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Comment by kibwen

5 hours ago

Contrast this with the documented philosophy of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, which at least partly positions itself as a philosophical antithesis to Nethack: https://github.com/crawl/crawl/blob/master/crawl-ref/docs/cr...

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kibwen

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sharkjacobs  5 hours ago

I love DCSS, and in abstract I think that "meaningful decisions (no no-brainers)" is a great top priority design principle, but in practice I wish they cared more about maintaining the qualia of the game itself.

I understand why they removed food, because it wasn't "fun" or interesting to experienced players. But it was more than just a time pressure mechanic. Cutting up and eating monsters to make your bread rations go further is as thematic as the difference between Zin and Trog

  • zahlman  4 hours ago

    Honestly, it's still potentially fun because of the logistical challenge (your carrying capacity is limited, so staying fed interferes with the ability to carry loot and equipment) and because of unique food effects that may confer mutations and resistances. Eating is very often not a "no-brainer" decision.

    On the other hand, I love auto-explore and I don't think I could ever go back to a traditional roguelike that lacks it. "I want to see the entire level in case there are interesting things here" is only "not a no-brainer" if prepared food is very scarce and butchery is implausibly inefficient; walking around without interaction doesn't improve the game experience, etc. (And sure, you can balance the game around not needing to explore entire maps to gain experience, but then you spoil the fun for people who do want to do that.)

    • quickthrowman  2 hours ago

      Food was almost never interesting in DCSS, except for maybe Centaurs.

      Once you reached a certain point you either had a giant stack of rations or a giant stack of honeycombs if you were a Spriggan. Random mutations can happen from other non-food sources, and most items are not worth lugging around so it never really forced you to make decisions. I handled long term item storage by setting a waypoint on a square on a finished floor I used to store items. If you have ++Fire, +Cold, and +RMut then you have all of the resistance you’ll need.

      FWIW I’ve won crawl dozens of times, at least once for every race and class. Placed in the top 3 for the 0.10 online tournament, both individually and my team. The two guys who beat me were both child chess prodigies, both won the Morgan Prize and both were multiple time Putnam Fellows; I went to public school and later got a GED. Felt pretty big brained after that tournament lol.

      Haven’t played since 0.13

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