I attribute playing Roguelikes at a young age to my ability to deal with loss Yeah, getting in a car accident sucks, but it doesn't feel as bad as losing my level 50 necromancer to a doppelganger king
my 'favourite' roguelike death was in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. I had a spriggan archmage in the post-game solving everything with spells, and I got cornered by two silent spectres with a cursed stat stick in my hands and no items in my inventory I could use to escape, so I got slowly punched to death over the course of a hundred turns with 0 things I could do
Funny seeing you here Dosh, you always seem to stick to games that give the player something they can take with them. After two decades of running in circles on MMOs for no reason in particular I've come to realize those are the only games worth playing. Games that teach you to think, learn, grow, or however you want to put it. I hope you're enjoying the new Factorio DLC!
15:51 If you're making a game, don't worry too much if it's a Roguelike or Roguelite. Make a good game. These terms are important when you market the game. Until you market, don't paint yourself into a box. That can only make the game worse. Once you got the core gameplay loop down, you can figure out what bod your game fits in. Until then, make a good game.
7:55 IMO it is a common misconception that procedural generation spares you from map design. Instead of designing a single map, you have to (at least mentally) design multiple maps spot interesting patterns and describe those patterns as rules in code such that the generator creates interesting maps. I would argue that a procedural map system costs much more than designing a bunch of static maps, but has the potential to create a seemingly infinite amount of maps
Yes, this is this is true of modern games which have high demands on environment design. However, the simplicity of Rogue's levels (I can't remember if I first played Rogue or Nethack, so it might be the other) do not have any level design criteria for exceptional environment patterns. A dungeon level is just a set of rectangular rooms and hallways. There is global logic to ensure some secret rooms and an overall preferential layout, but as far as I remember, this one set of criteria was the same for the entire game.
I love Roguelikes. I can't stand Roguelites, because too often they do the opposite of what I look for in a Roguelike... as far as my personal preferences are concerned, they may as well be Antirogues. For example, the depth that I look for is Kolmogorov complexity. A basic algorithm that randomly combines a list of prefixes and suffixes may look complex because it can generate one zillion possible magic items, but this is trivially simple from a Kolmogorov perspective. I'm also skeptical of "inheritance" mechanics where you can gain benefits from your previous attempts to carry into your future attempts. Sounds awesome in theory, but in practice I find that it tempts designers to pad out their game length with grinding rather than actual content. 10:10 Not only are Nethack and Angband much more complicated than Rogue, I suggest they might also be much more complicated than most modern AAA games if graphics etc aren't a consideration.
I think your point about NetHack and Angband is totally on point. I can't think of any modern AAA game as complicated as NetHack, or where there are that many options available in how to play it, or that many possible ways that things can interact with each other. If graphics aren't a consideration (which I don't think they have to be), it's way more complex than many contemporary games.
I love this video and want it to be required viewing for any game journalist or content creator. I don't mind that the term no longer means "a game like rogue". I accept "classic roguelike" to mean what "roguelike" used to mean. But recently I've even seen games nothing like Rogue calling themselves "classic roguelike". I don't know why people get angry about the meaning of the term -- My issue is that I like games like rogue and I want to be able to find them easily. But every term that's ever been used to distinguish them from other permadeath, difficult procedurally generated games has become a marketing buzzword and applied to games that aren't procedural, or that have meta-progression, etc. One very popular games youtuber has said "This game has meta-progression, so it's a classic roguelike". (This youtuber has since recognized why this isn't accurate). I like Hades, Spelunky, etc. They're great games. But they're not "like rogue" in any of the important ways. And even X-Com:UFO Defense, one of my absolute favorite games of all time, has a lot of the elements but *is not* a classic roguelike because it combines a global strategy element with a roguelike combat environment. It would seem odd to call X-Com a "roguelite", but that's what it is. I don't mind the expansion of the term -- that's how language works. I just want people to stop getting angry when we fans of the classic games want to have a search term that we can rely on to find new games to play. Saying "that's not a roguelike" doesn't mean it's a bad game. Hades is a great game, one of the best in recent memory. But it's not a roguelike because it fails what I consider to be some basic criteria: It has a narrative story, it has meta-progression, and it's real-time not turn-based. None of those are themselves bad things, they're just categorical qualifiers that happen to not apply to Hades (or Spelunky, etc.) It's like getting angry when someone says "Apples are not citrus fruit".
One thing that always bugs me is people often cite one of the defining features of modern "roguelites"/"roguelikes" being something that didn't exist in the game the genre is named after: Meta progression. In fact, most barely have anything in common with Rogue and its early descendants. Angband was my introduction to the genre, followed by Nethack. I still have a soft spot for both. Also I argue that Diablo 1 was an evolution of the genre, though the sequels have become their own thing. I DON'T like some of the more recent changes to Angband, though. The current maintainers seem to be doing a lot of "dumbing down" of the game. :(
The most common definition I hear of "roguelite" is "like rogue, BUT with meta progression added in" - that facet didn't exist in the original, so it isn't a defining factor of the "rogue" part, sure, but it IS (arguably) the defining factor in what makes it "lite".
@@Ukyoprime It's certainly arguable as some form of meta progression/effects isn't exactly uncommon in games that definitely are traditional roguelike and not roguelites such as ToME's character option unlocks and Nethacks bones. Decent definition I've seen is that roguelites aren't a genre but a set of features any game can have while roguelikes are a genre and wouldn't be better better described as another genre but with permadeath and procedural generation.
Brevik, the lead dev on Diablo, has on several occasions basically said he played Angband a lot and his initial pitch for Diablo was a graphical PC version of Angband. Originally it was going to be turn based.
