+ what idiot called it roguelike instead of roguehate +- @pillowfort (Mat Jones) +
+ (What follows is some mostly unorganized thoughts about + designing and playing the game, and then some unorganized + explanation of the code changes. The title of this modified + game, by the way, is Rogue (1980), to distinguish it + from Rogue.) +
++ This game was an experiment. Not in the usual sense of + "experimental" game design as something mechanically unusual, + but rather as a system designed to prod at a particular problem + - abundance of violence / lack of romance - when played. It's + not trying to be a "correct" implementation of dating in a + roguelike setting. Rather I'm considering how "deep" our combat + mechanics actually are (they're not, and most modern games are + actually less so than Rogue), and what we demand of + them vs. what we demand of dating mechanics. +
++ I was trying to reverse-triangulate a game design for a + universe in + which e.g. Triad is + unexceptional. If comfortable cuddling rather than explosion was + the default theming of our puzzle games, what might that games + industry have produced during its formative years? +
++ I chose Rogue to start with because its core design can + be traced up to many modern titles, often barely changed or even + simplified. That's kind of bullshit, isn't it? Thirty years and + we're still making games with the same kind of rules about the + same kind of violence, then claiming we don't try emotion + because it's "difficult" to mechanize. I also chose it because + it's a game I enjoy and know well. +
++ I don't want to unpack too much about my own game here + because, who cares? I'm no expert at games criticism. But I do + want to mention a few things. +
++ Adding flirting to the game made the combat mechanics so much + grosser. In roguelikes you kill a lot of stuff, usually + unprompted and as an invader. But no one would + call Rogue a violent game. Well, when you put in a + flirt command, that ends. Just by having a non-violent choice + the resort to combat mechanics, otherwise unmodified, becomes + more disturbing. I'm convinced if we had made even token efforts + towards including this stuff early on, there's no way we'd be + looking at such gross shit like Far Cry 3 today. The + dissonance would be too great. +
++ Similarly the source code is still loaded with references to + "kill", "enemy", "attack", etc., even for non-violent + actions. Problematic units run through the architecture, + content, and output of the program creating a structural, + intersecting push back against my attempts to add non-violent + options. The age of the code means it's fragile and creaky, and + the changes required to fix this would be destabilizing beyond + what I could deal with given the time I had to make it. +
++ Although you can attract multiple monsters, at the end of the + game you can only leave with one. This is my least favorite + decision - I'd rather you be able to leave with all nearby + monsters when you quit. But again, the base game encodes a very + specific (and inaccurate) notion of violence - one specific + entity is the cause of killing you. Mapping that system into + "non-violence" then forces monogamy. +
++ Rogue (1980) adds two character attributes and three + verbs to Rogue. The first attribute + is orientation. It's a set of six on/off flags. Every + monster has a randomly-generated orientation. The player also + has an orientation attribute, which would maybe better be called + presentation - the degree to which the monster's orientation + mixes with the player's determines the probability of a + successful flirt. There's no notion of gender or sex + beyond this representation; that may mean there's no notion of + gender or sex at all depending on how you interpret it. +
++ Successful flirting raises the other new + attribute, interest. When interest gets high enough, + the monster stops attacking the player and starts + accepting given gifts. +
++ Orientation also determines how a monster reacts to gifts, as + the item ID is hashed to produce an "item presentation". Gifts + raise interest much faster than flirting. +
++ Once interest is high enough, you can Embrace the + monster to end the game. You get a score bonus proportional to + the experience points the monster would have given for a kill. + An optimum score is now reliant on getting the amulet and then + dating a D or P on the way back up. Dating + them is not actually harder than dating any given B + or K. +
++ At one point during development embracing enemies was an + alternate method to get rid of them rather than another endgame + state. If you succeeded they disappeared and dropped a new kind + of food item, a date. It was too goofy, and too much + "romance-as-conquest". At another point when I was frustrated + with debugging the pre-ANSI C, I was just going to write a much + longer false context and release Rogue unmodified, but + I'm not a good enough writer and that was too lazy even for me. +
++ The source code alternates between calling @ and the + player "he" and "she" with a preference for the masculine. + There's only one instance of a neutral "him/her". Interestingly + it's in the context of Wearing, which is the action + most closely associated with real-world gender roles, even + though Rogue has no gendered clothing. (Wichmann also + says armor was a late addition to the game, so maybe it's just + because it's from a different developer than the other + comments.) This is years before e.g. the D&D manuals would + do the same. In roguelike communities today, I don't think I've + ever seen anyone call the original @ a woman. +
++ Do you have a problem with any of this stuff? Cool! I'm just a + mostly-conventional cis man who spent my formative years + playing Rogue, the real one. Which is to say, I'm sure + I'm blinded to a lot of things going on here. Roguelike culture + has always been big on remixing and reinterpreting. I would love + to see reconstructions of Hack (1985) and Angband + (1990) and so on, even just descriptions of what they might + be like. Or any feedback / reactions really. +
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