What's everyone's opinion on How to Survive?
Enjoyed the demo on ps4 enough to buy it on deep sale during the sale on my limited budget; it being under $2 helped that decision.
"Rogue-like" has got to be the most common new description I keep seeing which I have no idea what it means.
Part of the problem is that the definition got nuked in the last few years because games started calling themselves 'roguelites' but nobody used that term so everything started getting called roguelike. Meanwhile, traditional roguelikes also got a boost in popularity due to games like Dungeons of Dredmor simplifying and modernizing certain aspects.
Traditional Roguelike:
Usually a dungeon crawler.
Turn based.
Often either ASCII based or tile based (most popular ascii ones have tile set front ends available nowadays).
Permadeath, you die you die.
Randomized dungeons and lewt (usually 'set' lewt, but what you find is widely variable).
Exploration is key, knowledge is power -- over the course of many deaths, you'll learn solid starting strategies that up your survivability until you can actually beat the game.
Examples: Nethack, Stonesoup, ToME.
Newschool Roguelike/Roguelite (really 'lite', but don't expect anyone to stick to that)
Usually action oriented, like Spelunky or Binding of Isaac.
Retains permadeath.
Retains randomized dungeons and lewt (ie, powerups in BoI, store inventory in Spelunky).
Again, exploration and knowledge trump all, such as learning to use rocks to trigger traps in Spelunky.
Nowadays, games like Mario Brothers would likely be called a roguelike if they came out today, which is borderline ridiculous.
Many older games like the original top down Wolfensteins were actual early 'roguelites' but nobody called them that. It had randomized dungeons, randomized lewt, permadeath, exploration, but was action based. (total gems)
There are also now many other hybrids. For example, Dungeon of the Endless is a RTWP (real time with pause) game that follows almost all other roguelike conventions, except adds retro graphics and a solid tower defense/base building element.
Obviously, there's always been room for some differences in any genre, but 'roguelike' used to mean 'like a game called Rogue' (ie, Nethack, etc.). Now, as a previous poster said, it means 'permadeath' (or not, maybe sorta) because calling it roguelike might help sell my game to the hardcore (I'm one of these suckers, I prefer permadeath games).
Back in the day, permadeath was common. For example, my avatar/name is based on a game called Autoduel from the 80s. If you died, you died. You could buy a clone, but otherwise it would delete your save. And during the final mission, you would lose your clone, and it would delete your save... you had once chance to beat the game or else you started over.
If you want to dip your toes in an easy roguelike that is very accessible and easy enough for beginners to learn/master/love, get Dungeons of Dredmor. Great game.
Do want. Looks great, thanks for the point in its direction.
