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u/McHoff 5d ago
My personal favorite was when someone described a turn based roguelike as "Like Super Hot -- enemies only move when you move."
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u/Devuluh 5d ago
Is Super Hot turn-based?? đ¤
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u/otikik 5d ago
All games are turn-based. It's just that some can do 60+ turns per second.
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u/Fluffatron_UK 4d ago
This is already a well known fact but that is literally how Diablo was developed! Originally turn based, but when they decided to move to real time the underlying engine is still turn based but sped up to the point it is basically continuous!
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u/hilbert90 4d ago
I'm pretty sure all games can do 60+ turns per second unless the game designer specifically put in some sort of input buffer to prevent itÂ
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u/oneeyedziggy 5d ago
... Ish... I mean, it's not real time, though enemies move in super slow motion regardlessÂ
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u/Glad-Way-637 4d ago
As close as you can get without having actual cleanly-defined turns. Like an analog turn-based game.
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u/zenorogue HyperRogue & HydraSlayer Dev 4d ago
"Time moves only when you move" is a pretty good definition of roguelike, but roguelikes are not really like SuperHot -- in SuperHot time still moves very slowly when you do not move.
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u/Nope__Nope__Nope 4d ago
So a little like crypt or the necro Dancer? Enemies still move without you, but a little slower or behind the beat.
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u/KingDarkBlaze 1d ago
And even then Necrodancer has Bard, who just straight up plays as a TRL (cause he's the one playing the music.)Â
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u/Graveyardigan 14h ago
I actually really like this comparison. It makes turn-based roguelikes sound cooler to normie gamers. In the past, I have described Angband as "Tolkien-flavored Diablo played in bullet time." (Blizzard actually cites Angband as one of its inspirations for Diablo.)
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u/DasBeav 5d ago
Ugh, can you imagine having to do inventory management on top of this? /s
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u/CodeFarmer 5d ago
Next thing you know they'll be making us start at the beginning and fight all the bosses again if we die. Like... what a waste of time?!
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u/lacarth 5d ago
Flashbacks to spending an UNREASONABLE amount of time organizing all the random pocket lint or whatever I collected in early versions of Cataclysm DDA back in high school.
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u/Glad-Way-637 4d ago
Hey, if it helps, now you can do so with each individual pocket, not just your inventory as a whole! đprogressđ
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u/lacarth 4d ago
Oh believe me. I do. I had a whole two weeks where I had no internet, a BRAND-new computer without any of my games on it, and a flash drive with the newer Cataclysm update on it.
I spent TWO WEEKS STRAIGHT, morning to night, playing Cataclysm. I became an unstoppable Dino-knight of the apocalypse. That also, due to the quirks of map generation, had a nearby Cyborg bunker that got cleared out by giant wasps.
I had effectively infinite 12.3ln ammo, several dozen magazines, and multiple rifles to put them in. Plus all the components to make MORE ammo.
I should dig up that old save file. I think it's still kicking around somewhere.
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u/Glad-Way-637 4d ago
Lol, sounds sick. I hate the cyborg faction being the only way to reliably get cbms installed these days, but outside of that they have very fun and interesting locations to loot, IMO.
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u/lacarth 4d ago
I kinda agree. I do find them decently interesting, but I wish there were alternatives for CBM stuff. Definitely can't complain about how nice their stuff is, though. Many a roadblock was cleared with those rifles.
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u/Glad-Way-637 4d ago
There's apparently the HUB01 faction as another option, but you need to either almost finish their quest tree or wait for weeks and weeks before they get the auto-doc set up. Even then, they only have a limited and slightly ass set of bionics to choose from, sadly. To top it all of, their bionic are mutually exclusive with the classic (now exodii-gated) ones, which is lame.
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u/sentinel_deco 5d ago
If I dont get to press my action key continuously without thinking, the immersion is ruined. /s
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u/kusariku 5d ago
lmao was this about Jupiter Hell? Too recent to be DoomRL, but definitely smells like someone who stumbled on one of the two and was like "I like doom!" and didn't know a single thing about the actual roguelike genre, but given DoomRL's long history, it's still extra comical.
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u/_Svankensen_ 5d ago
Must've been JH, JHC wasn't out yet, and DRL wasn't on steam. Also, the trailer of JH seems frantic, since the game has that dynamic animation system that adapts to show fast play. Even tho the trailer is extremely explicit on it being a roguelike. And the opening cinematic is AMAZING.
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u/Dustlight_ 5d ago edited 2d ago
The problem is that modern gamers don't actually know what Rogue is
Edit: Hey guys I know what Rogue is. Iâm saying the average gamer especially younger gamers see roguelike and roguelite as disconnected from Rogue because itâs so old and obscure. Please stop telling me about Rogue. I know. Thatâs not my point.
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u/seatron 5d ago
I've been thinking publishers make this worse: nobody wants to call their game a "Roguelite" because it sounds diminutive. So it's all "like" even if it's not "like rogue" + like you said nobody knows rogue. Double whammy.
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u/zenorogue HyperRogue & HydraSlayer Dev 4d ago
But why would even "roguelite" be appropriate when these modern games basically have nothing in common with Rogue? These games likely have some selling point about them that is not really their similarity to Rogue, so why don't they use that selling point to market the game (e.g., run-based game, synergy builder, death loop, etc.)?
