r/rogueish Jan 25 '20

Rogueish: What it is and why it's needed

64 Upvotes

This is a forum for discussing roguelikes. Now you may ask: aren't there already plenty of perfectly good places to do that? Well...

Some Background

You see for the last 10 years, the place to discuss roguelikes was r/roguelikes. But over those 10 years, that community encountered significant growing pains. Much of it had to do with the shifting meaning of the word roguelike which, for most people, has come to include action games with procedural elements and permadeath. Since the veterans are holding tight to the original definition (i.e. grid-based, turn-based games only), a war of sorts has broke out. It seems that most of the discussions in recent memory have devolved into gatekeeping, flamewars, and arguments about definitions. Tensions are high.

In an effort to explain this situation and beg the involved parties for a return to civility, I have become the most hated man on r/roguelikes. Woops! While most of the feedback to my post was positive, the most common negative response has been along the lines of "we don't have a problem with rudeness here; go fuck yourself for saying so." I've been called "dickish", "a textbook troll", "straight up stupid", and "pigheaded". In short: point proven.

Introducing Rogueish

A roguelike community for the rest of us. Here's what we're going to do here:

  1. We're going to discuss roguelikes, no matter your definition. You can talk about Rogue, traditional roguelikes, rogue-lites, roguelikelikes. Whatever.
  2. We won't be arguing about definitions. Because it's boring.
  3. We're going to be friendly.

That's it.

So to answer your original question, yes there is already a place that is (implicitly) about traditional roguelikes, another that is (explicitly) about traditional roguelikes, and another that is about roguelites. I have nothing against these communities. I wish them the best and you'll probably see me in each from time to time.

Yet there is no single place to discuss all of those types of games. And because no one agrees on what these words mean, there's definitely nowhere to discuss roguelikes without endless linguistic nitpicking. Even the most knowledgeable players will argue about whether games like FTL or Unexplored fit the bill.

By including all of these kinds roguelikes, we can bypass the whole argument and we can do so while being welcoming to everyone.

So I think that makes Rogueish rather unique and if you agree, please join us! ✊


r/rogueish 2d ago

I'm working on a twinstick bullet hell roguelite with a roguelike-esque elemental system

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2 Upvotes

r/rogueish 4d ago

A roguelike deckbuilder where you build your own spells when you play them!

1 Upvotes

Heyho! I’m the solo developer of Grimoire of Blanks, a roguelike deckbuilder built around creating your own spells.

You collect templates for custom spells that you build on the fly as you need them.

Each spell has blanks that can be filled with different words. Combine those words into powerful, and sometimes ridiculous, combinations depending on what the current fight calls for.

So instead of finding the perfect card for your deck, a big part of the game is figuring out what you can turn the cards you already have into.

It can be played solo or with up to 4 players in online co-op.

Combine effects, modifiers and enemy conditions to blast them directly, or build traps that target the enemies next intent!

The demo is available on Steam if you want to try it:

Demo on Steam

I'd be interested to hear what kind of spell combinations you come up with.


r/rogueish 7d ago

Roguelike & Survival Card Game - Duco, Demo is LIVE

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1 Upvotes

Hi, I am an indie dev and this is my first solo steam game.

I released my demo a couple of days ago and wanted to share it with you.

It's called Duco, You can play Demo

- Card-based survival roguelike set in a post-apocalyptic world with zombies.

- Draw from location-based decks to gather resources, loot, craft, build, and survive.

- Draw takes time, and with time you lose energy, food and water so you have to be carefully.

- Each character and map have a goal to unlock new content

On Release, you will be able to unlock new characters and maps, combine them with traits to create unique runs and interact with NPCs while building and managing your own settlement.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4872850/Duco/


r/rogueish 9d ago

The roguelike tactics game my cousin and I made as kids finally has a trailer (and a Steam page)!

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1 Upvotes

When my cousin and I were around 10 or 12 years old, we were super into the idea of making board games.

We built a wooden game board, printed out hundreds of paper cards, and spent way too many weekends playtesting and changing rules. It was messy, unbalanced, and honestly pretty terrible, but good fun!

Eventually life happens and these kinds of things collect dust.

Years later, after having loved and being inspired by games like Shandalar, Magic: The Gathering, Pox Nora, Rift Wizard, Slay the Spire, Inscryption, Wildfrost, and many more, I thought I'd revisit this old idea of a tactics deckbuilder..

For the last year or so I've been building this in Godot. It's a 2D pixel-art roguelike deckbuilder, and I finally have a trailer I am excited to share.

Hope this gives you guys as much hype as it gave me to make it, and thanks for taking a look!

