There’s been a lot of discussion over what makes something a roguelike. Here’s what you need to know and why it matters.
My takeaway is that it’s only original Rogue fans that care about the delineation of the terms. Is there a modern (i.e. post 2000s game) that matches the definition of a roguelike as given in the article?
There basically is. “Run based games”. Stuff like FTL also fall into that category.
But also? Just because you like Stoneshard doesn’t mean you like Shortest Trip to Earth. Just like how “action games” covers pretty FPS and TPS and Platformers. Or how “FPS” covers arena shooters, Call of Duty, and milsims.
Likes are a pretty strictly defined genre. Lites on the other hand can be almost any genre. You could categorize both as “Run based games” but that leaves you with a very vague definition that says almost nothing about a game except that it´s … run based.
Well, these genre names are rarely chosen intelligently. People were initially just saying that certain games are like Rogue, and that eventually just started to include more and more. In recent history, we’ve also had “Souls-likes” which started out similarly innocent.
I mean, sometimes there’s a relatively intuitive name that people standardize on, like “Jump’n’Run”, but that wasn’t really possible with Roguelikes, as people hardly knew which parts of the Rogue formula were genre-defining.
Well, and it’s also just a rather abstract genre. Even retrospectively, we could only really call it “Permadeath’n’ProceduralMapGeneration”.
The conversation around the two really wears me out. IMO, there’s no need to be so restrictive. We can call them traditional roguelikes, platform roguelikes, whatever, and I think that’s fine. If anything, I think we should have better terminology to differentiate games where the runs are isolated and those where there is meta progression. I don’t think roguelite a good name for the latter.
The conversation around the two really wears me out.
Sorry! I came across a game and realised that there were two distinct terms that I had heard/seen over the years, and so I wondered what the difference was. Never come across discourse over it before, so that’s why I posted.
Nothing against you specifically! It would be more accurate to say that the people who will die on the hill of roguelike being something very specific wear me out. I certainly didn’t intent to make a dig at you, so sorry about that!
We can also just call them all rogue-likes. Everyone intuitively understands there’s a huge space in that by now, and the games can wildly differ. It’s fine. We know that no two MMORPGs are alike, and now two rogue-likes are alike.
Sure, that’s fine if people were actually specifying any sort of modifier. But calling everything a roguelike makes it hard to find the traditional roguelikes for those that like them. I’d be ok if the terms were standardized with modifiers like “Traditional Roguelike”, etc, but they aren’t. Everything with permadeath gets the label roguelike these days.
Don´t get me wrong, I don´t mean to gatekeep (I in fact play lites, not likes). However, a useful orientation when you want to know if a game is a like or not, is in my opinion the Berlin Interpretation
Yep, that’s the only answer that makes sense to anybody who actually plays and likes roguelikes.
As a rule of thumb I like say that if it needs a pause button it’s a 'lite. This doesn’t come close to covering the criteria but it’s a good shortcut to weed out a lot of them.
This is my preferred version. Anything else is overly specific on arbitrary features. It doesn’t matter to me if levels are procedurally generated or randomly chosen from 100 different hand made levels, the result is the same.
Rogue-like: each run is unaffected by any previous run.
I would tweak this slightly. Each run does not have upgrades that carry over into future runs, but you might unlock new characters to play or items to encounter.
I would call FTL a Rogue-like, but arguably a new run can be affected by a previous run if you’ve unlocked a new ship design.
Pretty much, yeah. The genre was called “Rogue-like” because of Rogue, where your runs were all unique. “Rogue-lite” happened when devs wanted to add persistent progress to the game.
They both have random generation of runs, doesn’t even have to be a dungeon crawler. The only difference is that a roguelite has meta-progression: you in some manner earn resources from each run that allow you to gain advantages on future runs
Dead Cells, as far as I recall. What a f****** awesome game.
Oh, and Hades, except that had a lot of dialogue, which this is saying true roguelikes don’t have. But f*** off, Hades is one of the best games in years.
Definitely Dead Cells covers all of those bullet points in the definition though, and I played that for about as long as I played Hades, 120 plus hours or so.
