The phrase “roguelike” has been overused to such a degree in recent memory that it’s become all but meaningless as a descriptor of what a game is actually like to play, but if nothing else it acts as a suitable starting point for a discussion about how a game is constructed, what the player is expected to do in it and where its longevity comes from.

The reason why “roguelike” itself as a term isn’t particularly meaningful any more is that it’s diverged into a number of discrete but related bloodlines over the years, with each offering their own particular take on being inspired by the dungeon-crawling classic. And, just as with most things, not getting on with one particular roguelike absolutely doesn’t preclude you from enjoying others. In fact, this is one of the main reasons “roguelike” as a descriptor isn’t useful any more, because it doesn’t reflect the sheer diversity that is part of this subgenre in 2016.

Let’s take a look at the different branches.

The traditional roguelike

A traditional roguelike builds on the foundations of the original Rogue in a number of ways. It presents the player with a seemingly simple task to complete (usually “find the x of y” or “kill the z“) and a means through which to accomplish this task, usually a multi-level dungeon that is randomly generated with each playthrough, but which has the final objective down on the bottom floor.

Traditional roguelikes don’t have to be presented as ASCII text characters, but many deliberately choose to, as a key part of these games is the fact they occupy a curious middle ground between tabletop roleplaying and standard computer-based hack and slash role-playing games, and as such a key part of enjoying them is having an active imagination with which to conjure up images of what your character is up to, the strange and terrifying dangers they’re having to deal with and the horrible effects that potion you probably shouldn’t have drunk is having on you.

A key aspect of traditional roguelikes is permadeath: in other words, your character dies, your save file is wiped and you have to start again. This mechanic can sometimes be circumnavigated by doing unspeakable things to your save game files, but doing so is generally — and quite rightly — regarded as cheating. In other words, if you’re going to play a traditional roguelike properly, you can’t just charge in with little regard for the consequences like modern hack-and-slash games, where the consequence for dying is usually little more than a portion of your gold and having to run back to where your corpse was.

Some traditional roguelikes try and tell an unfolding story by complementing the procedurally generated content with pre-composed quests, conversations, characters and lore items. More often than not, though, a more old-school, back-of-the-tape-box approach is taken, with narrative very much taking a back seat to exploration and character development in the mechanical sense.

One aspect where traditional roguelikes are heavily inspired by tabletop roleplaying is in the amount of freedom you’re given right from character creation. You can generally pick from different races, genders and classes as well as tinker with your base stats to construct the perfect (or entertainingly flawed) character of your dreams. But that freedom often carries over into the game itself, too; many traditional roguelikes, for example, allow you to dig into the walls of the dungeon to change its layout or construct shortcuts, and the mechanics often afford the opportunity to be a little creative with your solutions to problems. A good example is the time I played Angband and ran out of torches several levels down in the dungeon, necessitating me “feeling” my way along the walls of the dungeon (by bumping into them, which reveals them on the map) until I could get back to the stairway up. This mechanic wasn’t hard-coded into the game, but I was able to do it successfully thanks to the systems that are in place.

Good examples of traditional roguelikes in my experience include the original Rogue, which is rather simple by today’s standards; Nethack, which is a good entry point if you can learn to decipher the ASCII interface; Angband, which initially seems extremely complicated but gradually becomes more and more understandable once you learn a few useful keyboard commands; Tales of Maj’Eyal (formerly Tales of Middle Earth), which is a highly polished, very flexible roguelike that strikes a good balance between storytelling and dungeon crawling; and Caves of Qud, which is unusual for the genre in that it has a sci-fi theme rather than Tolkien-inspired fantasy.

The modern Western roguelike

Modern Western roguelikes tend to take the basic structure of the traditional roguelike and present it in a manner that has more immediacy and accessibility. Perhaps the very best example of this is the wonderful Dungeons of Dredmor, which is as brutal as any traditional roguelike but has charming 16-bit era pixel art-style graphics, a quirky soundtrack and an entertaining sense of humour. Dungeons of Dredmor does the whole permadeath thing and allows you the freedom to build custom characters with a variety of skills — some of which are very bizarre indeed — but doesn’t quite offer the full freedom of a completely traditional roguelike thanks to the constraints placed on it by being presented graphically rather than abstractly.

