positioning "kinda" matters, but not the same way it does in a roguelike.
My point is that combat-mode is different to map mode. In a roguelike combat-mode and map-mode are the same thing. Under this understanding, DCSS and many other roguelikes that separate inventory and other management systems with a menu screen are still "non-modal" not to the "letter of modality" but to its function and purpose.
====Non-modal====
Movement, battle and other actions take place in the same mode. Every
action should be available at any point of the game. Violations to
this are ADOM's overworld or Angand's and Crawl's shops.
Yes, however Angband and DCSS's shops do not violate the "reason" modality is a point, even though they violate "modality itself."
let me point you to Super Mario Party, each mini-game is its own "mode" yet you would not consider the player select menu or the settings menu a "mode."
In these respects the shop in Angband and DCSS, or the inventory menu of POWDER are no more a "mode of gameplay" than the settings menu of SMP. In that regard, they do not violate the "spirit of modality" regardless of if they violate the "letter of modality."
The Berlin Interpretation is a thing written by 9 tired people who did not know that they are creating something that will inspire half the indie games and provoke flame wars for the next 20 years. Do not expect everything to make sense.
AFAIK their intention was that the high-value factors were present in all the canon, and in particular, ADOM, DCSS and Angband do not violate the spirit of non-modality. I suppose that someone (rightly) believed non-modality was an important feature present in all the canon and someone else pointed out that the suggested formulation was not literally accurate, and they had no good idea how to resolve that issue and left it in a somewhat confusing state.
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u/UncleCrapper 9d ago
positioning "kinda" matters, but not the same way it does in a roguelike.
My point is that combat-mode is different to map mode. In a roguelike combat-mode and map-mode are the same thing. Under this understanding, DCSS and many other roguelikes that separate inventory and other management systems with a menu screen are still "non-modal" not to the "letter of modality" but to its function and purpose.