Hello all, this is the first post in a series of posts I’ll be making weekly to drum up some diverse discussion relating to all different aspects of gaming. I figured I would start with what I know, and so the first topic is thus: roguelike games. (If you think any of the below description is wrong or misleading, let me know - that’s part of the discussion!)
The name of this genre is derived from the game Rogue, released in 1980. The exact definition of a roguelike has been a topic of discussion for a long time, but the core tenets are usually agreed upon to be random/procedural generation and permanent death (no saving and continuing a run, you have to start over). Many roguelikes have an additional increased focus on collecting items and assembling a “build” over the course of a run. A “pure” roguelike is often claimed to have no meta-progression (that is, no procedural unlocks) and focus more on the journey than the destination - seeing how far you can get, or how high a score you can achieve, rather than reaching a distinct victory condition (not that these games don’t have victory conditions, but that it isn’t the end-all-be-all). The secondary term “roguelite” is often brought out to describe games that deviate from this. Additionally, the term “traditional roguelike” is sometimes employed to indicate a more strict adherence to the older style of this genre, with grid-based dungeon crawling and high complexity. Ultimately, as with a lot of genres, pinning down a 100% ironclad definition is near impossible, but most people that like this type of game could tell you the general “vibe” at a glance.
Here are some questions and subtopics that I encourage people to discuss:
- What are some of your favorite examples of roguelike games?
- What roguelike games do you think stand out in terms of defying the conventions of the genre?
- Do you find there to be a meaningful difference between the usage of “roguelike” and “roguelite” nowadays? Which do you prefer? Where does the “traditional roguelike” fit into this?
- Do you continue to play roguelike games after reaching the “end” / reaching 100% completion? Why, or why not?
- What other genre do you most often enjoy seeing paired with roguelike?
- Is any game with procedural generation and a run-based structure a roguelike, or is there more to it? Where do you personally draw the line?
- What have been some of your best runs across all roguelike games? What’s been memorable?
- Are there any upcoming roguelike games you’re excited for?
Also feel free to bring up anything you like related to the topic! If you have suggestions for future discussion topics, leave them in the suggestion thread.
Additional Resources
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Roguebasin, a wiki dedicated to roguelikes (specifically traditional roguelikes)
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List of all Weekly Discussion Topics(this is the first one, be patient!)
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FTL: Faster than Light, and Into the Breach.
Both are fantastic and made by subset games. FTL the better of the two imo, but that’s personal preference.
CDDA, Dwarf Fortress, and FTL all had a huge impact on the genera of Rougelike or free-form games, and all 3 have slight variations in the degrees of free-form game play which is very welcome.
Most rougelikes I enjoy have a set ending, that being death, or rarely triumph, and playing after either isn’t possible or just not the point for me.
As for the most memorable moment? To set the stage, I was 13, playing FTL blind. I had made a few runs before it, but I had just reached sector 8, the federation base and the last stand for the federation against the rebels.
I had fought the flagship once before, so I knew it was a big-fuckoff flagship with multiple weapon systems, but I had died really quick.
I had my faithful burst lasers, Artemis missiles, and beam, and was charged and ready to take this ship down. And it was a slog of a fight, I lost a lot of ship HP, and was in the red from the flagship missile launcher.
But it died, as my final shot landed, I rejoiced as its left wing broke apart, until I realized the noise and flash of FTL. It escaped. It had multiple stages.
I resolved to chase it down and desteoy the ship once and for all, victory or death! I died to the supercharged drones in about 2 mins flat.
It was then I learned, you don’t win FTL, you just do a little better every run. It still kills me on the harder starts with Captains Edition on.
When he was alive, TotalBiscut made an excellent video on it which does it far more justice than I can in text here.
It escaped. It had multiple stages.
We all share that great WTF moment my fellow captain!
When he was alive, TotalBiscut made an excellent video on it which does it far more justice than I can in text here.
Ahh, the classic “Oh God, everything is on fire” video. Sold me on the game, too.
I started playing roguelikes with flash Binding of Isaac I bought for 99p in a steam sale, pre-Wrath of the Lamb. I’m still playing Rebirth and its expansions well over a decade later. I’d describe it as the perfect game. Why it shines as opposed where other great roguelites don’t is because of how the items interact with each other. The interaction is key. It’s still pure joy to walk into a room and absolutely melt everything in a second because of a synergy you’ve never seen. And now I think about it, what really makes the roguelike genre a favourite of mine is where every run is a challenge from the game: break me. I’d point at Noita as another game with this philosophy. Being given a random selection of tools and trying to cobble them together into something unstoppable.
Hades and cult of the Lamb are great
Both are 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 games for sure, so polished.
Loved Hades, and Cult of the Lamb was really fun at first, but it lacked replayability in my opinion.
yea, hades is just a better game, but i still love cult!
Definitely in my goat list. It nails every aspect of what video games can be. I can’t wait to start anew.
