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kawatanNote: I am a mathematician, not an art historian - in fact, I distinctly avoided the humanities and discussing things less than logically in my formal education as soon as I had a choice in the matter* - so I'm sure I'm getting some of the terms wrong and that this post is less than coherent. I think it'd be fascinating to codify this stuff in video format for Youtube (or at least in audio format for Roguelike Radio) but I'm not really sure how.
***
So I watch a lot of PBS Idea Channel on Youtube (and I recommend you do too), as it's filled with wonderful thoughts on the future of expression, on how we think about and predict what's ahead of us, our continually evolving and morphing cultures, and the role of technology in shaping our lives. There was an episode in January about video games as artistic expression as a response to the Museum of Modern Art displaying games within their design wing. It's not one of the best episodes, but I'm linking it anyway just so you can see it. He talks about Heavy Rain's permadeath and Dwarf Fortress' ASCII and permanence of interactive experiences in general, and it's all pretty fascinating.
Of course, linking those things immediately brought me to roguelikes, because I'm me and that's what I think about. Roguelikes are a "genre", yes (and destroying the concept of genre is interesting in and of itself - the same channel talks about this in terms of music, but it's equally true of video games, and I'll get back to this later), but I'm also going to propose that the roguelike is a form of video games, much like how haiku or sonnets are forms of poetry.
Traditionally, haiku create images of nature or time in tiny, bite-sized pieces, extremely regimented in their appearance and structure. (The same channel actually compares haiku and Tweets as well.) This has changed over time - people have torn away at the tradition of the structure, people have expressed different things, and so on, but the general concept is the same: you can say a lot, emotionally, in an extremely tiny space, and it can be artistically relevant and meaningful. What exactly is said and how it is said is up to the haiku writer to decide, and if they decide that fewer than 17 on are necessary, or that perhaps one can emote without a kigo then so be it.
I propose that roguelikes do something like this: there is a core message that the act of making a roguelike states, and messing with this message and bending it to one's will is the exact reason roguelikes are interesting as a set of videogames just like haiku are interesting as a set of poems.
I also propose that the roguelike message is this: the world is a random place and you only get one chance, so you will always need to think given what it has dealt you, and you will often need to run away.**
Some games mess with the "one chance": from turning permadeath off entirely in Dungeons of Dredmor to earned lives in Tales of Maj'Eyal. Some games also posit that you get limited time to think, like Spelunky. Some games discourage running away (sometimes I feel Faster than Light is like that, but I may just be terrible at playing it.) Some games encourage fully exploring to get the rewards and arm yourself for the next battle, like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup's autoexplore. Angband claims you can never go back to where you've once been, with its regenerating levels. Vicious Orcs messes with the discreteness of "level" itself. You are driven by hunger and greed in many, a relic of the original Rogue; you are tasked to even temporarily halt the insanity of the world in Ancient Domains of Mystery, or just your own insanity in Infra Arcana.
And of course: at what point have you broken away from the form/genre, and when is it no longer roguelike? (When is a haiku no longer a haiku, and why do we care?) Is it when you are no longer confined to the dungeon? (ADoM and UnReal World would disagree.) Is it when you are no longer confined to rectangular movement? (Not according to HyperRogue and Rogue Rage.) Is it when death is not permanent? (Dredmor and ToME would disagree.) Is it when you reward the hero instead of the rogue? (Some easier builds in Sword of the Stars: The Pit and DCSS would disagree.) Is it when you move too fast to think? (Spelunky would disagree, and if you play it without pausing so would FTL.) Is it when the hero is no longer solitary? (Steam Marines would disagree, and arguably so would FTL - and so would every summoner/necromancer build in NetHack and DCSS and ADoM and ToME.)
Do other genres work this way? Can one read first-person shooters and fighting games as commentary about war and violence, romantic visual novels on the beauty and futility of romance, sandboxes as commentary about post-scarcity economies? (Okay, that last one is stolen from Idea Channel too***.)
Are there things other roguelikes are "saying", overtly or not?
***
* I did actually go to a very prestigious humanities/liberal-arts focused private school from puberty through the end of high school. And while I did terribly at it, a lot of it HAS rubbed off whether I like it or not.
** For more on how roguelikes are about running away, check out Darren Grey's concept of "The Hero Trap". And you know, Darren Grey's games, which are more overt in their artistic messages than what I'm talking about but still worth a mention.
