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[Gluntronics]

Registering a trade mark can be a good idea if the game's name is particularly unusual and you are strongly attached to it.  In most jurisdictions a registered trade mark can also be enforced without yet having a strong brand.  But do bear in mind that you would be spending a moderate chunk of cash, certainly several hundred dollars if not more, for an right that only stops people copying the name (and only in the specific jurisdiction where you register).  It will not stop people cloning the overall game but using a different name, which is a more likely risk if the game does fairly well.  It is unlikely that people will start actively ripping off the actual name and identity of the game unless you reach very high levels of player awareness (e.g. Flappy Bird which now has numerous similarly named imitators) -- by which time you will hopefully have plenty of cash for legal stuff!

Thanks! I appreciate you taking the time to make it a bit more clear. I thought it would be significantly cheaper to obtain.

I guess I can release the game with it's original title "Scrolls: Elders of the Crafted Mines" 

[valrus]

I count as someone tired of actual roguelikes while still excited about their possibilities.  I think the rush of roguelikes isn't exactly a fad, more a collection of gameplay ideas that are powerful in combination, and are being rediscovered.

(It's like RPG progression systems: they worked their way into almost every other genre because they make it easier to pull off a couple important things: giving the player a sense of growing stronger, scaling challenges to the player's power, giving the player foreseeable goals, etc.)

But their power is also their downfall: you can just as easily use the mechanics as a band-aid for otherwise weak gameplay, or reproduce the trimmings and miss the meat altogether.  It's not enough to be random and have permadeath; something about the world has to be learnable and worth learning about, or else, upon death, I won't have that driving need to start again and use what I just learned.

My own personal fatigue, not necessarily shared by anyone else: at this point I tune out when the only thing I can learn is how powerful each monster is and how to kill them more efficiently.  A roguelike that offers more than that, or offers something completely different, has my instant attention.

[armedpatriots]

I am with the consensus here. Make what you can put your heart into, that is always good advice.

[mirrorfish]

  It's not enough to be random and have permadeath; something about the world has to be learnable and worth learning about, or else, upon death, I won't have that driving need to start again and use what I just learned.

My own personal fatigue, not necessarily shared by anyone else: at this point I tune out when the only thing I can learn is how powerful each monster is and how to kill them more efficiently.  A roguelike that offers more than that, or offers something completely different, has my instant attention.

This is a good point. I think you have to make sure what you're making adds to the genre conversation. You can't control whether it will be in fashion by the time you ship. Just go for it and do something authentic and heartfelt!

[IndieHola]

The problem with roguelikes nowadays is that very few of them are actually good. Disclaimer: not here to offend anyone, just voicing my opinion.


Dungeon Crawl with tiles: Not bad, but by the mid game it feels as if you're playing Diablo... but without the satisfying visuals of hordes of goblins dying animations and sounds. Plus, gameplay kinda sucks. I mean, it all pretty much boils down to clicking hordes of monsters to death or killing them with fireballs or other spells. And it's quite hard. By quite hard I mean, after couple of months of playing I usually reach D27 on my average run... but die because I want to explore sub-branches. Also, pretty much the biggest imbalance in this game is ability called smite. It's retarded and very annoying. Basically, there's a sub-branch of the dungeon called Orcish mines and there are Orc Priests out there... The entrance to this branch is in early-mid game... So, you can breeze through all 27 levels of main dungeon, go back to the mines and... die because Orc Priests or High Priests smite you to death. It's monster-only spell, always deals damage, is unavoidable and monsters can spam it until you're dead... which is usually just a couple of turns... if you're near cap and got a lot of hp. If you're going to make a roguelike, please, don't put stupid shit like that in it. There's a difference between "hard" and "fuck-this-stupid-game-not-gonna-play-it-again" difficulty. Crawl features the latter.

Dungeons of dredmor: got graphics and sounds... but overall it just sucks. Gameplay is awful probably the main reason why it sucks. It's like developers just got together and decided:"yo, dawg, letz put every meme we can think of into one game!" So instead of consistent gameplay we have a huge clusterfuck of "memes." It's not funny, it's annoying and boring.

Sword of the stars The Pit: good pretty good graphics and sounds... but yet again. Kinda sucks. RNG is just brutal and after level 10 or so it gets utterly boring and repetitive.


The biggest problem is gameplay... if it sucks, nice graphics won't save your game. Or... you'll have to have SUPERB graphics, but I don't think that's the case with roguelikes.

[pottering]

The problem with roguelikes nowadays is that very few of them are actually good.

You didn't give any example of a roguelike you consider good or what aspects you like, so we don't know what you are comparing those games with. "Just sucks" doesn't say much.

So, you can breeze through all 27 levels of main dungeon, go back to the mines and... die because Orc Priests or High Priests smite you to death.

Man, that's classic for roguelikes, lulling you into a false sense of security then BOOM you are dead.
(And you should always target the spellcasters first in any dungeon crawler anyways.)

[Geti]

Thanks! I appreciate you taking the time to make it a bit more clear. I thought it would be significantly cheaper to obtain.

Just following this up, we (THD) have found its a much better investment of your time to sink your hours into making the game, and making it awesome, than getting bogged down in legal stuff.

