When it comes to the age-old debate surrounding roguelikes and roguelites, it’s safe to say that it can all get a bit confusing. What is a roguelike deep down, and what makes it different from a roguelite? And does anyone out there still use the term roguelike-like?
Given my continued interest in this arena and the number of rogues that I write about, I thought it would be a good idea to pin down the terminology surrounding this most fascinating subject and dig into the differences between roguelikes and roguelites, with a particular focus on the question:
What is a roguelike?
In its simplest terms, a roguelike is a highly replayable turn-based role-playing game that is somewhat like Rogue, an innovative RPG that was first released in 1980.
Rogue’s designers created several features that have persisted through time, and the ideas pioneered in this fantasy ASCII adventure have gone on to have a significant impact on the whole of gaming.
The global spread of roguelikes started via a thriving indie scene full of dedicated creators and connoisseurs, but over time that passion has helped roguelike game design expand into the mainstream, with triple-A developers increasingly utilising the best aspects of proc-gen to help keep their games as replayable as possible.
What makes a roguelike a roguelike?
If you came here asking the question: what is a roguelike? I would argue that there are several key features that help define a game as one; however, for me, there are three core elements:
- Permanent death for your character. Every run is a fresh start.
- Procedurally generated grid-based levels that are rearranged every time you start again, resulting in a new experience each run.
- Hack-and-slash combat and gameplay reminiscent of that from the original Rogue.
This might not be the answer you were expecting, however. That’s because in the years since Rogue first launched, particularly over the last decade or so, a new generation has emerged: the roguelite.
What’s more, we’re seeing different types of games being mixed with roguelike concepts all the time, and new genres, such as auto-battlers and bullet heavens, are being born from the crazed experiments of indie designers.
Regardless of the specific sub-category they each fall into, these games still incorporate many of the key mechanics that were first seen in the original Rogue.
The vast majority of these games are not roguelikes in the traditional sense, even if they are frequently referred to as such. In fact, there has been a long and storied debate over the years about what qualifies as one and what doesn’t.
The Berlin Interpretation
No, it’s not a spy novel; we’re actually talking about a meeting that took place all the way back in 2008, before the genre exploded into the wider gaming world.
During that discussion, a bunch of experienced players and developers attempted to pin down the nomenclature surrounding the genre and pin down an answer to the question: what is a roguelike?
While things have moved on since then, what the Berlin Interpretation did give us was some rock-solid pillars to fall back on when discussing roguelike game design.
- Procedural generation – The big one: roguelikes use procedural level generation to make sure that the dungeons/worlds that players explore are different every time.
- Permadeath – The appeal of roguelikes rests in the reality that one false move can be your undoing. Permadeath raises the stakes and ensures that every step is taken with care.
- Turn-based combat and movement – To be a true roguelike, a game needs to be turn-based, particularly during combat.
- Grid-based level design – Gameplay takes place on a grid, so you can accurately measure distances in relation to your abilities and equipment.
- Resource management– A roguelike will give you a range of tools to play with, including weapons, armour, and potions. It’s up to you to use them creatively to solve any problems that arise.
- Player vs environment – Killing monsters/enemies is at the heart of the traditional roguelike, but monsters need to respect the same logic and laws as the player. As the genre has developed, environments have grown increasingly nuanced, even dangerous.
- Exploration – A roguelike is all about exploration and discovery, and the procedural generation outlined above ensures that players must leave nothing to chance as they encounter each new environment.
- ASCII graphics – Traditional roguelikes often still have ASCII graphics and use lots of numbers to communicate information.
- Single-player dungeon-crawling – There are lots of co-op games that use roguelike mechanics, but traditional roguelikes are mostly single-player games.
- Systems – The focus of a roguelike is always going to be on moment-to-moment gameplay over storytelling and narrative.
What the meeting also did is formalise the debate around roguelikes, as well as define much of the terminology that we still use to this day.
Roguelite with a T
Here’s where we get to the real heart of the matter, and to the point of confusion that regularly follows the genre. Yes, we’re talking about the difference between a roguelike and a roguelite.