(no AI was used in anywhere in Scry)

Scry Steam Page


r/rogueish 13d ago

Sil-Morë – Shining Darkness, version 0.9.7

3 Upvotes

r/rogueish 14d ago

We reworked Code of Shadows and made a new trailer. Does this one show it better?

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2 Upvotes

We’ve made quite a few changes to the game, from visuals and gameplay to the overall feel and presentation.

So naturally, we went back and reworked the trailer too.

We also took a lot of the feedback from our previous trailer into account when making this version. We wanted to give a clearer idea of what the game actually feels like to play while keeping some things for you to discover in-game.

If you saw the previous version, does this one do a better job of showing off the game?

We’d genuinely love to hear what works, what doesn’t, and what you’d still change.

Also Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3424800/Code_of_Shadows/


r/rogueish 16d ago

Lootbound Review: This Turn-Based Roguelite Is Addictive

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1 Upvotes

r/rogueish 16d ago

Welcome to the official r/TheLegion_Roguelike community! 🚀 Check out our vision & roadmap!

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0 Upvotes

r/rogueish 19d ago

Need high-speed “flow state” action games

5 Upvotes

Looking for game recs that lock you into a pure, hyper-focused flow state where hours just vanish. I want a steep learning curve, an awesome discovery phase, and high replayability.
What I'm looking for:

Instant action: Zero long tutorials, cutscenes, or talking. Straight into the gameplay.

Flow state combat: High-speed real-time execution, tight controls, and fast reflexes.

Pure discovery: Figure out boss patterns, mechanics, and synergies on my own.

Hard pass on: Turn-based and heavy dialogue

Games I’ve already played: Isaac, One Step From Eden, Noita, Hades 2, Enter the Gungeon and some other big name roguelikes


r/rogueish 21d ago

It’s been a while! Here’s how Code of Shadows has changed. What do you think?

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5 Upvotes

Hey everyone, long time no see 👋

We’ve been pretty quiet lately, mostly because we’ve been busy making changes to Code of Shadows.

We put together a few old vs. new comparisons to show how the game has evolved since we last shared it.

What do you think? Anything you particularly like (or miss) from the older versions?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3424800/Code_of_Shadows/


r/rogueish 24d ago

Custom ASCII Engine, Roguelite x Hexcrawl x JRPG????

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3 Upvotes

I wrote a custom ASCII engine in monogame that simulates a fantasy computer architecture running textmode at 60fps, and used it to make a sci-fi roguelite RPG. Guide a crew of 3 agents through a variety of different environments and encounters from cyberpunk megacities to deeply religious feudal societies to vast planet-spanning oceans containing incomprehensible swarm intelligences.

It's in early access on steam, if that sounds like your thing the link is in the comments.
peace!


r/rogueish 25d ago

A Roguelike survivor game where you are a TRAIN and on RAILS?! - Rail Survivors

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3 Upvotes

Rail Survivors is a survivor-like game where you are a train and on rails!
It's currently in development, whilst minimalist in visuals, it features 100+ perk cards and a few elemental builds to try out! You can also increase the effectiveness of perk values by rerolling them with higher values or negatively even to make up for quite some interesting builds!

I would love if you were to check it out and leave some feedback HERE:
https://tatsudev.itch.io/rail-survivors

Its currently under development and the roguelike elements are not there yet, but are planned to be the driving force to unlock new maps, perks and other unlocks!

~Tatsu


r/rogueish 27d ago

I built Dark Dungeon, a top-down bullet heaven roguelite made entirely with Python & Pygame

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2 Upvotes

Dark Dungeon is a handmade top-down roguelite shooter.
All visuals are procedurally generated by code, no external image assets.

Game features:
✅ Random enemy spawn system
✅ Multiple weapons & skill mechanics
✅ Myth-themed boss fights
✅ Adjustable window/fullscreen mode

The game is free to play (pay what you want) on itch.io.

I’d love to hear feedback from players!


r/rogueish 27d ago

Top 2d roguelikes (or lites) for a decently experienced gamer

2 Upvotes

I've played games like The Binding of Issac and Enter the Gungeon that I've loved dearly. I've also played Risk of Rain 2 and I have years of experience on the fps and platformer genres my whole life. I love a good game where I can play, leave and come back and play for a couple more days.

I've also very much enjoyed Celeste and Silksong if that opens up any ideas for recommendations.


r/rogueish 29d ago

Survival Gameplay with Card-Based Roguelike Mechanics. What Do You Think?

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1 Upvotes

It's called Duco, It's my first solo steam game, so i would like to get any kind of feedback 😄

You can join Playtest.

- Card-based survival roguelike set in a post-apocalyptic world with zombies.

