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(1 edit) (+4)(-28)

I've deleted a comment chain in which multiple people express their obvious affront that I've decided to label Isleward as a Roguelike and ARPG. 

I stand by my claims and I am very willing to discuss and defend them. That said, I will not allow this comment section to become filled with people who can not resolve disagreements amicably.

If anyone would still like to discuss this matter further, hit me up on Discord or Twitter please.

EDIT: It seems it's not clear enough at this point. This means, if you want to further complain about the genre classification, find another avenue to do it other than the itch.io page. Contact me on Discord where it's possible to have a cohesive discussion, for example.

(1 edit) (+18)(-3)

Honestly I sincerely think you're losing both face and income by calling this game a roguelike.
Here's why:
From the outside looking in it would appear there are effectively two schools of thought regarding roguelikes, for simple need of terms lets call them "traditionalists" and "new wavers"

Traditionalists have a strict set of criteria by which a game can be called a roguelike, a strict set that by which your game apparently does not fit, it may come close, but so do many other tile based games that simply arent. Calling your game a roguelike is due to this liable to annoy traditionalists out of buying/playing your game.

New wavers however will call anything with permadeath and procedural, resetting generation a roguelike. The trouble with pandering to what their market calls a roguelike is that due to the tile based nature of it your game doesnt have the marketability within such a crowd given their desire for swift, snappy action the likes of Spelunky, Isaac, Risk of Rain have. Then there's also the fact that they explicitly require procedural, and "resetting" generation of the world, an MMO the likes of which you've created looks like it would have procedural and "pesistent" generation of the world


This effectively creates a situation where by neither crowd is willing to call your game a roguelike, and both of which ask "why is this even here?". You are much like a cyberpunk cosplayer caught at a hypothetical goth convention whereby those into the victorian era gothic style are at odds with those into post modern goth culture.