Simply put, and as we’ve just established, a roguelike makes you start the game from scratch every time you die, without any of the benefits you have earned in previous attempts, other than the knowledge you have accrued. True roguelikes include games such as Nethack, Angband, and ADOM.
What is a roguelite, then?
The differences between roguelikes and roguelites are gameplay style and meta-progression.
In my opinion, the thing that really sorts the wheat from the chaff is how a game handles progression. A roguelike will start you from the very beginning of the game after each death. Meanwhile, a roguelite lets you carry some of your progress into the next run, either via items or stat boosts. These upgrades eventually help you become more powerful. Examples of roguelite games where your character gets stronger include Hades and Vampire Survivors.
Read More: My guide to roguelite terminology is available here.
This constant reinforcement of understanding, ability, and strength creates a snowball effect whereby the player becomes increasingly powerful. As you learn more about the world around you and find new gear, things will start to get easier in a roguelite. That said, some games counter this by scaling the challenge to match your progress.
What is a roguelike-like?
So… there’s another term that has been used to describe games with proc-gen, perma-death, and so on.
That term is “roguelike-like”, and it implies a degree of distance from the original Rogue and its direct roguelike descendants. However, that extra “like” acknowledges that while several core themes remain intact, including permanent death and a fresh start every time you die, there are also new ideas being thrown into the proverbial mix.
This definition surfaced during the genre’s more recent rise to prominence – what you might call the post-Spelunky era. It was done to separate games that still took their spiritual lead from Rogue and keep them distinct from those that only borrowed one or two core mechanics.
In more recent years, the term roguelike-like has largely fallen by the wayside and has been replaced by “roguelite”, a catch-all term that describes any game with roguelike features and a progression loop.
What is Rogue, then?
Life is all about perspective, and the original Rogue could be a fairly standard RPG for the time if you looked at it from a certain angle.
This turn-based dungeon crawler tasks players with fetching the mythical Amulet of Yendor. The combat was turn-based, and the game’s ASCII visuals were rudimentary at best, but flexible.
However, the game’s proc-gen-driven featureset allowed its creators a degree of creative license that they embraced to the fullest. They might have used simple building blocks for their dungeons, but that meant that they were able to rearrange them for each new run, creating a new dungeon every time.
The procedural generation pioneered in Rogue meant that the game world felt fresh and exciting every time. In a world of repetitive single-screen arcade shooters, for anyone with an active imagination, it was a digital dream come true.
From these humble origins, Rogue has gone on to have a lasting impact on the industry. Triple-A developers are increasingly adopting core roguelike concepts, as it offers a great framework for replayability. Modern-day examples include Hitman’s Freelancer mode, Prey Mooncrash, and God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla.
Who created Rogue?
Back in 2020, to mark Rogue’s 40th anniversary, I tracked down one of the game’s creators, Glen Wichmann.
Glen was gracious enough to answer my questions about the game he made with Michael Toy, whom he met at U.C. Santa Cruz when studying game design. You can read my full interview with him over on Gamereactor, if you’re interested.
Their collaboration started over a shared love of early text adventures, but eventually, they incorporated some of the new ideas being developed by Ken Arnold and Bill Joy, respectively, to create a more intuitive action-adventure experience with gameplay that required more thoughtful engagement from the player.
Wichmann explained that they wanted to “be challenged by our own creation, so we could come back and play it over and over, getting a new adventure every time we played.”
It was this quest for originality and challenge that gave birth to Rogue, its namesake genre, and all of the roguelites that have followed since. Indeed, the word “roguelike” has evolved to mean so much more than it did in the years that followed Wichmann and Toy’s first forays in search of the Amulet of Yendor.
These days, when we ask: what is a roguelike? We find a genre term that’s applied quite liberally, and often incorrectly – even by the people who make the games, whether knowingly or not.
However, the popularity of the term is because it has come to represent so much more than anyone could have reasonably expected, considering its humble origins. Not bad for a 40-year-old turn-based RPG that fits on an 80×24 grid of ASCII characters, eh?
Read More: This way for a round-up of the best roguelike games!