My only frustration with definitions is when people - often poor reviewers - use the phrases "roguelike" and "roguelite" specifically and exclusively to mean any sort of procedural world generation. I mean, if one criteria is all it takes to be a roguelike, online chess is a roguelike - and it arguably shares two characteristics: tiles and turn-based play.
Chess is far, far closer to "roguelike" than literally anything action based. We can however get closer to "roguelike" with the vast majority of people arguing "that's not a roguelike..." *Sokoban* This is so close to being a roguelike that many roguelikes include sections of the game from dungeon floor segments up to *ENTIRE FLOORS* comprised near entirely of Sokoban puzzles. People will still however argue that "Sokoban is not a roguelike, is" missing the fact that Sokoban played in command-line would be near indistinguishable from the namesake of the genre without actively playing/watching for some time.
9:01 Interestingly I suspect that when Chunsoft(or more specifically Koichi Nakamura and Seiichiro Nagahata) played Rogue they weren't very aware of that D&D influence and thus didn't seek to fix the ways it was "failing" to live up to that influence when creating the Mystery Dungeon series leading to an interesting case of those games in a way preserving various aspects of the original Rogue that western roguelikes didn't(such as strength as an attribute on it's own, nothing to decide on leveling up, no meaningful character creation, the way max health can be raised).
My first intro to the genre as a kid was Castle of the Winds, and I lean more toward roguelites personally, like Everspace and Vampire Survivor-like games.
I have spent countless hours playing Rogue and Nethack over the years. Rogue was not the progenitor of the genre. Beneath Apple Manor, by the great Don Worth, was the first “roguelike” game, predating rogue by 2 years. It has procedurally generated dungeons, monsters, and displays very similarly to Rogue. It’s also the first ever commercially released RPG. As far as I know, all previous RPGs were only built on mainframe computers. It’s one of the most important video games of all time, and gets little of the recognition it deserves.
As a fan of the genre and the originals (played mostly on Atari ST, early PCs, BBSes and of course homebrew computers etc.), this is a really fun and great video; well researched and produced!
One that many may not know of that I actually prefer over most is Gearhead, and its successor Gearhead 2. I like the way the keys are arranged far better than Rogue and CDDA and the like, and it was way different to me, with the extensible mecha and pilot combat system all within the form. I still have not gotten anywhere near mastering the games.
Thank you for this video. I'm a millennial, so I never grew up with roguelikes or even heard much about them until recently. Most of the games I grew up with were boomer shooters like Doom II and Quake, third-person shooters like GunZ: The Duel and Max Payne, as well as many MMOs during the MMO boom era when numerous companies tried to replicate the success of World of Warcraft. I did manage to try a few roguelikes, but I never understood why their graphics looked so... primitive. It was difficult for me to appreciate their aesthetic. I mean, I can fully appreciate low-poly or pixel art because I grew up during that era, but I just can't seem to do the same for roguelikes. However, after watching your video, I feel the spark has been reignited to give roguelikes another chance. I'll try Stoneshard and Elin because they seem more graphically friendly.
Roguelike in my brain: Random (for replayability), yet with meta progression (player skill, or even perks that can develop over time outside of the pure realdeath limitation) .... oh, you got into roguelites as well, well done. I was ready to trot out how smart I am, but you've nailed it all. Definitely let us know when you have a book out :)
Nethack is one of those games that I always keep installed somewhere but rarely play. When I do pick it up I seem to bang my head against it for a month or so and hopefully progress a bit more than I have before. This has been going on since at least the early 2000's and I've still never gotten that damn amulet and escaped the dungeon.
@@BreakingZGame it's been a while so honestly I have no idea lol. You're so right about the influence of these games though. Not only in game design but in how people play. Since getting hooked on rogue-likes, permadeath is by far my favorite way to play and I'd say most of my current favorites have some sort of procedural generation going on. Project Zomboid, No Man's Sky and very recently Ostranauts all have a grip on me. NMS being the least rogue-like but it does have a permadeath option and...well it's procedural to the extremes.
I personally feel like Nethack is, I don’t quite know how to put this. Like 500 pounds of animal crackers that fell out of the mouths of 3 year olds 40 years ago and somehow all ended up on the drivers seat of your Datsun 280z that you bought with your 1st paycheck out of college and just can’t bear to let go of. Or maybe it’s like dinosaurs huge, old, very dead and deeply loved by a particular breed of autistic. It is a beautiful historic document, but should absolutely not be considered the quintessential rogue-like. Maybe no game should, but if I had to pick an iconic game that has maintained development and innovation for decades and yet stick like glue to its roots. I choose DCSS.
@@juliofoolio2982 Ehhh.... I have opinions about DCSS. It has changed *significantly* since its early days. Even since the days when I once played it. I can't entirely separate my opinions from the time I got told by a member of the devteam, that literally any suggestion or feedback that comes out of my mouth will go directly in the garbage bin, for the sole reason of "it came from my mouth, and I am part of the Talking Time Forum community," sooo.
@@violetstarsign This isn’t the first time I have heard similar criticism of them. It’s taken awhile, but I rarely taken anything personally anymore. I have also had to accept that people I don’t like, can still be good artists etc.. Most of the criticism I have heard have been from right wingy indentifying people accusing the dcss of being militantly left wingy. I am not familiar with talking time forum, while I tend more left then right, self righteousness stinks in any flavor.
Fantastic! I am a writer and gamer, deeply into philosophical thinking, surrealism, existentialism, absurdism, and postmodernism. The merging of literature and video games as complementary modes of existence/reality fascinates me (yes, I'd call myself a modal realist). I learned English by playing text adventures and have a particular love for roguelikes. I assume your channel is meant for me 😉. Thank you!
