The Nerdiest of All
August 2, 2007, by Erlog Video games are nerdy. But, not all are created equal. Some games are nerdier than others. As gamers we know this to be true. Madden 2007 is less nerdy than Halo which is less nerdy than Final Fantasy VII which is less nerdy than…phew…Digital Devil Saga? There is, however, one gaming genre that gets top nerd billing – Rogue-likes.
Don't you wanna' grow up to be just like me?
You can search unto the depths of the internet (IRC maybe?) without finding a class of video game more nerdy than Rogue-likes. They provide the most l33t experience to the fewest number of people. There is almost no other games genre that allows a person to be as elitist, snarky, angry, or socially inept about a free and open-source product. While some of this is in jest, I assure you that there is a decent bit of truth to my statements here.
Now, here’s the thing, all of this doesn’t mean you, as a suave in-the-know cultured 21st century gamer, can’t enjoy rogue-likes. You sure can. You can even do it without gaining the weight of a separate 11-year-old, a neck beard, and issues with the female gender arising from the relationship with your mother. I know it sounds like quite a long shot, but trust me. I’ve been there and back, and I’m here to tell you that it’s possible.
Scroll of KERNOD WEL (Identify)
Rogue-like games are a subgenre of RPG’s that concentrate on dungeon crawling and randomly generated elements. Because they are usually created by programmers, their graphics tend to be simple text in most cases. However, this isn’t text as you would see it in things like Zork. This is text used as graphics. The text symbols create the dungeon walls, an ‘F’ represents a fungi, and an ‘@’ represents the player character. These games are known for being extremely complex, high in replay value, dreadfully difficult, and impossible for newbies.
Kids, you'll need DirectX 11 to play this one.
?-c (Abridged History)
Rogue-like games came into being a long time ago at a university you’ll never be able to attend: specifically the 1970’s and somewhere like Berkeley. This is where modern rogue-likes derive their nerdiness from. They were created by the high nerd inquisitors of the day – programmers. Rogue-likes derive their name from an extraordinarily popular rogue-like from the 1980’s called Rogue. It’s just that simple. It was one of the first to incorporate most of the elements described here and take off.
Classic game of rogue.
At the time, most computers were just terminals that connected to a large mainframe computer, and because of the slow network speeds the only type of graphical user interface that could be streamed over the network was text (sometimes colored, but not before 1964). This is what gives rogue-likes their outstanding attention to graphical detail.
But there are also other reasons that this was done. The people crafting these games at the time were not game designers. They were programmers/gamers first and foremost, and they wanted to create something that they could play. Most of the games at the time, unfortunately, weren’t any fun to play for the people that created them. The authors knew all the tricks.
This is where the true beauty of rogue-likes comes in ; the replay value. The programmers bent the power of the Random Number God to their will to create ever-changing dungeons, to confuse players by renaming scrolls, potions, wands to different nonsense each game, and to control the fates of adventurers with enough moxie to cross the threshold. This created a game the authors, as well as their friends, could play.
Interestingly, the first of these games wasn’t very complex. It had a dungeon with a goal of getting to the bottom. It had equipment, spells, potions, monsters etc. But it did not have classes, races, religion, quests, an over world, food, etc. Over time the advancements in rogue-like complexity were made as a way to foil players, and eventually drive them insane.
YASD! (Yet Another STUPID DEATH!!!!)
Guidebook
For those of you still on the fence about trying a rogue-like I will now give you some tips. Firstly, start with Nethack and read the guidebook. Nethack is one of the most popular rogue-likes of all time. This means that nerds have spent a lot of time documenting the many wiles the game may try to throw at you, and it means a large installed userbase to help you whenever you get up the courage to whine for it in IRC. Don’t be afraid. Take solace in the fact that, provided you were in a bar fight, you could kick their ass with a table leg. Your skill in nerd-taming will increase over time.
...plus it's much cheaper than purchasing the Nerd Set
If, unfortunately, you just can’t wrap your nicely primped gelled head around Nethack then try to start with something a little simpler. Dig out a slightly updated version of the original Rogue. That’s all I played for a long time. This will get you used to the interface and some of the common monster symbols. After a while you get both bored and frustrated with the fact that most of the Rogue experience hinges on luck. This is the part where you go back to the first paragraph and continue on with your rogue-like career.
Finally, for those of you all burned out on Nethack. Dig out Angband, zAngband, Slash’em, Dwarf Fortress, Incursion, or any other bizarre variant the multitudes are playing this week.
Ascension
Despite some of the things I might have said about rogue-likes so far in this article, make no mistake, I am a huge fan. They provide a gaming experience that rivals anything else you could ever play in terms of completeness. The world in rogue-likes feels alive, and most of them are written in such a way that the Devteam will think of every single scenario case to provide interesting feedback.
In Nethack, if you polymorph yourself into a Metallivore, then eat a trident, you get a pleasing message as to the refreshing nature of that metallic weapon. Likewise, if you make the mistake of levitating over a kitchen sink, it will pull you down and hurt you. These are just random anecdotes, but the Devteam does, in fact, think of everything. This means that players are often rewarded for thinking around puzzles and obstacles. Nothing feels better, as a gamer, than a world where it feels like it responds in an organic fashion. Rogue-likes provide this.
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