My top three, in no particular order, are:
I like the more roguelite type of games. I like that each run is different whether that means procedural generation of the map or just the starting weapons and pickups change throughout a run. Some of my favorite are the following:
- Dead Cells
- Inscryption - card game meets roguelite
- Cult of the Lamb - city builder meets roguelite
- Peglin - Peggle meets roguelite
- Dicey Dungeons - Roguelite deck builder
- Vampire Survivors - Dead simple game. Only one control!
I could probably come up with more and these aren’t in any particular order, but these are some standouts to me.
I have dead cells and probably have about 45 hours in it and something about it just bugs me. I don’t like the gameplay and can’t really put my finger on why.
I absolutely love inscription and have been thinking about going back to play the mod version. That said phase 2 was my least favorite
I have just shy of 13 hours in Dead Cells. It’s not something I play extensively. It’s one that I pickup, play a run or two, and move on. When I don’t have much time to devote.
I haven’t tried the Kaycee’s Mod (I didn’t double-check my spelling) addon for Inscryption yet. I was trying to beat Cult of the Lamb first. Both are some of my favorite games in the last few years though.
Yeah Kaycee’s mod is it. It seems like it adds a lot to the game.
Is it just not a campaign? Like you just keep going until you die? I feel like that’s what I saw about it. I need to try it soon
Inscryption is somethin special. It’s both a solid deckbuilding roguelite, a deconstruction of a deckbuilding roguelite, and a classic “don’t look up anything about this game just play it” game.
I agree with all points. I was hooked for several days. I look forward to playing Kaycee’s Mod soon.
I’m a sucker for “don’t look up anything about this game just play it” game, so they just earned a sale thanks to you
Slay the Spire is a complete 10/10 for deck builder roguelike.
I don’t remember buying that, but it’s in my Steam Library and Steam Deck Verified. That’s going on the list.
NetHack. With the ASCII graphics. And not because I’m hardcore, I’m actually really bad at it. And I hate the item identification mechanic. But there’s something magical about this game. It feels alive, and the ASCII graphics give it a mystery that can’t be matched by visual spectacles. Idk it’s hard to explain, it’s like a love hate relationship
I’ve been playing some Noita lately. Really interesting concept of mixing and matching spells to create some wonky combos. The reality falls a bit short, though, as a lot of early combos are useless or detrimental and you have no way of knowing unless you test them out. You also don’t unlock new stuff unless you test them out. That can lead to a lot of runs being wasted, you end up playing the early game too much, and it gets a bit repetitive. Fortunately, there are mods that make it a bit less obtuse and more approachable.
Oh man I wish I could get into Noita. It is by all merits a very good game, but I bounced right off it - it was too complex for my brain to get a good grasp of.
IMO it’s not really a genre, since gameplay can vary so widely. It’s more like a template for a progression system that can be applied to many different genres.
Yeah I’m making a rogue like RTS.
Really? Would love to learn more
Against the storm is a “no combat” rogue-like RTS.
It has a progression system, random starting building, difficulty modifiers, and each “round” is you building a colony with various challenges that you wont visit again, but has persistent effects that grant unlocks.
Sweet! I think I saw trailers for it 6 months ago.
I’ll check it out
Calling it an RTS is probably going to give people wrong expectations, as they tend to be built around unit-to-unit combat tactics.
I’d say it’s a town builder with time pressure.
Do you find there to be a meaningful difference between the usage of “roguelike” and “roguelite” nowadays? Which do you prefer?
The difference between roguelike and roguelite is quite significant. I play almost exclusively roguelites but have never touched a single roguelike
Do you continue to play roguelike games after reaching the “end” / reaching 100% completion? Why, or why not?
I don´t think most roguelites actually have an end because of the “just one more run” gameplay loop. After the run is before the run if you ask me
What have been some of your best runs across all roguelike games? What’s been memorable?
The most memorable run I ever had was in FTL: We killed the flagship while using no shields and no cloak in hard mode, advanced edition. I had tailored a special build for the challenge and it worked out! A lot of people on r/ftl didn´t even know it was possible until then- good times!
What are some of your favorite examples of rogue
likelite games?FTL - Faster Than Light: The first roguelite I played, it converted me and is my all time favorite video game across genres. I have 1400h+ in it and still play it sometimes. The combination of unforgiving gameplay and real time with pause, that keeps you constantly under pressure but also gives you unlimited time to think about your next actions makes it unique for me. I enjoy the complexity of the game when it comes to builds, its retro aesthetics and the “race through space” atmosphere
NOVA DRIFT: My most played game right now. When Asteroids, arpg and roguelite had an amphetamine fueled orgy this baby was the result. NOVA DRIFT is all about fast gameplay and quick reflexes. I love how NOVA DRIFT gets me “in the zone” every single run. It is so much fun when the game throws wave after wave at you while you are constantly dodging, killing and leveling up with crazy speed while power ups keep popping up every few seconds. The highly stylized neon art style looks great
HADES: I guess you know it already. If you don´t - try it
Children of MORTA - Family Trails mode: Best roguelite, arpg, dungeon crawler imo. This game distills everything I like from arpgs like Diablo2 and PoE - drastically simplifies the formula without sacrificing it´s soul and then makes a roguelite out of it. It also has very beautiful pixel graphics and is great fun in couch co-op runs
DEAD🔥CELLS: King of the Metroidvania subgenre and for good reason. Waiting for a nice package sale of all DLC until I start playing again
NUCLEAR THRONE: Crack in videogame form, played best with lots of caffeine
STEREDENN: A (really well made!) R-Type/Darius Twin clone roguelite
NEON CHROME: Top down cyberpunk shooter
NINE PARCHMENTS - Hardcore difficulty: If you enjoy playing roguelites in couch co-op sessions, I very much recommend this one
Darkest Dungeon: Do you enjoy feeling depressed, haunted and anxious - all at the same time? Do you also like turn based combat? Then this is the perfect game for you
I found myself really invested in Into the Breach because canonically every run you do is a different timeline so you have to fight just as hard each time and it un incentivises just restarting because you would be abandoning the humans to a grisly death. The mechanic where you can bring one pilot with you is great too.