Caves of Qud is a masterpiece, and the first Rift Wizard is also a favourite of mine. Glad to hear 2 is good too. Quasimorph is worth a look then? It looked pretty good, but I'm still a bit on the fence about it for some reason.
I *still* miss Epyx. Sword of Fargoal was a full Roguelike they made. Temple Of Apshai looked like it should be, but everything was hand-placed. Same with Gateway to Apshai (that was the action game branch). Also Telengard by Avalon Hill was a full Roguelike (interestingly, both that and Fargoal were written in BASIC).
It's funny to hear about genre definition arguments of the roguelike genre. I've been playing these since Linley's Dungeon Crawl. I recognize this gameplay style is niche, but obviously a lot about it has been adopted and spun off into what have become entirely new genres. The niche may have coined the term for the genre they enjoy, but members need to be humble. One can coin a term but there is no way to control it's meaning in a wider sense. Roguelike is such a great example of this, as the meaning has (like so many genres) expanded and been diluted of many of it's original qualities. When that happens, the niche cannot hope to exclude all the new definitions which have been applied to their genre term, it only leads to the frustrations and legendary arguments discussed, but it will never sway the meaning of the wider population. Coining the new term for 'others' like rogueliTe has only had the moderate success that it did because a few popular critical voices in the wider space adopted and used it in this way. The only productive solution is to cede the original coined term and coin a new one for your own niche.
I've come around to realize that the term will evolve whether I want it to or not. But what bothers me is that an opinion ("This game isn't really a roguelike", for example) makes people angry . Once "roguelike" became a marketing buzzword, people started to think of "not a roguelike" as something negative. Everyone is in love with some new game marketed as a roguelike, but the opinion "it's not really a roguelike" is taken as meaning "this game isn't good enough to deserve being called a roguelike". That's the part I find the most frustrating. We can still have a conversation about what components or attributes more or less fit the central concept, but people react as if saying "Apples aren't citrus fruit" as a criticism of apples. It's just a categorical descriptor, not a title that a game has to "earn" or be worthy of.
@@grayaj23 it's largely because "roguelike" is synonymous with "good" to these types of people. Look at the steam tags for the game Crawl. Action Roguelike is in the top 4, used to be the veeeery tippy top(and before that "Roguelike" was its top tag). Now look at Boss Defiance. Where's the slew of mal-applied roguelike tags? Nowhere to be seen, yet these games play so similarly that they are genre mirrors of one another. What's the difference? Popularity. Look at "life is hard." Now look at Kingdom: New Lands. Again these two games are genre mirrors of one another, what's the difference? Pop-u-lar-it-y. Look at Jetpack Joyride, look at Icy tower. Now look at Downwell. Downwell is called a roguelike, yet the other two aren't. What's the difference? Not quite popularity, but along the same lines, JJ and IT were made before it became popular to mal-apply "roguelike" to everything. Hell, springboarding off of the Jetpack Joyride and Icy Tower point look at Atic Atac. This is a game the spitting image of what Binding of Isaac would be if made in the 1980's. It's called an "Arcade game" by genre for a reason. It was never released in arcades, but you know what it does have? The same gameplay loop present in Tetris, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy, Oregon Trail, Metal Slug, Gauntlet, Rampart, Snake, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Survival Crisis Z(specifically the "arcade mode"), Dracula Undead Awakening and many, many other games that are well within the arcade genre regardless of if they had an arcade cabinet release.
@@joefadda578 You're right, and this explains why people get pissed off when you say "Hades isn't a roguelike". To them, this is the same a saying "Hades doesn't deserve t be called a roguelike". But I tell them it's like getting angry when someone says apples aren't citrus fruit. It's just accurate taxonomy, not an insult.
I enjoy my time with it, but I never seem to get very far. So well made though. Beautiful aesthetic, well thought out mechanics, a modern classic of the genre.
@@BreakingZGame Took me 100 hours for my first win, and that was a "basic/easy" win. But lots of areas and mechanics to explore in the discovery phase which is a lot of fun.
Nice video! Here is a roguelike you might not have considered. My friends and I were still playing the EPYX verison of Rogue when Diablo was released. Diablo is literally Rogue with graphics. We were so excited! Procedural dungeons, lots of loot, identify potions, down down down in levels via stairs, etc. :)
I think Diablo must have been heavily inspired by Rogue/Nethack, yeah. Just as EverQuest was inspired by text MUDs. It's interesting the way that games branched from Rogue. The Diablo branch ended up being called action RPGs, or well.... diablo-likes. Maybe there was even a time when we thought of Diablo when we thought of cRPGs of the day. And then it was many years later that the term roguelike came about, and for different reasons. I'm not sure if you're saying Diablo should be considered a roguelike or not (I don't think it should, despite a certain common sense reasoning), but I do agree it's a hugely important branch of games that likely came from Rogue/Nethack.
@@RabidHobbit No, I don't have a real point except that in my mind Diablo is Rogue with graphics. I suppose that makes it Rogue-like but not a roguelike.
@@powellfamilyfarm Agree 100%. In another universe all diablo style games could have definitely taken the roguelike name instead of what ended up being popular.
