Re: Suggestion for a new genre for the database
through the Steam game catalog,[3] and the user-run wiki RogueBasin tracks hundreds of roguelikes and their development.[6] Because of the expansion of numerous variations on the roguelike theme, the gameplay elements characterizing the roguelike genre were explicitly defined at the International Roguelike Development Conference 2008 held in Berlin, Germany; these factors encompass what is known as the "Berlin Interpretation".[7][8][9] Some of the factors used in this definition include:
• Roguelike games create random tile-based levels, monster encounters, and treasure through procedural generation on each new game.[10] Preferably roguelikes adhering to the Berlin Interpretation use ASCII-based graphics.[9] They may include pre-determined levels as well, such as a town level common to the Moria family where the player can buy and sell equipment. Generated layouts typically incorporate rooms connected by corridors, some of which may be preset to some degree (e.g., monster lairs or treasuries). Open areas or natural features, such as rivers, may occur, though these are considered against the Berlin Interpretation.[9] While early roguelikes would have levels confined to the bounds of the terminal screen, other roguelikes enabled a much larger level size, only a portion shown to the player as they moved around it.
End quotation.
Of course, I will be the first to admit that the definitions in the database tend to be utilitarian rather than absolute, i.e. they are created for the games catalogued specifically on this site, rather than trying to make the games in the db adhere to standard sets of pre existing definitions of game genres that might not fit with audiogames anyway, eg, most muds would probably count as mmorpgs, but the db separates them out due to the differences involved in playing muds, and "space invaders games" is not a recognized standard, since graphical shooter games are usually distinguished by their scrolling method, that is their movement visually, but it would not make sense to call them "vertical fixed shooters" (especially given that audio space invaders are so heavily based on a limited field of focus and left/right sterrio movement).
However in the case of "roguelikes" because the genre definition itself boils down to "games like rogue" I would be a little wary of trying to redefine it in context of audiogames.
What might work would be a more nuanced rpg definition, eg, procedurally generated rpg, or "dungeon crawl" that we could then note the characteristics of from scratch, though that still leaves the of whether we have enough games of a given new type to fill that new genre classification, and how we distinguishe the procedurally generated rpg from the standard rpg.
There is also then the related question of whether maze games with no rpg like features at all such as inquisitor's heartbeat and mortalmaze do require their own genre classification outside the rather generic "adventure games", which I confess does sometimes become a bit of a catch all for stuff that doesn't fit in more precise catagories, rather the way "action games"
Oh and yes I am afraid definitions and philosophy post graduate is rather like red rag and bull .
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