I have been playing both NetHack and DCSS for years and won both multiple times.
I keep going back to NetHack. There’s something I find very endearing about it even though I know what to expect. Perhaps it’s similar to Stardew Valley. A sense of place, of coherence and care, that DCSS lacks. The shopkeepers and the priests. The guards in Minetown. The Oracle. The “monsters” who are neutral to you based on your alignment. All the graffiti and the Discworld books. Even the bloody Sokoban levels which people love to complain about!
In Stardew Valley you’ve literally got to till the soil and plant seeds and water them. You’ve got to break boulders and cut back weeds and cut down trees, and go fishing in the nearby river or lake. You can look at all of that stuff as “tedious”, just as you might for shopping or item identification or altar sacrifice in NetHack.
But I don’t see it that way. These aren’t tedious chores I must do in order to win the game. These are activities I want to do and relish doing. They’re almost meditative, in a way.
Don’t get me wrong. I still like DCSS. But for all of its philosophy around removing tedium, the game still feels way too long. If you’re considering the game purely on challenge grounds, much of the difficulty disappears after the early game. It’s quite interesting from a tactical perspective in the beginning, up until lair or so. After that it’s mostly just a long grind until the end.
So I really can’t agree that DCSS is a better game than NetHack. It’s very different, scratching a different itch. It’s also much more difficult than NetHack, with very tight balance in the early game.
But I would also say that there are a lot of other Roguelikes that try to do what DCSS does (such as Rift Wizard) and some also that take NetHack’s approach (such as Caves of Qud). This is evidence enough to me that both designs have merit and that people are interested in playing both.
So I would conclude that it’s inappropriate to call DCSS a better game than NetHack. It’s a different game, with different goals, not a replacement.
I keep going back to NetHack. There’s something I find very endearing about it even though I know what to expect. Perhaps it’s similar to Stardew Valley. A sense of place, of coherence and care, that DCSS lacks. The shopkeepers and the priests. The guards in Minetown. The Oracle. The “monsters” who are neutral to you based on your alignment. All the graffiti and the Discworld books. Even the bloody Sokoban levels which people love to complain about!
In Stardew Valley you’ve literally got to till the soil and plant seeds and water them. You’ve got to break boulders and cut back weeds and cut down trees, and go fishing in the nearby river or lake. You can look at all of that stuff as “tedious”, just as you might for shopping or item identification or altar sacrifice in NetHack.
But I don’t see it that way. These aren’t tedious chores I must do in order to win the game. These are activities I want to do and relish doing. They’re almost meditative, in a way.
Don’t get me wrong. I still like DCSS. But for all of its philosophy around removing tedium, the game still feels way too long. If you’re considering the game purely on challenge grounds, much of the difficulty disappears after the early game. It’s quite interesting from a tactical perspective in the beginning, up until lair or so. After that it’s mostly just a long grind until the end.
So I really can’t agree that DCSS is a better game than NetHack. It’s very different, scratching a different itch. It’s also much more difficult than NetHack, with very tight balance in the early game.
But I would also say that there are a lot of other Roguelikes that try to do what DCSS does (such as Rift Wizard) and some also that take NetHack’s approach (such as Caves of Qud). This is evidence enough to me that both designs have merit and that people are interested in playing both.
So I would conclude that it’s inappropriate to call DCSS a better game than NetHack. It’s a different game, with different goals, not a replacement.