There's definitely a lot of influence on Diablo from early roguelikes. I can't remember the source off the top of my head, but I'm sure I read somewhere once that the Diablo devs were influenced by NetHack in particular. I do find it interesting how ARPGs, roguelikes, and roguelites ended up being kind of split off from one another historically. There's such a huge amount of kinship between them.
wonderful lecture! I'm not much for roguelikes myself because I'm terrible at combat (though I love the deck builder subgenre), but it and its derivative and adjacent genres fascinate me. and history is always a plus :) (also I'm the 69th viewer hehehehe nice)
From some who play game as a challenge and play something else once finish it, I start to hate roguelike: losing on something you can't control when you have a controlller on your hand! Imagine replaying again and again until good luck strike or you have enough item to make you crafty. Instead on dominating the game, the game dominate you. I compare roguelike with a lighting: you have no idea where it strike, like you can't predict a build, and it's all about instant decision and see what can you do with things you have. Roguelike is very popular on Steam that I associate both (which repel me) and thank to technology, make complex algorithm to achieve balance. That what old console can't do. I play game to face a new challenge or to follow a story.
know of any text based rogue likes? it might have been more effort in the past, having to create descriptions for places and a map that still made sense but was randomly generated... I bet with modern AI help something like that could be coded more easily and descriptions of those places generated by AI as well. load it all into a database and make use of wave function collapse to put it all together. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Insulated from. Mainstream? Pokémon mysterious dungeon is probably the most successful rogue like of all time. And it didn’t even get a mention lol. Anyway cool vid.
That's true! A lot of people really love 'Luck be a Landlord', and it is a rally well-designed game, but I really couldn't get on with it for some reason.
and not just slot machines, there's a whole micro-genre of casino game roguelites: Balatro (poker), Luck be a Landlord (slots), Spin Hero (slots), Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers (blackjack)... there's probably more those are just the ones I know
I'm playing Halls of Torment at the moment, definitely check that one out if you haven't already! (it costs 4.99 or so) Also subbed for future informative videos :) !
Thanks for the sub! I'm a big fan of Halls of Torment, and I've actually done a review of it on the channel :) ruclips.net/video/IiaXySNPjzE/видео.html
That is a lot more arcade-ish than roguelike-ish. I mean if you back up your saves through Rogue, you're not changing the genre of the game. If you back up your saves through Beneath Apple Manor, again you're not changing the genre. What have you done in backing up your saves through Rogue? Removed permadeath, Rogue played with backup-saves is still a roguelike. Beneath Apple Manor is a roguelike despite being non proc-gen, and if you back up the saves when playing through BAM, you've removed both procedural generation and permadeath. Yet it is still clearly, and undeniably a roguelike, because it's damn near impossible to tell gameplay of BAM and gameplay of Rogue apart unless you are either A: currently playing or B: watching for in excess of 20 minutes. Most games you'd call "roguelike" don't play like *one another* let alone like *Rogue* to begin with. What do Yugioh: Forbidden Memories, Atic Atac, and Super Metroid have in common? Literally nothing. You would not group these 3 games together as a genre. Why then do it with "Roguelike" to Slay The Spire, Binding of Isaac and Rogue Legacy? It makes no sense whatsoever.
@@RabidHobbit it’s not passing judgement; I am criticizing the essay to be biased, a warning to anyone expecting a “history” that is simply presenting factual information.
@@jmatos316If you are suggesting that he is biased toward thinking rogue-like games are great.. well yeah. The thing is I don’t see that as a criticism. He is a fan of rogue-like games making a video for other fans of the genre. He doesn’t explain what rogue-likes are because, we already know. We are also fans. I think maybe you are not.
@@juliofoolio2982 having played several on Telnet machines at university lab between 1993 and 1996 I can say I have fond memories of the games without having known they were called rogue-like … However, I’m not criticizing him for liking them… I’m criticizing him for being effusive about it from the beginning of his … essay? … without giving much meet as to why… I’m criticizing his word choice and structural planning, not his choice of games… if I wasn’t interested in the topic I wouldn’t have bothered watching the video. I guess I’m off base in thinking that one creates something called “a history “ with the idea of informing people who may NOT know about it so that they will… but, you have disabused me of that notion and made it perfectly clear that history is written for people who all ready love a topic and know all about it. Obviously.
@@jmatos316 Fair enough I suppose. I did not find the video particularly enlightening either.. I just don’t particularly fault him for being effusive. I do believe that the Rogue-like genre is a foundational pillar of game design and continues to loan its tenets and innovations to pc games of all kinds. I personally do not find the rogue-lite to actually be the best example of this. If you were playing on telnet machines, in perhaps the mid to late 80s or early 90s, it may well have been rogue-likes you were playing, but it was more likely MUDs.
I attribute playing Roguelikes at a young age to my ability to deal with loss
Yeah, getting in a car accident sucks, but it doesn't feel as bad as losing my level 50 necromancer to a doppelganger king
my 'favourite' roguelike death was in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. I had a spriggan archmage in the post-game solving everything with spells, and I got cornered by two silent spectres with a cursed stat stick in my hands and no items in my inventory I could use to escape, so I got slowly punched to death over the course of a hundred turns with 0 things I could do
Brutal!
Funny seeing you here Dosh, you always seem to stick to games that give the player something they can take with them. After two decades of running in circles on MMOs for no reason in particular I've come to realize those are the only games worth playing. Games that teach you to think, learn, grow, or however you want to put it. I hope you're enjoying the new Factorio DLC!
😂
15:51 If you're making a game, don't worry too much if it's a Roguelike or Roguelite. Make a good game. These terms are important when you market the game. Until you market, don't paint yourself into a box. That can only make the game worse. Once you got the core gameplay loop down, you can figure out what bod your game fits in. Until then, make a good game.
7:55
IMO it is a common misconception that procedural generation spares you from map design. Instead of designing a single map, you have to (at least mentally) design multiple maps spot interesting patterns and describe those patterns as rules in code such that the generator creates interesting maps.
