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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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.
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.
I think the Berlin Interpretation should be revisited. It should not be set in stone.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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’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
I agree with all points. I was hooked for several days. I look forward to playing Kaycee’s Mod soon.
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.
I played Rogue a lot back in the day. Also Hack a bit.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a fantastic roguelike. I’ve been playing it for years. The developer is great about updating it and adding new content and adjusting the mechanics. There is a community for Pixel Dungeon over at !PixelDungeon@lemmy.world
Proper link structure for a Lemmy community is !PixelDungeon@lemmy.world - this should work!
And I also have played SPD quite a lot. Despite it being free, I tossed the developer a couple dollars - they’ve been doing great work with it, a whole new class was added not too long ago. I’m only now picking it up again after some time, and I’ve only beaten the game with 2/5 characters, so I got a lot to learn to get good at it again.
Thank you! Fixed my link.
It’s a tough game. I managed to beat it with all 5 characters, but that took a while. Now I’m working on beating it with all 9 challenges enabled. I’m dying so much 😭
My favorite is Caves Of Qud. The amount of freedom in character build and progression options is just unlike anything else I’ve tried. Also the very distinguishable graphics make it more interesting to me, because “games don’t need to be pretty to be crazy fun”.
I discovered it thanks to Sseth. His other recommended roguelike games (Synthetik, NEO Scavenger, Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead) are all great in their own way.
Qud
Have you ever “won” Qud? I’ve playing it intermittently for several years, and eventhough each time I get farther and farther I usually get bored and die. It doesn’t help that I only play in the ironman mode hahaha, the other modes seem too vanilla, but who knows.
“Sometimes it’s not about the destination, but about the journey itself”
- Aoygtetherox-No-Longer, Queen of the highly entropic beings
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Oh my god, I assumed no one would have ever heard of Wazhack. I bought that one years ago, and am continually surprised when it receives updates. Dev seems like a cool guy, too.
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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.
How come nobody mention The binding of Isaac???
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.
I really enjoyed Everspace. Space-shooter roguelite.
Thanks for the explanation!
The roguelike I keep coming back to these days is Dome Keeper. Resource mining + fighting monsters + casual play duration is a combo I find hard to beat at the moment.
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
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!
My top three are FTL, Hades, Enter the Gungeon
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.
I have been playing UnderMine. The game plays a lot like The Binding of Isaac, but has a few differences like the meta profession after every run where you can unlock new upgrades and you can rescue people inside the mine that are vendors and the like.
The game scratched an inch I had for a new roguelite since I haven’t played one in awhile.
