Roguelike
In short A roguelike is a game of generated, one-life runs in which nothing carries over between attempts except what the player has learned.
Definition
A roguelike is a game built around the run: a single attempt through a procedurally generated space that ends for good when the character dies, leaving the player to start again from nothing. The name comes from Rogue (1980), a turn-based dungeon game drawn in text characters. In the strictest sense, a roguelike also keeps Rogue's other traits: turn-based movement on a grid, a single character and careful management of scarce items. Second Playthrough uses the broader sense: a roguelike carries nothing forward between runs except what the player has learned. When power or unlocks persist from one run to the next, we call the game a roguelite.
Not to be confused with
- Roguelite
A roguelite keeps the generated, one-life run but lets upgrades or unlocks persist between runs, while a roguelike sends the player back with nothing but knowledge.
- Soulslike
A soulslike also punishes death, but its world is fixed and hand-built and the player keeps their progress, while a roguelike regenerates the world and erases the run.
- Genre
Roguelike is a genre, but the word is often stretched to mean any single feature of one, such as permanent death, which is a mechanic rather than a shape of play.
Where the game lives
- rules: used
- goals: used
- feedback: used
- uncertainty: used
- choice: used
- play: dropped
Generated levels and permanent death make uncertainty and consequential choice the center of the game. There is little room for free, goalless play, because every decision counts toward a run that cannot be undone.
used dropped · What the six structures are
Examples
RogueMichael Toy and Glenn Wichman, 1980
The game that gave the genre its name, with generated dungeon floors, permanent death and turn-based movement on a grid.
NetHackThe NetHack DevTeam, 1987
A dense, long-developed descendant of Rogue and a reference point for the traditional form.
SpelunkyDerek Yu, 2008
A real-time platformer that keeps the roguelike run, generated levels and permanent death, with no power carried between attempts.
Where the field disagrees
There are two common uses of “roguelike.” The stricter one, set out in the Berlin Interpretation of 2008, measures a game against Rogue itself: generated levels and permanent death, but also turn-based movement on a grid, resource management, exploration and a single character. On that reading Spelunky or Hades is not a roguelike at all, and many players call anything further from Rogue a roguelite. The looser, now more common use calls any game of generated, one-life runs a roguelike, and reserves “roguelite” for games where progress persists between runs.
Second Playthrough follows the second use. A roguelike is a game in which the run is everything and nothing but knowledge carries over; a roguelite lets something else carry over. When we mean the Berlin sense, we say “traditional roguelike.”
In the essays
No essay takes this term on directly yet. Its neighbors in the guide are linked above; the newsletter announces new essays.
Sources
- WebsiteBerlin Interpretation. RogueBasin, 2008. A community definition that weighs high-value and low-value factors to judge how roguelike a game is.
- BookSpelunky. Boss Fight Books, 2016. The designer's account of making Spelunky, including its use of randomization and permanent death. Reading list