I would argue that a procedural map system costs much more than designing a bunch of static maps, but has the potential to create a seemingly infinite amount of maps
Yes, this is this is true of modern games which have high demands on environment design. However, the simplicity of Rogue's levels (I can't remember if I first played Rogue or Nethack, so it might be the other) do not have any level design criteria for exceptional environment patterns. A dungeon level is just a set of rectangular rooms and hallways. There is global logic to ensure some secret rooms and an overall preferential layout, but as far as I remember, this one set of criteria was the same for the entire game.
I love Roguelikes. I can't stand Roguelites, because too often they do the opposite of what I look for in a Roguelike... as far as my personal preferences are concerned, they may as well be Antirogues. For example, the depth that I look for is Kolmogorov complexity. A basic algorithm that randomly combines a list of prefixes and suffixes may look complex because it can generate one zillion possible magic items, but this is trivially simple from a Kolmogorov perspective. I'm also skeptical of "inheritance" mechanics where you can gain benefits from your previous attempts to carry into your future attempts. Sounds awesome in theory, but in practice I find that it tempts designers to pad out their game length with grinding rather than actual content.
10:10 Not only are Nethack and Angband much more complicated than Rogue, I suggest they might also be much more complicated than most modern AAA games if graphics etc aren't a consideration.
I think your point about NetHack and Angband is totally on point. I can't think of any modern AAA game as complicated as NetHack, or where there are that many options available in how to play it, or that many possible ways that things can interact with each other. If graphics aren't a consideration (which I don't think they have to be), it's way more complex than many contemporary games.
I love this video and want it to be required viewing for any game journalist or content creator. I don't mind that the term no longer means "a game like rogue". I accept "classic roguelike" to mean what "roguelike" used to mean. But recently I've even seen games nothing like Rogue calling themselves "classic roguelike". I don't know why people get angry about the meaning of the term -- My issue is that I like games like rogue and I want to be able to find them easily. But every term that's ever been used to distinguish them from other permadeath, difficult procedurally generated games has become a marketing buzzword and applied to games that aren't procedural, or that have meta-progression, etc.
One very popular games youtuber has said "This game has meta-progression, so it's a classic roguelike". (This youtuber has since recognized why this isn't accurate).
I like Hades, Spelunky, etc. They're great games. But they're not "like rogue" in any of the important ways. And even X-Com:UFO Defense, one of my absolute favorite games of all time, has a lot of the elements but *is not* a classic roguelike because it combines a global strategy element with a roguelike combat environment. It would seem odd to call X-Com a "roguelite", but that's what it is.
I don't mind the expansion of the term -- that's how language works. I just want people to stop getting angry when we fans of the classic games want to have a search term that we can rely on to find new games to play. Saying "that's not a roguelike" doesn't mean it's a bad game. Hades is a great game, one of the best in recent memory. But it's not a roguelike because it fails what I consider to be some basic criteria: It has a narrative story, it has meta-progression, and it's real-time not turn-based. None of those are themselves bad things, they're just categorical qualifiers that happen to not apply to Hades (or Spelunky, etc.)
It's like getting angry when someone says "Apples are not citrus fruit".
One thing that always bugs me is people often cite one of the defining features of modern "roguelites"/"roguelikes" being something that didn't exist in the game the genre is named after: Meta progression. In fact, most barely have anything in common with Rogue and its early descendants.
Angband was my introduction to the genre, followed by Nethack. I still have a soft spot for both. Also I argue that Diablo 1 was an evolution of the genre, though the sequels have become their own thing. I DON'T like some of the more recent changes to Angband, though. The current maintainers seem to be doing a lot of "dumbing down" of the game. :(
The most common definition I hear of "roguelite" is "like rogue, BUT with meta progression added in" - that facet didn't exist in the original, so it isn't a defining factor of the "rogue" part, sure, but it IS (arguably) the defining factor in what makes it "lite".
@@Ukyoprime It's certainly arguable as some form of meta progression/effects isn't exactly uncommon in games that definitely are traditional roguelike and not roguelites such as ToME's character option unlocks and Nethacks bones. Decent definition I've seen is that roguelites aren't a genre but a set of features any game can have while roguelikes are a genre and wouldn't be better better described as another genre but with permadeath and procedural generation.
Brevik, the lead dev on Diablo, has on several occasions basically said he played Angband a lot and his initial pitch for Diablo was a graphical PC version of Angband. Originally it was going to be turn based.
@@andyastrand I'd heard that. Everything was going to have a sort of claymation look, too. Also you can kind of see the grid pattern in certain areas.
Loved this video, thanks so much.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great video! Very informative and concise, looking forward to more :)
My only frustration with definitions is when people - often poor reviewers - use the phrases "roguelike" and "roguelite" specifically and exclusively to mean any sort of procedural world generation. I mean, if one criteria is all it takes to be a roguelike, online chess is a roguelike - and it arguably shares two characteristics: tiles and turn-based play.
Chess is far, far closer to "roguelike" than literally anything action based. We can however get closer to "roguelike" with the vast majority of people arguing "that's not a roguelike..."
*Sokoban* This is so close to being a roguelike that many roguelikes include sections of the game from dungeon floor segments up to *ENTIRE FLOORS* comprised near entirely of Sokoban puzzles. People will still however argue that "Sokoban is not a roguelike, is" missing the fact that Sokoban played in command-line would be near indistinguishable from the namesake of the genre without actively playing/watching for some time.