*** Did I mention that I watched a LOT of Idea Channel today? Like, half of the channel's content? It made for good listening while doing pushups, what can I say.
***
So I watch a lot of PBS Idea Channel on Youtube (and I recommend you do too), as it's filled with wonderful thoughts on the future of expression, on how we think about and predict what's ahead of us, our continually evolving and morphing cultures, and the role of technology in shaping our lives. There was an episode in January about video games as artistic expression as a response to the Museum of Modern Art displaying games within their design wing. It's not one of the best episodes, but I'm linking it anyway just so you can see it. He talks about Heavy Rain's permadeath and Dwarf Fortress' ASCII and permanence of interactive experiences in general, and it's all pretty fascinating.
Of course, linking those things immediately brought me to roguelikes, because I'm me and that's what I think about. Roguelikes are a "genre", yes (and destroying the concept of genre is interesting in and of itself - the same channel talks about this in terms of music, but it's equally true of video games, and I'll get back to this later), but I'm also going to propose that the roguelike is a form of video games, much like how haiku or sonnets are forms of poetry.
Traditionally, haiku create images of nature or time in tiny, bite-sized pieces, extremely regimented in their appearance and structure. (The same channel actually compares haiku and Tweets as well.) This has changed over time - people have torn away at the tradition of the structure, people have expressed different things, and so on, but the general concept is the same: you can say a lot, emotionally, in an extremely tiny space, and it can be artistically relevant and meaningful. What exactly is said and how it is said is up to the haiku writer to decide, and if they decide that fewer than 17 on are necessary, or that perhaps one can emote without a kigo then so be it.
I propose that roguelikes do something like this: there is a core message that the act of making a roguelike states, and messing with this message and bending it to one's will is the exact reason roguelikes are interesting as a set of videogames just like haiku are interesting as a set of poems.
I also propose that the roguelike message is this: the world is a random place and you only get one chance, so you will always need to think given what it has dealt you, and you will often need to run away.**
Some games mess with the "one chance": from turning permadeath off entirely in Dungeons of Dredmor to earned lives in Tales of Maj'Eyal. Some games also posit that you get limited time to think, like Spelunky. Some games discourage running away (sometimes I feel Faster than Light is like that, but I may just be terrible at playing it.) Some games encourage fully exploring to get the rewards and arm yourself for the next battle, like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup's autoexplore. Angband claims you can never go back to where you've once been, with its regenerating levels. Vicious Orcs messes with the discreteness of "level" itself. You are driven by hunger and greed in many, a relic of the original Rogue; you are tasked to even temporarily halt the insanity of the world in Ancient Domains of Mystery, or just your own insanity in Infra Arcana.
And of course: at what point have you broken away from the form/genre, and when is it no longer roguelike? (When is a haiku no longer a haiku, and why do we care?) Is it when you are no longer confined to the dungeon? (ADoM and UnReal World would disagree.) Is it when you are no longer confined to rectangular movement? (Not according to HyperRogue and Rogue Rage.) Is it when death is not permanent? (Dredmor and ToME would disagree.) Is it when you reward the hero instead of the rogue? (Some easier builds in Sword of the Stars: The Pit and DCSS would disagree.) Is it when you move too fast to think? (Spelunky would disagree, and if you play it without pausing so would FTL.) Is it when the hero is no longer solitary? (Steam Marines would disagree, and arguably so would FTL - and so would every summoner/necromancer build in NetHack and DCSS and ADoM and ToME.)
Do other genres work this way? Can one read first-person shooters and fighting games as commentary about war and violence, romantic visual novels on the beauty and futility of romance, sandboxes as commentary about post-scarcity economies? (Okay, that last one is stolen from Idea Channel too***.)
Are there things other roguelikes are "saying", overtly or not?
***
* I did actually go to a very prestigious humanities/liberal-arts focused private school from puberty through the end of high school. And while I did terribly at it, a lot of it HAS rubbed off whether I like it or not.
** For more on how roguelikes are about running away, check out Darren Grey's concept of "The Hero Trap". And you know, Darren Grey's games, which are more overt in their artistic messages than what I'm talking about but still worth a mention.
*** Did I mention that I watched a LOT of Idea Channel today? Like, half of the channel's content? It made for good listening while doing pushups, what can I say.