Off the top of my head, pixel dungeon, golden krone hotel, caves of qud, cogmind, zorbus & tangledeep all fit the strictest definition IMO. Probably Jupiter hell and maybe spelunky too
For me at least, the definitions are:
A roguelite is a permadeath, generally procedurally generated game, generally with a metagame over the runs
A roguelike is that, but in addition it’s also a turn based dungeon crawler RPG. I’d say the metagame is a less common aspect with traditional roguelikes
Roguelikes are a pretty specific genre of game that generally feature procedurally generated levels, permadeath, no meta progression, tile-based gameplay, hunger systems, randomized loot appearances, etc. Nethack is probably the best known example of a true roguelike.
Roguelights are a wide variety of games that feature some of the features of true roguelike but not all of them, most commonly procedural generation and permadeath, but most of them feature meta progression.
Honestly if you’ve ever played a true roguelike, the difference is immediately apparent. They’re usually not very similar at all. There’s just a very good chance that you’ve never played one, they’re not exactly wildly popular.
And just to stress: if a game features meta progression it is not a true roguelike. In true roguelikes, you start from zero every time.
This is how I’ve seen it. I only like the Lights usually because I enjoy meta progression. I feel like it makes the difference for me to feel like I’m not just wasting my time. I should also mention I’m pretty terrible at games so the meta progression helps me make progress where other games I’d be stuck too often.
I generally prefer rogue likes these days for the variety, but I do think meta progression can also make it feel like wasting your time in a different way. The game becomes gated by wasting enough time to unlock the rest, and doing so can feel more like an inevitability than an accomplishment.
I get that side of it. I honestly rarely play any games these days looking for feeling like a sense of accomplishment. I just play for an escape more than that.
I also enjoy some grindy games. So the meta progression can fit that for me. But I certainly agree it isn’t for everyone. That is what makes gaming so great. Usually something out there for everyone and it would get pretty boring if they were all the same.
That’s a good question, actually. I’ve played a fair bit of FTL and I do think it hews very close to the spirit of a true roguelike, since starting a game with the same ship is always the same experience. I do think meta unlocks change the way you play the game a bit, though, since you may target unlocks and achievements over victory. I’d ultimately put it on the “light” side, but I agree that the game skirts the line.
I haven’t played slay the spire, but I’m thinking of games like Binding of Isaac with a lot of unlocks, and I’d say that those change the game experience quite a bit depending on what you have unlocked.
Roguelikes come from the age of boomers and gen x, are hard as nails, very complex, have a cursed tome of documentation and take months to reach victory, if at all.
It’s not really gatekeeping to say that not every game that features procedural generation is part of a very old and well-defined genre. Something like Rogue Legacy or Hades are pretty obviously not in the same genre as nethack, angband, or adom.
I don’t really agree with that - just because the playstyle is different doesn’t mean the genre is different.
Besides, individual games have multiple genres. You can have a turn-based roguelike, platformer roguelike, action roguelike, etc. The term roguelike has come to define the common elements of procedural generation + permadeath. Anything else is a secondary genre tag.
My point is that the line between the two is so blurry that I’m not convinced there’s an actual distinction other than elitism. Genre doesn’t mean “every game is exactly the same” having a wide variety in mechanics is a good thing. I don’t think having permanent upgrades outside the dungeon, for instance, is enough to make a game a different genre.
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I always thought rogue-like games were just stealthy sneak games.
Spelunky lacked the spirit of a roguelike? Yeah that’s bullshit. It is the perfect spiritual successor and evolution to classic roguelike games.
It turns out that the genre is defined by permadeath and random generation, that’s about it. Everything else is merely nostalgia.
Why isn’t there just a genre name for both? Painfully uninspired to just tack “like” to any game and dust your hands off for a job well done.
Rogueli*es
There basically is. “Run based games”. Stuff like FTL also fall into that category.
But also? Just because you like Stoneshard doesn’t mean you like Shortest Trip to Earth. Just like how “action games” covers pretty FPS and TPS and Platformers. Or how “FPS” covers arena shooters, Call of Duty, and milsims.
Likes are a pretty strictly defined genre. Lites on the other hand can be almost any genre. You could categorize both as “Run based games” but that leaves you with a very vague definition that says almost nothing about a game except that it´s … run based.
