Of all the polls I've run, this has probably been the most interesting in terms of results. 136 people voted with the following choices.
80x24 screen | 6 (4%) |
Ascii instead of graphics | 32 (23%) |
Character advancement | 68 (50%) |
Character generation system | 40 (29%) |
Classes or skills | 40 (29%) |
Fantasy setting | 8 (5%) |
Hit points | 30 (22%) |
Keyboard based | 44 (32%) |
Line of sight | 37 (27%) |
Lots of enemies | 45 (33%) |
Lots of items | 47 (34%) |
Overhead view | 53 (38%) |
Permadeath | 77 (56%) |
Randomly generated levels | 102 (75%) |
Shopping | 14 (10%) |
Single @ to control | 41 (30%) |
Single dungeon with multiple floors | 5 (3%) |
Single player | 38 (27%) |
Turn based combat | 77 (56%) |
Unknown items / identify system | 48 (35%) |
Using items in unusual ways | 42 (30%) |
Other | 15 (11%) |
Now I don't think any of the above 'must' exist in a game for it to be a roguelike - I'm a big believer in prototype theory. But there's definitive clusters of essential (randomly generated levels), nearly essential (turn based combat, permadeath), and relatively important features that make interesting reading.
Let's focus on the 'character generation system' for the next two polls. Surprisingly, this is not a critical feature for roguelikes.
First the fun question: 'Choose a class'
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3 comments:
Missing option for the 'Choose a class' poll:
Press '*' for a random class.
Dario
My apologies for not getting the Press '*' for a random class code written. It'll be a 1.0 release item - I'm running this game in version 0.9 at the moment.
Of course, given the scoring system in this game is deterministic, having someone randomly select the highest score would miss the point of the game.
@dario: +1, I always take the random option, regardless of the game! (Press Tab for Stone Soup)
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