In class, we debated two questions regarding the Roguelike games we played this week:
- Which is the most exemplary Roguelike
- Which was the most innovative for the Roguelike genre
I don’t think these two points are necessarily in contrast to one another. In fact, I think being an exemplary roguelike probably involves carrying both the core functionality of the game Rogue (Epyx, 1980) and doing something inventive with it, either by enhancing the core functionality such that it feels like a new experience or by adding an additional twist into the mix. Cult of the Lamb (Massive Monster, 2022) attempts to do both of these things by adding in these management/farming sim aspects with the cult and it makes for both a fun and interesting game.
The roguelike elements in the game are arguably the most true to Rogue. Every time you enter the dungeon, you go in without equipment and receive a random loadout on entry. You enter a series of procedurally generated dungeons with procedurally generated rooms all of which you choose the path through. Upon death, unlike the other roguelites discussed, the sense of progression following your death is minimal. In fact, while the other games reward dying by allowing you to unlock new weapons or abilities with accumulated resources, Cult of the Lamb punishes you for not making it through. You lose a chunk of your gathered resources, your cult loses faith in you, and the cult has likely entered a decline in your absence. Dying in the dungeon is punishing rather than forgiving.
However, while the game is fun and the farming sim is tied really well with the roguelike aspect, I don’t think that it can be considered the most exemplary or the most innovative roguelike. (I was part of this group, I couldn’t bring this up in debate). For me, this comes back to the tension between innovating on the genre and remaining true to the source material. Cult of the Lamb is perhaps too innovative to truly be called a roguelike game. The farming sim ends up dominating both your time and attention while playing: you build structures, clean up vomit and poop, perform sermons and rituals to keep up faith and loyalty, giving blessings, dealing with dissenters, providing food via farming and cooking, and the list goes on. It’s only once everything is stabilized that you can take a quick trip into the dungeon to advance the game, gather some more resources and followers, before you have to go back to the cult and start maintenance again. While this does improve as you grow the cult and make everything more self-sufficient, the farming sim aspects still feel like they dominate the gameplay. The roguelike elements end up falling by the wayside, making them feel more tacked on. The maps are rather small and don’t feel diverse, many of the enemies look/feel the same to play against, and much of what is gained can only be used in the cult rather than in the dungeon. Personally, this made the game feel more like a farming sim with some added roguelike gameplay rather than being a roguelike game. In the sense of the roguelike genre, the innovation overtook the Rogue gameplay, so much so that I don’t think Cult of the Lamb can even be considered for being an “exemplary roguelike” or an “innovative roguelike.”
(P.S. I don’t know if anyone else was curious, but apparently, if your entire cult dies, you have two days to gain a single follower otherwise it’s a permanent game over. In the end, even the end of the playthrough is determined by how well you manage the farming sim)
(P.P.S. Since this is almost an entirely semantic argument anyways, I do think it can be considered an innovative farming sim.)
Your post sparked in me that “the exemplary roguelike” seems a lot more polarizing a question than something like “the exemplary farming sim” or for that matter “the exemplary platformer,” and not just because we debated the issue in class today. I think that the key characteristics of some other gaming genres, especially those whose very names describe their function more specifically than something like “roguelike,” for some reason seem much easier to determine- Super Mario Bros. seems to be unquestionably an (if not the) exemplary platformer, as it’s really hard to argue that it isn’t fundamentally a platformer. Since several games exist in that vein, it might be harder to zero in on “the” exemplary platformer, though. I think the roguelike debate is particularly heated since, aside from procedural generation, games as distinct as Dead Cells and FTL: Faster Than Light can each be termed “roguelike” without the element that makes them roguelike being fundamentally obvious to the control design of the game in a way a platformer can be.
I really like you argument here because it brings back the discussion of what genre is. More importantly to me, is genre exclusionary? Can you be both a Roguelike and a Farming Sim? Why not? Couldn’t you then make the case that Hades is an innovative visual novel with Roguelike elements? The lines between genre are a blurry mess at best. Personally, I found that the two halves worked very well as foils to each other. You crusade to gain resources to allow your cult to be more sufficient to crusade longer. And although I agree that the maps were predicable, I found the combat to be fun and enjoyed feeling myself getting better. I think the randomness of the weapon and curse helped with making runs standout; not to mention the tarot cards. I found the sim part comforting in that it would give me a goal besides ‘beat the final boss’. I could be doing a run in which I am just getting resources or one where I am Bee-lining for followers.
Counter to your point, I don’t find the farming sim to be innovative (that doesn’t mean its bad, I really enjoyed it.) And although I enjoyed the crusading, it itself isn’t very innovative. It’s the combination of the two that makes Cult of the Lamb innovative which is why I argue that genre shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.
Your post and the class discussion were quite intriguing, because, for me, it brought up the question: “Is defining the ‘most exemplary Roguelike’ even important?” After all, isn’t “Roguelike” simply a loose category to which quite a few games can be assigned, despite large differences in other, perhaps “non-Roguelike” aspects, or even among the Roguelike elements themselves? For example, is Dead Cells a more exemplary Roguelike than Monster Train, and if so, does that make it a better or worse game at all? In my opinion, because games are often fundamentally different, backed by different visions and creative ideas, any attempt at categorization would surely be an imprecise science; games seldom draw from a single influence, and elements from many categories and genres might manifest in a single game. Thus, it seems to me somewhat arbitrary to assign the title of “most exemplary” of any category, because, as you say, it’s a semantic argument! I think that the purpose of these categories is to group these games based on similarity/influence (‘a’ is the original, ‘b’ has some elements of ‘a’, ‘c’ has some other elements of ‘a’) but not to assess or compare them in terms of merit or I guess “faithfulness” to the original. Game ‘b’ can take influence from game ‘a’, and so can game ‘c’; but while game ‘b’ might be a “better” (more entertaining?) game than ‘c’, I’m unsure of what would be the point of saying “game ‘b’ is a better ‘a’-like than game ‘c.'” I am open to having my mind changed, though!