9:01 Interestingly I suspect that when Chunsoft(or more specifically Koichi Nakamura and Seiichiro Nagahata) played Rogue they weren't very aware of that D&D influence and thus didn't seek to fix the ways it was "failing" to live up to that influence when creating the Mystery Dungeon series leading to an interesting case of those games in a way preserving various aspects of the original Rogue that western roguelikes didn't(such as strength as an attribute on it's own, nothing to decide on leveling up, no meaningful character creation, the way max health can be raised).
My first intro to the genre as a kid was Castle of the Winds, and I lean more toward roguelites personally, like Everspace and Vampire Survivor-like games.
I have spent countless hours playing Rogue and Nethack over the years.
Rogue was not the progenitor of the genre. Beneath Apple Manor, by the great Don Worth, was the first “roguelike” game, predating rogue by 2 years. It has procedurally generated dungeons, monsters, and displays very similarly to Rogue. It’s also the first ever commercially released RPG. As far as I know, all previous RPGs were only built on mainframe computers. It’s one of the most important video games of all time, and gets little of the recognition it deserves.
As a fan of the genre and the originals (played mostly on Atari ST, early PCs, BBSes and of course homebrew computers etc.), this is a really fun and great video; well researched and produced!
This was a very nice talk, thank you for the overview!
Glad you enjoyed it!
One that many may not know of that I actually prefer over most is Gearhead, and its successor Gearhead 2. I like the way the keys are arranged far better than Rogue and CDDA and the like, and it was way different to me, with the extensible mecha and pilot combat system all within the form. I still have not gotten anywhere near mastering the games.
Thank you for this video. I'm a millennial, so I never grew up with roguelikes or even heard much about them until recently. Most of the games I grew up with were boomer shooters like Doom II and Quake, third-person shooters like GunZ: The Duel and Max Payne, as well as many MMOs during the MMO boom era when numerous companies tried to replicate the success of World of Warcraft.
I did manage to try a few roguelikes, but I never understood why their graphics looked so... primitive. It was difficult for me to appreciate their aesthetic. I mean, I can fully appreciate low-poly or pixel art because I grew up during that era, but I just can't seem to do the same for roguelikes. However, after watching your video, I feel the spark has been reignited to give roguelikes another chance. I'll try Stoneshard and Elin because they seem more graphically friendly.
Roguelike in my brain: Random (for replayability), yet with meta progression (player skill, or even perks that can develop over time outside of the pure realdeath limitation) .... oh, you got into roguelites as well, well done. I was ready to trot out how smart I am, but you've nailed it all.
Definitely let us know when you have a book out :)
Nethack is still one of my most favorite games. So many great memories.
Nethack is one of those games that I always keep installed somewhere but rarely play. When I do pick it up I seem to bang my head against it for a month or so and hopefully progress a bit more than I have before. This has been going on since at least the early 2000's and I've still never gotten that damn amulet and escaped the dungeon.
By the sounds of it, you've got further than me! Great game though.
@@BreakingZGame it's been a while so honestly I have no idea lol. You're so right about the influence of these games though. Not only in game design but in how people play. Since getting hooked on rogue-likes, permadeath is by far my favorite way to play and I'd say most of my current favorites have some sort of procedural generation going on. Project Zomboid, No Man's Sky and very recently Ostranauts all have a grip on me. NMS being the least rogue-like but it does have a permadeath option and...well it's procedural to the extremes.
I personally feel like Nethack is, I don’t quite know how to put this. Like 500 pounds of animal crackers that fell out of the mouths of 3 year olds 40 years ago and somehow all ended up on the drivers seat of your Datsun 280z that you bought with your 1st paycheck out of college and just can’t bear to let go of.
Or maybe it’s like dinosaurs huge, old, very dead and deeply loved by a particular breed of autistic.
It is a beautiful historic document, but should absolutely not be considered the quintessential rogue-like.
Maybe no game should, but if I had to pick an iconic game that has maintained development and innovation for decades and yet stick like glue to its roots. I choose DCSS.
@@juliofoolio2982 Ehhh.... I have opinions about DCSS. It has changed *significantly* since its early days. Even since the days when I once played it.
I can't entirely separate my opinions from the time I got told by a member of the devteam, that literally any suggestion or feedback that comes out of my mouth will go directly in the garbage bin, for the sole reason of "it came from my mouth, and I am part of the Talking Time Forum community," sooo.
@@violetstarsign This isn’t the first time I have heard similar criticism of them. It’s taken awhile, but I rarely taken anything personally anymore. I have also had to accept that people I don’t like, can still be good artists etc..
Most of the criticism I have heard have been from right wingy indentifying people accusing the dcss of being militantly left wingy. I am not familiar with talking time forum, while I tend more left then right, self righteousness stinks in any flavor.
Fantastic! I am a writer and gamer, deeply into philosophical thinking, surrealism, existentialism, absurdism, and postmodernism. The merging of literature and video games as complementary modes of existence/reality fascinates me (yes, I'd call myself a modal realist). I learned English by playing text adventures and have a particular love for roguelikes. I assume your channel is meant for me 😉. Thank you!
Thanks for that lovely comment! :) Happy to have you around, it sounds like you will find a lot to like about our channel.
Roguelikes are my favorite type of game. I'm digging Rift Wizard 2, Quasimorph, and Caves of Qud right now.
Caves of Qud is a masterpiece, and the first Rift Wizard is also a favourite of mine. Glad to hear 2 is good too. Quasimorph is worth a look then? It looked pretty good, but I'm still a bit on the fence about it for some reason.
Both riftwizards are great! Scratch my itch for open information very well.
@@BreakingZGame Quasimorph slaps hard.