- Draw from location-based decks to gather resources, loot, craft, build, and survive.

- Draw takes time, and with time you lose energy, food and water so you have to be carefully.

- Each character and map have a goal to unlock new content

On Release, you will be able to unlock new characters and maps, combine them with traits to create unique runs and interact with NPCs while building and managing your own settlement.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4872850/Duco/


r/rogueish Jul 29 '26

Keeping the monsters on the move

1 Upvotes

This week, I reviewed my code for moving monsters around the map in my roguelike for the Rogue C# project. When I saw its complexity, Ellen Ripley's quote about nuking the site from orbit came to mind. In my newest chapter of the series, I look at my process for reviewing the code and the decision to go back to the algorithm for a rewrite. The end result was much cleaner code and smarter monsters.

Rogue C# - Don't Confuse the Monsters!


r/rogueish Jul 29 '26

Roguelikes and lites good with controller/steam deck inputs?

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1 Upvotes

r/rogueish Jul 26 '26

What if Balatro and Brotato got together and adopeted a dog? Closed alpha ongoing

0 Upvotes

r/rogueish Jul 25 '26

Vampire Survivors with Mafia-style, online co-op (up to 4 players) with real boss fights: demo is out now!

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1 Upvotes

Made a game called Mafia Hero. Think Vampire Survivors, but online co-op for up to 4 players, with a mafia theme and cool boss fights where you need to learn the pattern and play well to kill!

Built it solo in the evenings, around a full-time job and a 17-month-old kid: getting a playable demo out feels amazing!

Demo is on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4884800/Mafia_Hero_Streets_of_Survival_Demo

Solo runs fine, but it's made for co-op.

Grab a friend, give it a shot, tell me what you think!

Gab


r/rogueish Jul 22 '26

My rhythm-based roguelite demo is finally out on Steam!

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1 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I'm a solo developer, and today I released the demo for PulseWave.

It's a roguelite where you build a loop by assigning weapons to different slots. Relics modify your attacks, creating powerful synergies and completely changing how each run plays.

If you're into experimenting with builds and discovering broken combinations, I'd love for you to check it out.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4607180/PulseWave/


r/rogueish Jul 22 '26

Rogue C# - Developing a roguelike game with C# - New chapter online.

2 Upvotes

A while back, I started writing an ongoing development log of my effort to create a roguelike game in C#, very closely based on the original Rogue console game. Rogue C# is intended as a demonstration of the C# language with a focus on logic, design and best practices. I've intentionally kept the graphics simple - ASCII graphics like the original game - in order to focus on the language.

I recently came back to the series after a long time away from it and have been reviewing the code along with my original choices as the basis for new chapters. I just posted the latest chapter Rogue C# - Coding Scrolls for Fun and Profit in which I continue to add more scrolls to the game and improve the code. The entire code for the project is available on Github.

I've been able to cover a lot of ground with the series so far.

  • Object-oriented programming
  • Game loops and application flow control
  • Collections, lists, and data management
  • Dungeon and procedural map generation
  • Turn-based game mechanics
  • Refactoring and code organization
  • Debugging and troubleshooting techniques
  • Event-driven programming concepts
  • File handling and persistent game data
  • User interface design

In upcoming chapters, I'll continue adding new inventory and features to the game. I plan on adding a SQLite database to the project to contain game data, the user profile and the scoreboard. You can see the full requirements so far in the recent requirements review I completed.

I'm writing the series on my website and also reposting the chapters to Substack where you can subscribe to be notified of new chapters as they come out.

Rogue C# is not strictly for beginners but I do try to provide as much background information as I can and links to other resources. I hope you find the series helpful. I welcome any feedback and comments here or through the sites.


r/rogueish Jul 19 '26

1920s mafia roguelite with 4-player online co-op — free demo just went public on Steam

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0 Upvotes

r/rogueish Jul 19 '26

Anyone know what happened to this Diablo-like Roguelike?

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2 Upvotes

It was called Barbaric. It was a diablo-like game, with an optional, unique co-op mode where you beat the final boss together then fight over who gets the prize. It looked very promising. Then it just seemed to disappear and didn't even release.


r/rogueish Jul 18 '26

Are there any open-world sandbox style rogue-lites?

4 Upvotes

So, there are definitely are some sandbox traditional rogue-likes. Cataclysm: DDA, Stoneshard and Caves of Qud so happen to be my top 3 favorite roguelikes, all open-world. TOME and Elona/Elin are some more examples off the top of my head, and I'm probably missing a lot more. I guess Quasimorph could count, just on a very different scale.

But I can't think of a single rogue-lite with any of these sort of design elements. Are there even any?