Discussion Main / Roguelike

A less destructive proposal:

Break down the examples into folders of categories; the Hacks, the Bands, the Coffeebreak games and the experiments, adding a fifth "roguelike-like" category. Yes, there's significant overlap, so these should probably be loosely enforced. The point is it gives roguelike-like examples a dedicated, separate place and calls them out as such, in a way that future editors should immediately catch on.

I'm rifling through the examples for categorization now, and it feels like there's a fifth category, codified by the Mystery Dungeon series, although there's a probable Ur-Example in Azure Dreams. They seem to take heavily after Bands, but diverge in a few fundamental ways:

• Dungeons are not persistent, but in contrast to Bands, they're usually finite and often relatively small.
• Gameplay is centered on a cycle of completing a small dungeon or a section of a larger dungeon, then returning to a common town to buy/sell items and gear and possibly improve equipment.
• Permadeath is downplayed; death generally only returns you to town empty-handed. Similarly, food is often eliminated.
• Line of sight is usually not a game mechanic; any objects, walls, or other entities between you and a monster, trap, or item, has no influence on whether they're shown onscreen.
• More directly controllable allies (that are usually distinct tile-occupying entities themselves) are common

Despite spurning a few of the more famous aspects of roguelikes, they adhere strictly to less-noticed but fundamental mechanics, like turn-based grid-based gameplay and crawling through procedurally generated dungeons with high randomness. I'd say they count, but are too different from the Hacks and Bands, and too consistent to sit under the wide "Coffeebreak" or "Experimental" umbrellas.

I say go for adding a fifth category if it's clearly useful. These aren't official categories in any case. The Hack/Band distinction has long been made in roguelike circles, but these days we do have a wealth of roguelike-ish concepts, so we shouldn't be afraid to expand the list. :)

Quite a few of these examples don't even meet the "Permadeath and Randomly Generated Map" examples. Dark Cloud and Dark Chronicle don't have permadeath. Sunless Sea doesn't have generated locations (to the best of my knowledge). Lots of these are just RP Gs, and don't even meet the very relaxed definition of Roguelike.

Sunless Sea does have randomized locations-the beta just didn't ship with that system.

I propose further categorization based on roguelike archetypes that follow the styles of certain progenitors. Some examples:

• Isaaclikes: Top-down twin-stick-shooter Bullet Hell roguelikes with Equipment-Based Progression and strong Macrogame elements. The core gameplay loop is entering a room, defeating all of the enemies in the room, and moving on to the next. This loop is often broken up with rooms containing major treasure that modify the player's stats and abilities. Depending on the game, there may be some limited backtracking allowed (usually that the player can freely travel between rooms on a given floor, but travel between floors is one-way only, with everything left behind on a floor being Lost Forever for that run).
  • Examples: The Binding of Isaac (progenitor), Enter the Gungeon, Nuclear Throne, Star of Providence, Our Darker Purpose, Dead Estate, Soul Knight, Tiny Rogues, etc.
  • Semi-examples: Revita (side-scroller), Exit the Gungeon (side-scroller)
• Spirelikes: Deckbuilding roguelikes where the player collects cards to form a deck for battle (with limited opportunities to heal, upgrade cards, or remove cards that are proving themselves to be a nuisance). Combat is turn-based, with what the player can do on a given turn being defined by what cards they drew from their deck on that turn and how many action points they can spend playing those cards; unused cards are discarded at the end of the turn. Cards can sometimes be removed from or added to the deck for the duration of a combat, such as as an extra drawback of unusually powerful (or cheap and expendable) cards. Enemy attacks and other actions are usually broadcast to the player during the player's turn, allowing them to formulate their strategy around responding to what the enemy is going to do next. Many Status Infliction Attacks take the form of temporary Deck Cloggers, though more conventional Status Effects also exist. New cards to add to the deck are offered after every battle, and the player is usually allowed to skip and not add any cards if they don't like any of the options and/or feel that their deck works fine as is. The option to skip is a crucial part of run strategy, since it's generally easier to add new cards than to remove them, and the cards the player starts a run with are generally not strong enough to be useful in the late game, making it often a good idea to remove them. Non-card collectibles are also offered after fights with stronger enemies or special "treasure rooms" to augment the player's stats or modify their abilities. Random events are also available to allow the player to modify their deck and/or character in some way, with the risks/drawbacks and rewards/benefits of the offered options being clearly spelled out. Some of these random events (or the non-card collectibles) may add persistent deck cloggers that will interfere with the flow of the player's deck unless and until they are removed through the aforementioned permanent card removal opportunities (or they could be used as secondary-discard fodder). Progression is strictly one-way with no backtracking allowed, though branching paths are usually offered. Different playable characters, factions, or classes often have wildly different card pools that specialize in various aspects of the combat system and neglect others, ensuring that any given build will have clear strengths and weaknesses that must be accounted for.
  • Examples: Slay the Spire (progenitor), Monster Train, Night of the Full Moon, One Step From Eden, Dawncaster, Cobalt Core, Phantom Rose, etc.

I like these categorizations and their detailed descriptions - however, as a rule TV Tropes is descriptive, not prescriptive, so in order to use them they would need to be terms that are already established. For example, the terms "Hack-like" and "*band" used on the Roguelike Analysis page were ones that had already been used in roguelike communities for some time to distinguish different traditional roguelike lineages.

If the terms are already recognized by the gaming community however then that's fine, go for it.

Borderlands cribbed quite a lot from Diablo, the big ones being:

• Randomized equipment with random stats plus a smattering of unique gear that themselves have some randomized stats.
• Characters that can freely jump between game instances, gear and all.
• Quest-driven progression in a sandbox-style world with designated safe havens.

But, yes, neither have any place here.

The Trope Namer is the Trope Maker. Yes, it is old —it was around in the 1980s. But that is double-edged.

Both the genre and the name for the genre were firmly established before Eternal September and the modernization of the internet. Many fans of this genre were using the 'Net that long ago; many others still use Usenet to discuss it. The genre will have to have a modern breakout hit — say, the first successful "roguelike" for the Nintendo Wii — before anyone dares rename it.

Note: there might be alternate names for this genre (citations needed, natch). There are a few gamer 'zines that (quite reasonably) don't know anything about Rogue. If they ran into a game of this sort, then they might call it a Diablo-type. Every gamer has head of Diablo.

"Mystery Dungeon"-type might also be good, and has the advantage of being descriptive even for those who don't play the games. (One of the defining traits of a roguelike is the randomized dungeon.) But that might be better as a subtype, since it looks like most games using that name are Japanese or Pokemon (yes, I know that's redundant). Maybe Eastern roguelikes can be "Mystery Dungeon" and Western roguelikes can be "Angband-type." (Net Hack is the single most popular roguelike, but there are a lot of games naming themselves after Angband.)

Probably the closest thing to an alternative name would be Dungeon Crawler, though as the Dungeon Crawling trope notes, there are some games typically classed as dungeon crawlers without Randomly Generated Levels (I'd point to the early Might & Magic titles or maybe even Gauntlet as examples.)

Also, Diablo clones are a bit more particular than “modern roguelikes,” since they specifically include realtime action, and usually Co-Op Multiplayer.