Legal stuff really rarely applies to indies, and even where it does (major one being targeted cloning) you need to actually have resources to deal with those events as they come - there's unfortunately no general way to protect yourself from that sort of stuff, shy of making sure your name is the one people mention when they're talking about the game (something that people have been trying to do re: threes vs derivatives), or making something big and complicated enough that people can't really clone it (eg dwarf fortress for its procedural everythings, KAG for its multiplayer destructible competitive world).


Re: the title - Roguelikes aren't worn out right now, but imo the word certainly is.

Tips for making something in an already established genre include being aware of the already existing tropes, and striving to do something innovative with it. You need to be able to appeal to your existing demographic while giving them a reason to play your game over some other competitor. You also obviously want to appeal to as many people as possible, which really just comes down to having a high level of polish and craft.

[IndieHola]

The problem with roguelikes nowadays is that very few of them are actually good.

You didn't give any example of a roguelike you consider good or what aspects you like, so we don't know what you are comparing those games with. "Just sucks" doesn't say much.

So, you can breeze through all 27 levels of main dungeon, go back to the mines and... die because Orc Priests or High Priests smite you to death.

Man, that's classic for roguelikes, lulling you into a false sense of security then BOOM you are dead.
(And you should always target the spellcasters first in any dungeon crawler anyways.)

I consider Brogue somewhat good. I like balanced games. Brogue does balance right. It's hard yet fun. It's simple yet brilliant. While Brogue doesn't have graphics or sounds, I enjoy playing it much more than these 3 roguelikes I mentioned. And I don't really like ASCII graphics. It's weird, isn't it... A free ASCII roguelike being more enjoyable than commercial roguelikes with graphics and sound.


If you're playing melee character and there are more than 10 orcs between you and a spellcaster... and this spellcaster just needs you in his LOS to kill you... that's just dumb. It's not "classic", it's just shitty game design.

[Graham-]

As a non rogue-like player I will say this: usually rogue-likes confuse me. If I understood a rogue-like more easily I'd be far more likely to play it.

[s0]

Re: the title - Roguelikes aren't worn out right now, but imo the word certainly is.

yep that's true

OP: is your game actually a roguelike, as in does it play like rogue, nethack, angband, crawl etc? if it isn't you can probably get away with just not using the word roguelike if you're afraid of market oversaturation.

[pottering]

I consider Brogue somewhat good. I like balanced games. Brogue does balance right. It's hard yet fun. It's simple yet brilliant. While Brogue doesn't have graphics or sounds, I enjoy playing it much more than these 3 roguelikes I mentioned. And I don't really like ASCII graphics. It's weird, isn't it... A  ASCII roguelike being more enjoyable than commercial roguelikes with graphics and sound.


If you're playing melee character and there are more than 10 orcs between you and a spellcaster... and this spellcaster just needs you in his LOS to kill you... that's just dumb. It's not "classic", it's just shitty game design.

Dungeon Crawl and Dredmor are biased towards spellcasters, if you prefer melee they can be frustrating for sure.

From what I understand in roguelikes balance is not a major concern, fun or adherence to some concept take precedence, and some classes are just meant to be a challenge.

Brogue is a bit of an exception, as it has no classes and no races, so it is easier to balance the game.

(Also, I never played The Pit, can't say nothing about it, good or bad.)

[Gluntronics]

Re: the title - Roguelikes aren't worn out right now, but imo the word certainly is.

yep that's true

OP: is your game actually a roguelike, as in does it play like rogue, nethack, angband, crawl etc? if it isn't you can probably get away with just not using the word roguelike if you're afraid of market oversaturation.

Our game is not a true roguelike. It is a "Roguelite" or one of the many other exhausted terms that describes a game that adopts elements from the Roguelike genre.

Our goal was to a make a game with great mechanics and extend replayability through randomized elements of artist made materials. So procedural levels are more shuffled artist made rooms than voxel based creations and all spawns in the game randomize.

[Graham-]

Sounds like if your game is good it will be good. "Roguelite" gets us into such a fuzzy category that I think failure is wrapped around the game's design. If your mechanics/content are unoriginal that will be problematic, or if they just suck or whatever. And if they rock your roguelite-ness will be transient.

[Geti]

From your description, consider not tacking the tag onto the game, use words like "adventure" instead. Rogue-lite is a term I associate with a lot of bullshit, personally :^)

[Gluntronics]

From your description, consider not tacking the tag onto the game, use words like "adventure" instead. Rogue-lite is a term I associate with a lot of bullshit, personally :^)

Yeah! I want to build a game I like then find the genre that describes it instead of fitting a game into the genre. So I was trying to think of a better way of describing it that isn't a bunch of buzzwords. 

[Muz]

Heh roguelites remind me of really shallow diablolike games where the only cool things going on is that you can see your guy in different armors and that the rooms are randomly generated. Nothing cool like being able to turn your opponent's sword arm into a banana and casting 'animate banana' and having the banana-hand stab its previous owner.

[snowyowl]

You've got my hopes up now. Is there actually a game with a "Arm to Banana" spell?

[Muz]

You've got my hopes up now. Is there actually a game with a "Arm to Banana" spell?

http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=IVAN

Pick up a scroll of change materials:
http://www.attnam.com/wiki/Scroll

Banana flesh is one of the materials:
http://www.attnam.com/wiki/Materials