Roguelikes – Sam Cox

(N.B. Cult of the Lamb will not be mentioned in this article due to Conflict of Interest and NDA reasons).

What are Roguelikes

“A roguelike is a game structured around failing and restarting, in which no two play-throughs are exactly alike due to a design that randomizes various aspects of the experience”, – Greg Kasavin, Supergiant Games (Perry, H. 2023).

Regardless of if it’s a Roguelike or a Roguelite, there are 2 important aspects of the genre:

Procedural (Read: Random Generation) Generation, which means that every run in the game is different to each other. What this means that, each time a new run starts, an algorithm generates a new map, meaning that no 2 runs are exactly the same (Perry, H. 2023), (The evolution of the roguelike 2016).
Permanent death, where the player starts over at the beginning of the game, upon death. As (Perry, H. 2023) states, “Repeated failure is an essential part of the experience, and it often makes your character or starting loadout stronger, tempering the difficulty over time.” This growth in the player usually from the player getting better at the game with their skills increasing, or, in the case of Roguelites, with the players character getting stronger via permanent upgrades.

In 2008, developers came together to define the elements of a Roguelike, known as the Berlin interpretation (Berlin interpretation – roguebasin no date), (Hatfield, T. 2013).

These include high-value factors such as:

Random environment generation
Permadeath
Turn Based Gameplay
Grid Based Gameplay
Non-Modal Gameplay
Complexity
Resource Management
Hack’n’Slash Gameplay
Exploration and Discovery

And low level factors such as:

Single Player Character
Monsters Being Similar To Players
Tactical Challenge
ASCII Display
Dungeons
Numbers

(Berlin interpretation – roguebasin no date).

I’ll mention Permanent Progression and Persistence later on the article.

History of Roguelikes

The first game in the Roguelike genre is the game Beneath Apple Manor in 1978, followed by Rogue (1980). Other games in the genre during the period of the 20th century include Nethack, Shiren the Wanderer and Toejam and Earl (Bycer, J. 2023). Many of the games during this time are known as Traditional Roguelikes and features dungeon crawling and ASCII art, and similarity to the tabletop game Dungeons and Dragons , an algorithm generates a new map, meaning that no 2 runs are exactly the same (Perry, H. 2023), (The evolution of the roguelike 2016), (Hatfield, T. 2013).

However, the term, especially in the 21st century, became used to encompass the 2 most important aspects of the genre (Random Generation, Permadeath), which would be used in games that weren’t dungeon crawling games with ASCII art. These include Spelunky, The Binding of Issac and FTL: Faster Than Light. Many of these new games were based on the assumption that the traditional Roguelikes mentioned above were unfriendly to new players and as such these games focused on blending the genres essential elements with other genres, which made it accessible to more players. These games are collectively known as modern Roguelikes (The evolution of the roguelike 2016), (Hatfield, T. 2013).

Finally, theres the subgenre Roguelike Deckbuilders, which combines the 2 important features of the genre mentioned above with deck building gameplay. They started emerging by the 2010s, with games like Dream Quest (2014), (Gollop, J. 2018). However, the game that popularised the genre was Slay the Spire, which released in early access in 2017, and fully 2 years later in 2019. The game was an inspiration for other developers to make similar games, like Luck Be a Landlord, which further inspired Balatro (Purdy, K. 2024).

Roguelikes vs Roguelites

The difference between the 2 terms Roguelike and Roguelike is highly debated online, however there are 2 general distinctions between the 2. The main difference between Roguelikes and Roguelites is that Roguelites have some sort of player persistence, as the player continues to play more of the game they will be able to unlock upgrades that makes the game easier and allows the player to get more easily further through the game. The way Roguelites do this is by implementing permanent upgrades into the game (Settling the Roguelike vs RogueLite Debate | Critical Thought 2019). There isn’t a lot of variance in Roguelites compared to Roguelikes, i.e, each run of a Roguelites are pretty similar to one another, whereas even after many runs in a Roguelike, there is always something new to see in the game uilt into the game. The way Roguelites do this is by implementing permanent upgrades into the game (Settling the Roguelike vs RogueLite Debate | Critical Thought 2019).

Roguelikes
- Focus on individual runs vs a campaign.
- High degrees of variance (how the game will play out), so a different experience each time the player starts a new run.
- Little to no carryovers (things that carry over from run to run that affect the next run).
Roguelites
- Focused on an end point in the game.
- Either more focused on the story or less focused on difference between runs.
- Persistency (permanent upgrades).

(Bycer, J. 2023), (Settling the Roguelike vs RogueLite Debate | Critical Thought 2019).

Examples

Roguelikes (or Roguelites, depending on who you ask)

Spelunky
FTL: Faster Than Light
Dead Cells
Children of Morta
Returnal

Traditional Roguelikes

Rogue
Nethack
Dwarf Fortress
Tales of Maj’Eyal
Brogue

Roguelike Deckbuilders

Slay The Spire
Balatro
Wildfrost
Cobalt Core
Luck Be a Landlord

References

Bycer, J. (2023) The roguelike debate — roguelikes vs Roguelites, Game Developer. Available at: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/the-roguelike-debate—-roguelikes-vs-roguelites (Accessed: 15 October 2025).

Perry, H. (2023) Don’t be scared. play a roguelike., The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/what-are-roguelike-games/ (Accessed: 15 October 2025).

Settling the Roguelike vs RogueLite Debate | Critical Thought (2019) YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/TTJAziviurc?si=eNbRnRVHcoodslHd (Accessed: 15 October 2025).

Berlin interpretation – roguebasin (no date) Berlin Interpretation. Available at: https://www.roguebasin.com/index.php/Berlin_Interpretation (Accessed: 15 October 2025).

The evolution of the roguelike (2016) IGN Africa. Available at: https://za.ign.com/the-binding-of-isaac-rebirth/97192/feature/the-evolution-of-the-roguelike (Accessed: 15 October 2025).

Hatfield, T. (2013) Rise of the roguelikes: A genre evolves, GameSpy. Available at: http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/ftl-faster-than-light/1227287p1.html (Accessed: 15 October 2025).

Gollop, J. (2018) The Gollop Chamber: Rise of the roguelike deck builder, PC Gamer. Available at: https://www.pcgamer.com/the-gollop-chamber-rise-of-the-roguelike-deck-builder/ (Accessed: 15 October 2025).

Purdy, K. (2024) Why there are 861 roguelike deckbuilders on steam all of a sudden, Ars Technica. Available at: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/04/why-there-are-861-roguelike-deckbuilders-on-steam-all-of-a-sudden/ (Accessed: 15 October 2025).

Kyzrati (2020) What is a traditional roguelike?, Grid Sage Games. Available at: https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2020/02/traditional-roguelike/ (Accessed: 15 October 2025).