 (5%)
Ragnarok
6 (5%)
Rogue
6 (5%)
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon
0 (0%)
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon 2: Time & Darkness
0 (0%)
Strange Adventures in Infinite Space
3 (2%)
The Nightmare of Druaga: Mysterious Dungeon
0 (0%)
Torneko's Great Adventure: Mysterious Dungeon
1 (0%)
Torneko: The Last Hope
0 (0%)
Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space
5 (4%)
Other
6 (5%)

I hope you were at least surprised to see some of the games on this list. It was a bit thrown together, but I wasn't able to find a comprehensive list of commercial roguelikes: I appear to have missed at least one.

Which brings us to the next poll: 'What features must a game have to be a roguelike?'

6 comments:

  1. Aw, no one else likes JauntTrooper a.k.a. 'Mission: Thunderbolt'? Probably because it was only largely distributed via mail-in-order for classic mac os and then their company went out of business a dozen years ago. It's worth checking out if anyone has an old mac sitting around.

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  2. Mmmh.. I don't think anyone mentioned the "Infinite Dungeons" official commercial module for Neverwinter Nights?
    I have not tried it personally but I'm intending to purchase it just to give it a try.

    In my book it fulfills my 3 basic criteria for a roguelike which are:
    - randomly generated world
    - turn based (in single player NWN, one can pause anytime using the space bar which is imperative to play given the confusion in combat )
    - I'm not sure if they implemented strict permadeath but it's easy to be honest an not Load saved games unless it's for a long break.

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  3. I play too few games. I've hardly even heard of most of those (except the Diablos and FastHack, of course). Was Rogue commercial? Neat.

    For the new poll, it's a pity there wasn't a "neither of the above" option. I can't think of a single item that's necessary for a roguelike. Maybe permadeath (amulets of lifesaving don't count), but that's a maybe. So I'm that one guy who voted "other".

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  4. Okay, I voted for Random level generation, Permadeath and Other on this one. However, to be precise, I should have voted only for "Other" because neither Permadeath nor Random Level Generation represent exactly what I had in mind...

    For me a roguelike is defined by:
    -- RandomNESS -- gameplay is random between play sessions in any way.
    -- PermaFAILURE -- player is responsible for his actions.
    -- cRPG -- the game is a cRPG game

    The last one may sound silly, but if I wouldn't include it, then games like Minesweeper could be clearly categorized as a roguelike xP.

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  5. /me voted for Classes or skills, Randomly generated levels, Turn based combat, Other.

    I would however change them for Randomly Generated Environment (doesnt have to be 'levels') and Turn based interaction (not just combat) :P

    Other stands for: Spatial Consistency (http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Spatial_Consistency)

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  6. I voted:
    -Character advancement
    -Randomly generated levels
    -Turn based combat
    -Other

    At first, I also voted 'Line of sight', but after thinking about it for a moment, I realized what I really meant was exploration, hence my 'other' vote. In a roguelike, you're usually exploring a dungeon, wilderness, or some other previously unknown locale, coming across a wide variety of strange monsters, items with unknown powers, etc. Randomly generated enviroments tie into this - an important part of many roguelikes, and certainly of my enjoyment of them, is that you can never be sure what's around the next corner.

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