Well, these genre names are rarely chosen intelligently. People were initially just saying that certain games are like Rogue, and that eventually just started to include more and more. In recent history, we’ve also had “Souls-likes” which started out similarly innocent.
I mean, sometimes there’s a relatively intuitive name that people standardize on, like “Jump’n’Run”, but that wasn’t really possible with Roguelikes, as people hardly knew which parts of the Rogue formula were genre-defining.
Well, and it’s also just a rather abstract genre. Even retrospectively, we could only really call it “Permadeath’n’ProceduralMapGeneration”.
Idk kinda works ngl
/s
The conversation around the two really wears me out. IMO, there’s no need to be so restrictive. We can call them traditional roguelikes, platform roguelikes, whatever, and I think that’s fine. If anything, I think we should have better terminology to differentiate games where the runs are isolated and those where there is meta progression. I don’t think roguelite a good name for the latter.
Sorry! I came across a game and realised that there were two distinct terms that I had heard/seen over the years, and so I wondered what the difference was. Never come across discourse over it before, so that’s why I posted.
Nothing against you specifically! It would be more accurate to say that the people who will die on the hill of roguelike being something very specific wear me out. I certainly didn’t intent to make a dig at you, so sorry about that!
We can also just call them all rogue-likes. Everyone intuitively understands there’s a huge space in that by now, and the games can wildly differ. It’s fine. We know that no two MMORPGs are alike, and now two rogue-likes are alike.
Sure, that’s fine if people were actually specifying any sort of modifier. But calling everything a roguelike makes it hard to find the traditional roguelikes for those that like them. I’d be ok if the terms were standardized with modifiers like “Traditional Roguelike”, etc, but they aren’t. Everything with permadeath gets the label roguelike these days.
Don´t get me wrong, I don´t mean to gatekeep (I in fact play lites, not likes). However, a useful orientation when you want to know if a game is a like or not, is in my opinion the Berlin Interpretation
Yep, that’s the only answer that makes sense to anybody who actually plays and likes roguelikes.
As a rule of thumb I like say that if it needs a pause button it’s a 'lite. This doesn’t come close to covering the criteria but it’s a good shortcut to weed out a lot of them.
Here’s how I understand it:
Rogue-lite: has permanent upgrades that persist between runs.
Rogue-like: each run is unaffected by any previous run.
This is my preferred version. Anything else is overly specific on arbitrary features. It doesn’t matter to me if levels are procedurally generated or randomly chosen from 100 different hand made levels, the result is the same.
I would tweak this slightly. Each run does not have upgrades that carry over into future runs, but you might unlock new characters to play or items to encounter.
I would call FTL a Rogue-like, but arguably a new run can be affected by a previous run if you’ve unlocked a new ship design.
So basically Kingdom of Loathing is a Roguelite? Neat!
Whoa, what a nostalgia trip to pull out of nowhere lol
It’s actually still going strong! I started playing daily again a couple months ago after being away for years and it totally still holds up!
Isn’t a Rogue-lite just a very small or indie sneaky game? :P
Pretty much, yeah. The genre was called “Rogue-like” because of Rogue, where your runs were all unique. “Rogue-lite” happened when devs wanted to add persistent progress to the game.
There is no difference
They both have random generation of runs, doesn’t even have to be a dungeon crawler. The only difference is that a roguelite has meta-progression: you in some manner earn resources from each run that allow you to gain advantages on future runs
But does it have to be resources? What about unlocking a new character type, that can use different powers?
New characters are resources too. The word doesn’t have to be limited to spendable currencies like “lumber and gems”.
Dead Cells, as far as I recall. What a f****** awesome game.
Oh, and Hades, except that had a lot of dialogue, which this is saying true roguelikes don’t have. But f*** off, Hades is one of the best games in years.
Definitely Dead Cells covers all of those bullet points in the definition though, and I played that for about as long as I played Hades, 120 plus hours or so.
Hades would be considered Roguelite, doesnt mean its a bad game, its great.