I *still* miss Epyx. Sword of Fargoal was a full Roguelike they made. Temple Of Apshai looked like it should be, but everything was hand-placed. Same with Gateway to Apshai (that was the action game branch). Also Telengard by Avalon Hill was a full Roguelike (interestingly, both that and Fargoal were written in BASIC).
It's funny to hear about genre definition arguments of the roguelike genre. I've been playing these since Linley's Dungeon Crawl. I recognize this gameplay style is niche, but obviously a lot about it has been adopted and spun off into what have become entirely new genres. The niche may have coined the term for the genre they enjoy, but members need to be humble. One can coin a term but there is no way to control it's meaning in a wider sense. Roguelike is such a great example of this, as the meaning has (like so many genres) expanded and been diluted of many of it's original qualities. When that happens, the niche cannot hope to exclude all the new definitions which have been applied to their genre term, it only leads to the frustrations and legendary arguments discussed, but it will never sway the meaning of the wider population. Coining the new term for 'others' like rogueliTe has only had the moderate success that it did because a few popular critical voices in the wider space adopted and used it in this way. The only productive solution is to cede the original coined term and coin a new one for your own niche.
I've come around to realize that the term will evolve whether I want it to or not.
But what bothers me is that an opinion ("This game isn't really a roguelike", for example) makes people angry . Once "roguelike" became a marketing buzzword, people started to think of "not a roguelike" as something negative. Everyone is in love with some new game marketed as a roguelike, but the opinion "it's not really a roguelike" is taken as meaning "this game isn't good enough to deserve being called a roguelike". That's the part I find the most frustrating.
We can still have a conversation about what components or attributes more or less fit the central concept, but people react as if saying "Apples aren't citrus fruit" as a criticism of apples. It's just a categorical descriptor, not a title that a game has to "earn" or be worthy of.
@@grayaj23 it's largely because "roguelike" is synonymous with "good" to these types of people.
Look at the steam tags for the game Crawl. Action Roguelike is in the top 4, used to be the veeeery tippy top(and before that "Roguelike" was its top tag). Now look at Boss Defiance.
Where's the slew of mal-applied roguelike tags? Nowhere to be seen, yet these games play so similarly that they are genre mirrors of one another.
What's the difference? Popularity.
Look at "life is hard." Now look at Kingdom: New Lands. Again these two games are genre mirrors of one another, what's the difference? Pop-u-lar-it-y.
Look at Jetpack Joyride, look at Icy tower. Now look at Downwell. Downwell is called a roguelike, yet the other two aren't. What's the difference? Not quite popularity, but along the same lines, JJ and IT were made before it became popular to mal-apply "roguelike" to everything.
Hell, springboarding off of the Jetpack Joyride and Icy Tower point look at Atic Atac. This is a game the spitting image of what Binding of Isaac would be if made in the 1980's. It's called an "Arcade game" by genre for a reason. It was never released in arcades, but you know what it does have? The same gameplay loop present in Tetris, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy, Oregon Trail, Metal Slug, Gauntlet, Rampart, Snake, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Survival Crisis Z(specifically the "arcade mode"), Dracula Undead Awakening and many, many other games that are well within the arcade genre regardless of if they had an arcade cabinet release.
@@joefadda578 You're right, and this explains why people get pissed off when you say "Hades isn't a roguelike". To them, this is the same a saying "Hades doesn't deserve t be called a roguelike". But I tell them it's like getting angry when someone says apples aren't citrus fruit. It's just accurate taxonomy, not an insult.
I love Cogmind! It's the only traditional roguelike I've played that I really enjoy.
I enjoy my time with it, but I never seem to get very far. So well made though. Beautiful aesthetic, well thought out mechanics, a modern classic of the genre.
@@BreakingZGame Took me 100 hours for my first win, and that was a "basic/easy" win. But lots of areas and mechanics to explore in the discovery phase which is a lot of fun.
Hundreds of hours in Caves of Qud... it's so good.
Interesting documentary! Thank you for making it, I learned a lot.
Thank you!
"Berlin interpretation of what constitutes a roguelike". So this is a community largely of people in academia? You don't say.
Early roguelikes were *made* by a community largely of people in academia. So maybe they know what they’re talking about?
Nice video! Here is a roguelike you might not have considered. My friends and I were still playing the EPYX verison of Rogue when Diablo was released. Diablo is literally Rogue with graphics. We were so excited! Procedural dungeons, lots of loot, identify potions, down down down in levels via stairs, etc. :)
Glad you enjoyed it. Diablo is a classic!
I think Diablo must have been heavily inspired by Rogue/Nethack, yeah. Just as EverQuest was inspired by text MUDs. It's interesting the way that games branched from Rogue. The Diablo branch ended up being called action RPGs, or well.... diablo-likes. Maybe there was even a time when we thought of Diablo when we thought of cRPGs of the day.
And then it was many years later that the term roguelike came about, and for different reasons. I'm not sure if you're saying Diablo should be considered a roguelike or not (I don't think it should, despite a certain common sense reasoning), but I do agree it's a hugely important branch of games that likely came from Rogue/Nethack.
@@RabidHobbit No, I don't have a real point except that in my mind Diablo is Rogue with graphics. I suppose that makes it Rogue-like but not a roguelike.
@@powellfamilyfarm Agree 100%. In another universe all diablo style games could have definitely taken the roguelike name instead of what ended up being popular.
There's definitely a lot of influence on Diablo from early roguelikes. I can't remember the source off the top of my head, but I'm sure I read somewhere once that the Diablo devs were influenced by NetHack in particular. I do find it interesting how ARPGs, roguelikes, and roguelites ended up being kind of split off from one another historically. There's such a huge amount of kinship between them.