Speaking of subset games, FTL and especially the mod FTL Multiverse have been very fun.
Hades is potentially my favourite game of all time. For me to absolutely nails this style of game by perfectly weaving in a compelling narrative to the rogue mechanic. It’s also gorgeous with the most ridiculously tight gameplay.
Honourable mention to Enter the Gungeon, haven’t seen that mentioned yet. Very fun game.
Unreal World is probably one of the more interesting roguelikes I’ve ever seen but never played. Also, a lot of people talk about Dwarf Fortress, but don’t mention the adventure mode which is a more standard roguelike adventure, but still very interesting because of the stuff that can happen and how powerful you can get.
My personal definition of ‘roguelike’ is a game that is turn based, with perma-death and procedural generation, and ideally is also grid-based. A ‘traditional roguelike,’ to me, is more a specific set of games (Angband, NetHack, etc.), rather than a genre, but if you did want to use ‘traditional roguelike’ as a genre, it’d have all of the above, plus be a fantasy dungeon-crawler RPG. I also do think roguelikes and rogue-lites are meaningfully distinct, or atleast should be, even if most people don’t consider them to be. Rogue-lites can be very fun games, but when I want a roguelike, I want a roguelike, not a fast-paced bullet hell whatever. The best roguelikes I’ve played thus far are Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (CDDA), and Cogmind. Plus I’ve been thinking of picking up Jupiter Hell and Dead Cells when I can, though AFAIK Dead Cells is more of a rogue-lite than a roguelike.
Old school upvote and boost for the Angband and Hack links.
Though I’ve played games of the roguelike/lite genre for a while, I actually had to do a bit more of a deep dive to make this post. People ascribe a lot of different meanings to roguelike, and I got entirely conflicting messages on why the term roguelite was created. I hope what I put down is accurate enough!
Yeah, opinions on roguelikes/-lites are definitely very divisive, a problem I think that mostly comes down to prescriptive vs descriptive linguistics. Given that, I think you’ve done a perfectly good job in the OP.
Do yourself a favor and pick up Dead Cells. It’s absolutely amazing.
They’ve added so much content to it over the years but the runs are still like 30-45 minutes. The randomized items and gear are masterfully done. It’s like mini-diablo gear builds in 30 minutes, but better than recent Diablos. You get item synergies going etc.
The platforming/combat is snappy and satisfying.
It also understands what makes roguelike games fun that a lot of roguelite games miss. Each run feels different and new so it’s always exciting to start a new run.
One more thing I think is relevant to the discussion on the meaning of ‘roguelike’ is the Berlin Interpretation, though I personally think it’s a touch too narrow to be a usable, non-academic definition. Plus roguebasin (where that link is) could probably be placed in the Additional Resources section, being a wiki dedicated to roguelikes.
====ASCII display====
The traditional display for roguelikes is to represent the tiled world by ASCII characters.
… and this is why I will always prefer roguelites
I think the Berlin Interpretation should be revisited. It should not be set in stone.
holy f.
what a buch of ner. . . i mean . . .rogues.
Oh yes, I found this and debated including it in the post but personally felt that it was an overly narrow definition. I’ll add Roguebasin to the resources though!
I like the more platformer style rogue-lites, a couple favorites that haven’t been mentioned yet are 20XX (rogue-lite tribute/spiritual successor to Mega Man X) and Rogue Legacy (first rogue-lite I ever played, perhaps not as hard as others). For top-down ones I had a bit of fun with Wizard of Legend as well. Never have beaten a roguelike/-lite, but I’ve gotten a decent way into each of the above.
My only contribution to this conversation is that not only does steam seem to have no fucking clue what a rogue like is, but that it certainly can’t tell the difference between the two. So many games are in both of those lists, and many more shouldn’t have the tag. Which sucks cuz I own most of the ACTUAL rogue-likes/lites on steam and am still looking for more
Steam doesn’t add the tags, I think? I remember they were user submitted.
Huh I had no idea, makes a lot more sense!
I think this is one of the big pitfalls of community prescribed tagging. Lord knows the Psychological Horror tag must be a mess.
Lol yeah I didn’t even realize they were user added!