Off the top of my head, pixel dungeon, golden krone hotel, caves of qud, cogmind, zorbus & tangledeep all fit the strictest definition IMO. Probably Jupiter hell and maybe spelunky too
For me at least, the definitions are:
A roguelite is a permadeath, generally procedurally generated game, generally with a metagame over the runs
A roguelike is that, but in addition it’s also a turn based dungeon crawler RPG. I’d say the metagame is a less common aspect with traditional roguelikes
I’ve heard that roguelites have progression between runs, which makes successive runs easier, while roguelikes usually don’t?
That’s the definition I’ve always heard too.
I think the confusion happens because like and lite sound similar. In another language I don’t think this would be a common confusion at all.
That’s what I’m referring to with the metagame parts, though you might be correct in that no true roguelike has this metagame aspect.
Roguelikes are a pretty specific genre of game that generally feature procedurally generated levels, permadeath, no meta progression, tile-based gameplay, hunger systems, randomized loot appearances, etc. Nethack is probably the best known example of a true roguelike.
Roguelights are a wide variety of games that feature some of the features of true roguelike but not all of them, most commonly procedural generation and permadeath, but most of them feature meta progression.
Honestly if you’ve ever played a true roguelike, the difference is immediately apparent. They’re usually not very similar at all. There’s just a very good chance that you’ve never played one, they’re not exactly wildly popular.
And just to stress: if a game features meta progression it is not a true roguelike. In true roguelikes, you start from zero every time.
This is how I’ve seen it. I only like the Lights usually because I enjoy meta progression. I feel like it makes the difference for me to feel like I’m not just wasting my time. I should also mention I’m pretty terrible at games so the meta progression helps me make progress where other games I’d be stuck too often.
I generally prefer rogue likes these days for the variety, but I do think meta progression can also make it feel like wasting your time in a different way. The game becomes gated by wasting enough time to unlock the rest, and doing so can feel more like an inevitability than an accomplishment.
I get that side of it. I honestly rarely play any games these days looking for feeling like a sense of accomplishment. I just play for an escape more than that.
I also enjoy some grindy games. So the meta progression can fit that for me. But I certainly agree it isn’t for everyone. That is what makes gaming so great. Usually something out there for everyone and it would get pretty boring if they were all the same.
What about meta-unlocks? In FTL you can unlock different starting ships, but you will always start the same when starting with the same layout.
In Slay the Spire you unlock different cards you may be able to find, but you always start with the same deck.
That’s a good question, actually. I’ve played a fair bit of FTL and I do think it hews very close to the spirit of a true roguelike, since starting a game with the same ship is always the same experience. I do think meta unlocks change the way you play the game a bit, though, since you may target unlocks and achievements over victory. I’d ultimately put it on the “light” side, but I agree that the game skirts the line.
I haven’t played slay the spire, but I’m thinking of games like Binding of Isaac with a lot of unlocks, and I’d say that those change the game experience quite a bit depending on what you have unlocked.
I have so many hours into enter the gungeon, it’s so addictive. I don’t know what it exactly is but i just know that i love it to bits.
Also trying my hand in dead cells but the game is kicking my butt hard. I only have the first orb that makes the runs harder. Still great fun!
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Roguelikes come from the age of boomers and gen x, are hard as nails, very complex, have a cursed tome of documentation and take months to reach victory, if at all.
Roguelites are for the modern times.
Rogue lite: we want to gatekeep this game for not being soop0r hard to play.
Rogue like: gatekeepers approved. Only real gamerz play this game.
It’s not really gatekeeping to say that not every game that features procedural generation is part of a very old and well-defined genre. Something like Rogue Legacy or Hades are pretty obviously not in the same genre as nethack, angband, or adom.
I don’t really agree with that - just because the playstyle is different doesn’t mean the genre is different.
Besides, individual games have multiple genres. You can have a turn-based roguelike, platformer roguelike, action roguelike, etc. The term roguelike has come to define the common elements of procedural generation + permadeath. Anything else is a secondary genre tag.
My point is that the line between the two is so blurry that I’m not convinced there’s an actual distinction other than elitism. Genre doesn’t mean “every game is exactly the same” having a wide variety in mechanics is a good thing. I don’t think having permanent upgrades outside the dungeon, for instance, is enough to make a game a different genre.