I keep hearing from people for whom games like Dungeons of Dredmor are their very first rogue-like, so its been picking up steam. Not all of these people are old-timers like me. I think that there is an audience out there. Steam and some people like Total Biscuit and other Let's Play-ers have certainly been a help as well. Maybe the potential audience is not that big. But maybe it is. How do you know? Mostly the people who are turned off by Dredmor, the ones who declare the loudest that the game sucks, are the rogue-like snobs who think it's too easy or inferior to ADOM or DCSS or TOME, for whatever they think the ideal rogue-like happens to be this week. For the most part, the acceptance by mainstream gamers has actually been pretty good.
As an older player who has no hand-eye coordination, I'd like to see an article covering some of the better, more modern, yet still traditional rogue-likes out there (such as Dungeons of Dredmor, Tome 4, Sword of the Stars: The Pit, as well as some of the upcoming ones like Dungeonmans, and so on. We're currently within a rennaissance of the rogue-like and a lot of indie sites and blogs certainly have been talking about it, but this genre needs more mainstream coverage as well.
@jcknapier711 @GrahamZ Did you actually read what I wrote, or just make up your own meaning for it?
I didn't think I'd need to put this into simple language. Maybe English is not your birth tongue, so I mean no disrespect in that case. I'm Jewish. The Inquisition persecuted and killed Jews living in Spain and Purtugal starting in the 15th century and were active up until the 19th century. The Catholics conducted inquisitions primarily against Christian heretics (which is bad enough), but the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions went a lot further, primarily targeting Jews and Muslims. I'm a descendant of Jews and we were considered Heretics. Do I need simplify this even more. That's how my statement is true and nitpicking (even if it weren't true) says more about your sympathies than about mine.
First of all, your timeline is way off. The Inquisition was not during WWII.
The title refers to the character you are asked to roleplay, someone who's place in history is that of someone known principally as an instrument of persecution for anyone who diverged from the Catholic faith. I would feel the same way were the character you were supposed to 'have fun' playing, were a skinhead, a member of the KKK, or an SS officer.
As a descendent of people who were considered heretics and killed reportedly either by the tens of thousands by the actual inquisition, I find the title to be in incredibly bad taste. The graphics don't bother me as much as that.
I've suffered with depression and an anxiety disorder on and off for most of my life. I can't say that video games have helped or hurt, but I will say that depression makes it difficult to enjoy most things, but video games at least seem to help pass otherwise very painful times.
There are a lot of things that people do naturally to self-medicate their depression, in the absence of actual treatment. This can include overeating, drinking alcohol, staying in bed, social isolation, sleep deprivation (one of my personal favorites), and exercise. Recently, it's been discovered that sleep deprivation does alleviate the symptoms of depression -- learning that helped me understand my behavior a bit better. These are things that people do almost instinctively. But Doctors do tend to recommend exercise to help (although overdoing that can also be harmful).
Video games certainly are a kind of self-medication -- they do take your mind off of your problems. But as someone like myself who also has an anxiety disorder, it can be a means of avoiding stressful situations, and that's probably the last thing you want to do if you have an anxiety disorder.
Great article. For many years, us old-timers have been lamenting the increasing emphasis on graphics over gameplay. This is one of many reasons why I've embraced indie gaming as well as kickstarter. Games don't necessarily need huge budgets to be good. Don't get me wrong, I look forward to the next Elder Scrolls game as much as anyone. But I think a lot of the more interesting stuff is happening with the smaller companies.
@Virkhus I totally agree with you about the annoyance. I realized after a bit that I was being led into helping people and factions that I didn't really give a damn about. In 3, it felt important, like I was helping to heal the world. Plus, on top of all of that, were the game-killing bugs -- that was my last straw. It's the first and only Fallout game that I had no desire to actually complete.
It surely does, but only in the most abstract sense, and that's where I feel the problem lies. In the abstract, there can be no sense of the emotions involved. It separates you emotionally by dealing with the mechanics of a riot. But I get it. People sometimes need to be cut off. They don't want to deal with anything unpleasant, and would rather deal with, for example, war as a game, rather than deal with it as a reality.
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