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 post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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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.
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.
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.
Isn't a Rogue-lite just a very small or indie sneaky game? :P
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.
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.
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.
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".
I've stopped using the word "roguelite" because most people who play roguelites just call them "roguelikes" and adding "lite" to the end makes it feel like those games are "lite" versions of roguelikes.
When I play Nethack, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, Cogmind, Brogue, etc. I call them "classic roguelikes" or "traditional roguelikes" which feels a lot more precise than having a distinction between "like" and "lite" and it also feels a lot less combative to "roguelites". It feels like the term roguelite exists mostly to just correct people who incorrectly use "roguelike" and be like "unm, actually that's not a roguelike 🧐 only my game is a roguelike 🤣"
Most people call roguelite games "roguelikes"; it should be on the fewer people who play traditional roguelikes to change what they call their oddly specific genre.
Also, for those who have never played a traditional roguelike, I highly recommend Brogue. It's free and has much easier controls than most other old roguelikes, and the graphics are also pretty good for ASCII.
Your method makes more sense to me.
The need to gatekeep a genre which - by now - I reckon has far more entries that don't match the definition of a traditional/classic rogue-like game just seems unnecessary.
Giving a qualifier to 'roguelike' to delineate the classic versus more flexible/modern style makes more sense.
This should be higher up. Roguelite is a dead term imo. Language has evolved such that roguelike and roguelite are basically the same. The nuances change between every person you ask. So the debate is completely pointless. Just call them all roguelikes, and if you are referring to the traditional ones, call them as such. Traditional, classic, true, whatever.
If everyone treated it like you do, this wouldn't be an issue at all. But these days everything with permadeath gets the roguelike label and that makes it hard to find the traditional roguelikes if you don't already know about them.
Is it any easier to find roguelites instead of roguelikes, or vice versa? The terms are so similar, and everyone has a different definition, that any nuance when tag searching is lost. I respectfully disagree, I feel like anyone asking where to find traditional roguelikes knows where to find them better than finding roguelikes instead of roguelites, etc etc.
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.
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.
I'm convinced that your average hardline "Roguelike means strictly 'like Rogue'" player would even leave Mystery Dungeon games off the list. It's such a useless genre definition if you can only point to a handful of games that would even meet its criteria.
Ultimately it's a term that has long exceeded its original use case. Maybe to some it feels like calling certain modern shooters "Doom clones" again, but it's just not generally useful as terminology if the only games it "should" define are reskins of Rogue.
This article doesn't interpret the Berlin interpretation correctly. The things the article says are "must haves" are actually just "high value factors" as the post says.
This list can be used to determine how roguelike a game is. Missing some points does not mean the game is not a roguelike. Likewise, possessing some points does not mean the game is a roguelike.
So while some of these are deemed important to roguelike, it can be a roguelike without all of those things.
Now personally I think the debate over the genre is silly, and I don't think the Berlin interpretation is really accurate anymore. But to be fair to it, it does not say a game has to have everything on that list. Spelunky is a roguelike. Idc what anyone says. Just because it isn't turn/grid based doesn't mean it isn't a roguelike. It has most all the other high value factors, and a handful of the low value factors as well.
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.
Sorry, but the people using the original definition are definitely the minority now. It's just how language evolves, niche terms that get popular get generalized. Developers aren't misusing the term because original rogue likes are just that popular, they're misusing the term because the vast majority of their audience misuse the term and couldn't give less of a shit about the original definition.
Personally, I like games that are actually similar to Rogue, because they're basically puzzle games, but long-form and less strict.
I do also enjoy the games that are less similar to Rogue, as with a permadeath mechanic, they still usually present a puzzle (rapid rise in difficulty vs. finding the right strategy to keep up with it), but aside from that, they're generally just less puzzley.
So, personally I do find the distinction useful. But to make it extra clear, I usually just say "traditional roguelike" when I mean a game actually similar to Rogue...
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.
Highly recommend FTL: Faster than light for PC. Shits addictive.
For phone, try out PixelDungeon! It's really fun, really hard, and it has an active community here on Lemmy at c/pixeldungeon
Addictive indeed! FTL is not just my favorite roguelite but maybe my favorite game of all times!
Have you played the Multiverse mod? It's the only mod I've tipped my toes into, there's just so much content! My current run I started a few weeks ago on a Ghost Cruiser, and I just picked it back up and somehow now have a crew of full Mantis and no ghosts on node 4.
Yes I played it, the amount of content is impressive. However I only went deep enough to kill the standard Flagship a few times (on hard difficulty, which felt easier compared to AE) and did not find any of the secret endings.
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!
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.
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
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.
I pretty much stopped reading at:
Genre terms exist to prime expectations for players.
What a ridiculously self-centered claim. Genre terms (and other categorizations) exist because language users use them to make things easier to communicate about. I can only imagine the author of the article going: "Well, actually a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable" when talking to a chef about gazpacho, or "a penguin is not technically a bird because it doesn't fly" when someone says that a penguin is their favorite bird.
MFer needs to learn about cognitive categorization, prototype theory, etc. It doesn't need to be 100% the same within a category — then the category is too specific and is absolutely useless — it just needs to be similar enough that most people (that aren't necessarily experts in the subject) understand what you're getting at.
Is there a modern (i.e. post 2000s game) that matches the definition of a roguelike as given in the article?
I think Caves Of Qud qualifies. But "real" roguelikes are few and far between these days, so it's no surprise to me that the term has expanded to cover more. Otherwise it would've become essentially obsolete.
@Risk It's a contentious topic. My roguelike podcast cohosts and I devoted almost 2 hours talking about this specifically in a recent episode: https://grogpod.zone/2023-10-11-what-is-a-roguelike/
It's also worth noting that the definitions have changed over time and will likely continue to do so, as with any evolving genre: https://github.com/ScottBurger/going_rogue_podcast/wiki/What-is-a-roguelike-database
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