Sword of the Stars: The Pit is another title worth checking out. While its visuals are shockingly bad, it’s an atmospheric game that, like Caves of Qud in the traditional corner, eschews the standard fantasy setting in favour of sci-fi. There’s an interesting selection of character classes and skills to play with, and some enjoyable mechanics to explore and discover as you play.

The modern Eastern roguelike

Japan latched on to the roguelike structure at some point in the last few console generations, and Eastern developers have produced some great games that have a distinctly Japanese flavour to them while still retaining a number of the key aspects of traditional roguelikes.

One important difference with Japanese roguelikes, however, is that they usually contain some form of persistence rather than permadeath. Death is still an inconvenience, but it rarely, if ever, necessitates going all the way back to the beginning of the game to start all over again.

Exactly how death is handled varies from game to game. In Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon for Wii, for example, dying causes you to lose all your non-banked gold and every item you were carrying except key items for the story and the equipment you had equipped at the time. You keep your experience levels and Job levels, so you can gradually “creep” forward in terms of progress, getting a bit more experience and power each time, until you can eventually just steamroller your way through by outlevelling the challenges — although a number of the bonus dungeons feature a “level sync” mechanic whereby if you’re over a particular level, you’re pushed back down to the maximum for that dungeon and sometimes given additional non-standard “rules” to folow.

In ZHP for PSP, meanwhile, your character resets to level 1 each time you enter a new dungeon, regardless of whether or not you cleared the last one successfully. The twist is, any time you exit a dungeon, be it through death or successfully clearing it, your character’s base level and stats increase, meaning that a “level 1” late in the game will be considerably more powerful than a “level 1” at the start of the game, particularly when you throw equipment into the mix. You still lose all the stuff you were carrying if you die, though, and to add further insult to injury your character develops a phobia of whatever killed him, causing various penalties when encountering them again until they “get over it” by successfully overcoming said challenge several times.

One Way Heroics for PC takes another approach again. Here, there’s a traditional permadeath system in effect, though you can retry the same game map by entering a specific seed on starting the game each time. There’s an element of player persistence, though, depending on how well you performed, and this was subsequently expanded with the Plus version of the game. You can unlock new classes, carry items over to a subsequent playthrough and upgrade the castle where every game starts (and by extension unlock a number of different quests besides the standard one). There are also a number of named characters you’ll encounter in your quests if you get far enough; once you’ve met them once, they’ll be revealed and give you tips on the post-game score screen rather than appearing as shadowy figures. There’s also a substantial meta-game in place where there’s a “true” ending that can only be unlocked through some extremely convoluted processes. It’s a Japanese game, for sure.

Roguelites

This term was, I believe, coined for Rogue Legacy, and is used to describe games that draw inspiration from traditional roguelikes but which tend to fall into markedly different genres and playstyles to the traditional turn-based top-down RPG that roguelikes usually are.

The aforementioned Rogue Legacy was an interesting affair, with Metroidvania-style platform action RPG action coupled with persistent progression between sessions by upgrading your castle and unlocking new abilities as a result. Each character was also regarded as a descendant of the previous one, too, meaning that there was the possibility certain genetic markers could be passed on. These could affect the gameplay — the hereditary ability to jump high or do more damage is very useful, for example — while others were largely there for humour and characterisation. A colour-blind character, for example, had to do their playthrough in black and white.

The Binding of Isaac is another well-known modern roguelite, this time combining the presentation of the original Legend of Zelda’s dungeons with some dark, disgusting visual humour and Gauntlet-style shoot ’em up mechanics. While Isaac didn’t have persistent progression in quite the same way as Rogue Legacy, you did unlock new items as you progressed through the game, which subsequently gave them a chance of appearing in future playthroughs rather than guaranteeing you’d have them. Collecting all these items provided a substantial metagame for Isaac, let alone the sheer challenge of actually getting to the end of the game.

Finally for now, one of the most recent roguelites can be found in the form of Enter the Gungeon. This is a straight-up action game with randomly generated levels, but its main appeal comes from the many varied and bizarre weapons you’ll pick up on each playthrough. There’s also an element of persistent progression as you unlock new features using currency you earn in each playthrough; like Isaac, there’s a substantial metagame in unlocking everything, though in this case, your unlocks will likely make subsequent playthroughs a bit easier to make it through.

It’s pretty fascinating how a simple title from the dawn of gaming has spawned such a diverse range of titles inspired by it to one degree or another. How many other games from those days can boast such a feat? Not that many.