Where does Larn fit into this?
Hey, hey, I'm over here.
Nice one!!
Glad you liked it! :)
wonderful lecture! I'm not much for roguelikes myself because I'm terrible at combat (though I love the deck builder subgenre), but it and its derivative and adjacent genres fascinate me. and history is always a plus :)
(also I'm the 69th viewer hehehehe nice)
Glad you enjoyed it :) Some of these games are sooo difficult!
they are, definitely doesn't help my lack of skill lmao
At least the video is not misleading... Too many just shamelessly using the word "roguelike" without remorse...
From some who play game as a challenge and play something else once finish it, I start to hate roguelike: losing on something you can't control when you have a controlller on your hand! Imagine replaying again and again until good luck strike or you have enough item to make you crafty. Instead on dominating the game, the game dominate you. I compare roguelike with a lighting: you have no idea where it strike, like you can't predict a build, and it's all about instant decision and see what can you do with things you have.
Roguelike is very popular on Steam that I associate both (which repel me) and thank to technology, make complex algorithm to achieve balance. That what old console can't do.
I play game to face a new challenge or to follow a story.
know of any text based rogue likes?
it might have been more effort in the past, having to create descriptions for places and a map that still made sense but was randomly generated...
I bet with modern AI help something like that could be coded more easily and descriptions of those places generated by AI as well. load it all into a database and make use of wave function collapse to put it all together. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They're not exactly roguelikes, but have you checked out "Feels" and "Warsim"?
Insulated from. Mainstream? Pokémon mysterious dungeon is probably the most successful rogue like of all time. And it didn’t even get a mention lol. Anyway cool vid.
that's not what I'd consider a classic roguelike, but you do you.
Shout out to DreamQuest, the first deckbuilder roguelike i ever saw. Predated slay the spire!
Interestingly there's a lot of different slot-machine roguelites as well.
That's true! A lot of people really love 'Luck be a Landlord', and it is a rally well-designed game, but I really couldn't get on with it for some reason.
and not just slot machines, there's a whole micro-genre of casino game roguelites: Balatro (poker), Luck be a Landlord (slots), Spin Hero (slots), Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers (blackjack)... there's probably more those are just the ones I know
I mean the designer of Vampire Survivors literally designed slot machines in the past iirc
I'm playing Halls of Torment at the moment, definitely check that one out if you haven't already! (it costs 4.99 or so) Also subbed for future informative videos :) !
Thanks for the sub! I'm a big fan of Halls of Torment, and I've actually done a review of it on the channel :)
ruclips.net/video/IiaXySNPjzE/видео.html
Me as a kid playing without a memorycard was very rouglikeish
That is a lot more arcade-ish than roguelike-ish.
I mean if you back up your saves through Rogue, you're not changing the genre of the game.
If you back up your saves through Beneath Apple Manor, again you're not changing the genre.
What have you done in backing up your saves through Rogue? Removed permadeath, Rogue played with backup-saves is still a roguelike.
Beneath Apple Manor is a roguelike despite being non proc-gen, and if you back up the saves when playing through BAM, you've removed both procedural generation and permadeath. Yet it is still clearly, and undeniably a roguelike, because it's damn near impossible to tell gameplay of BAM and gameplay of Rogue apart unless you are either
A: currently playing
or
B: watching for in excess of 20 minutes.
Most games you'd call "roguelike" don't play like *one another* let alone like *Rogue* to begin with.
What do Yugioh: Forbidden Memories, Atic Atac, and Super Metroid have in common? Literally nothing. You would not group these 3 games together as a genre.
Why then do it with "Roguelike" to Slay The Spire, Binding of Isaac and Rogue Legacy? It makes no sense whatsoever.
Umm… three minutes in and he hasn’t actually said anything about what a Rogue-like game is, other than how great, popular, and complex they are.
Is there a point to passing judgment on a 22min video 3mins in?
@@RabidHobbit it’s not passing judgement; I am criticizing the essay to be biased, a warning to anyone expecting a “history” that is simply presenting factual information.
@@jmatos316If you are suggesting that he is biased toward thinking rogue-like games are great.. well yeah. The thing is I don’t see that as a criticism. He is a fan of rogue-like games making a video for other fans of the genre. He doesn’t explain what rogue-likes are because, we already know. We are also fans. I think maybe you are not.
@@juliofoolio2982 having played several on Telnet machines at university lab between 1993 and 1996 I can say I have fond memories of the games without having known they were called rogue-like … However, I’m not criticizing him for liking them… I’m criticizing him for being effusive about it from the beginning of his … essay? … without giving much meet as to why… I’m criticizing his word choice and structural planning, not his choice of games… if I wasn’t interested in the topic I wouldn’t have bothered watching the video. I guess I’m off base in thinking that one creates something called “a history “ with the idea of informing people who may NOT know about it so that they will… but, you have disabused me of that notion and made it perfectly clear that history is written for people who all ready love a topic and know all about it. Obviously.
@@jmatos316 Fair enough I suppose. I did not find the video particularly enlightening either.. I just don’t particularly fault him for being effusive. I do believe that the Rogue-like genre is a foundational pillar of game design and continues to loan its tenets and innovations to pc games of all kinds. I personally do not find the rogue-lite to actually be the best example of this.
If you were playing on telnet machines, in perhaps the mid to late 80s or early 90s, it may well have been rogue-likes you were playing, but it was more likely MUDs.
Sorry roguelike ... too many of them are boring and stupidly meaninglessly repetitive. There can be great roguelike, but no many are.