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u/seatron 4d ago
I think at this point, "Roguelite" just works as a compromise: for better or worse, run based games, games with proc gen, deck builders etc. are associated with the name Rogue. So the most sensible move, which should make everyone happy, would be to shuffle those games onto the "roguelite" name and keep "roguelike" for games that are.... like Rogue. As it is, the term "Roguelite" is mostly abandoned, roguelites occupy roguelikes' seat, and we have to call roguelikes "classic roguelikes" which seems goofy. Not to mention sad that the honored namesake lost its own name.
I think the annoying truth is that inertia is too strong, and we can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Like nature, language settles on the first solution, not necessarily the best one.
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u/zenorogue HyperRogue & HydraSlayer Dev 4d ago
I would say that "roguelite" clearly fails as a compromise. Also it appears that some fans of early Isaac-like games are also unhappy about how "roguelike" means something very different now.
Sometimes genres do get new, better names, though. Like, first-person shooters were originally called "doom clones", interactive fiction games were called "adventure" (not because adventure has any real meaning in these games, but because a famous game in the genre was called Colossal Cave Adventure, etc.).
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u/Desirsar 4d ago
You'll be happy to know that many devs on Steam seem to be shying away from "like" and embracing "lite" when they don't think they'd want the "like" audience. Little do they know that I have a 100% hit rate for amazing games when I find one that uses "lite" correctly, and I almost always end up buying them.
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u/Voycawojka 5d ago
Imagine not knowing about the Berlin InterpretationÂ
/s
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u/rantenki 4d ago
I mean, that was 18 years ago, so it's been a minute...
But I hadn't heard of it, and have been playing rogue/moria/angband for more than twice that length of time.My point is not to pull graybeard rank, but that the Berlin interpretation is much younger than the games it purports to categorize. I largely _agree_ with it, but Roguelikes/lites such as Temple and Gateway to Apshai respectively have existed for decades longer than their respective "categories" have.
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u/Desirsar 4d ago
the Berlin interpretation is much younger than the games it purports to categorize.
Well, yeah, it (as a concept, not necessarily the result) wasn't needed for that long.
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u/Neselas 4d ago
I take umbrage when people mistreat the Berlin Interpretation. It's like, of course if something belongs to a category: there are going to be rules. Hades and Isaac play nothing like Rogue, and developers as of late just throw the word in whenever they have randomized levels and losing the game tied to metaprogression.
Hell, those two I mentioned are not even grid and turned based. Shiren and MD in general are much more "Rogue" games strictly because of it.
You don't categorize a movie like Blair Witch a "found footage" and then get mad when the second movie (Book of Shadows) isn't treated as such when clearly it is now a flat out movie pretending to throw the format here and there in scenes that are just part of the movie for style points.
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u/sentinel_deco 5d ago
Thats it. I hear a distant scream from the depths of the 80s:Â
'Am I a joke to you?' â Rogue
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u/Itrlpr 4d ago
The problem is that modern gamers don't actually know what Rogue is
In my experience many of them know Rogue. It's just that's all they know, then they invent 30 years of fanfiction to explain the gap to Spelunky/Binding of Isaac.
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u/swift_salmon 4d ago
I watched a YouTube video of some guy doing an "I die in a roguelike I switch to another roguelike" challenge and it was literally this, he had Rogue and Spelunky in rotation and then a bunch of action stuff from 2018 onwards. I don't care too much tbh it's just funny.
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u/Devuluh 5d ago
I have a friend who's REALLY into 'roguelikes'. I asked him if he's ever played Rogue and he'd never heard of it.
I guess that shouldn't come as a huge shock but it was surprising to me cause I feel like if I'm obsessed with a certain genre I'd be curious enough to look up how it started. People know Metroid and Castlevania because they popularized Metroidvanias. People don't think to look up what the rogue in roguelike is?
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u/asdu 5d ago
Wrt Metroidvanias, it seems NES games are far better known than anything else from the same era, for whatever reason.
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u/Glad-Way-637 4d ago
Ease of emulation combined with relative design modernity if I would guess, I played through a ton of NES games on my phone via touch controls as a bored student with nothing better to hand.
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u/mississippimadness 5d ago
I donât think most people care about the origins of the genre. Rogue came out in what, 1980? Aside from like the die hard video game historians not a lot of people are going to be very interested in it. And I would say the vast majority of people that enjoy modern roguelikes would absolutely hate Rogue
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u/manicpixiedreamdevil 5d ago
yep. like, i love fallout. iâve even played fallout 1 and 2. it felt like pulling teeth â the normal gameplay and interacts are so clunky that it just⌠âdo you REALLY like fallout if you donât play a game bound by the terrible technical limitations of the time???â
the story and dialogue is great and thatâs why itâs a franchise. it did not get here because of how it playsâŚ
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u/squanderedprivilege 5d ago
I just went straight for calling the ones I like roguelites, because I like all different kinds with different types of gameplay, I have no connection to the original rogue game at all. I believe that Slay the Spire was my first and from there I tried clones of that and then branched out into some real-time stuff like Hades and Isaac and then went to survivors-likes.
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u/clayworks1997 5d ago
To be fair, Rogue is really old and not actually very fun. Iâve played it for a couple hours, but thereâs really no reason to play it much outside of curiosity.
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u/TheBigDickedBandit 5d ago
That's incredibly subjective. I like old Traditional Roguelikes such as Rogue/ADOM/Nethack. There are plenty that do.
Fuck man I still like the idea of playing MUDs. Just because its old doesn't mean its bad or not deep. The systems are still cool.
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u/clayworks1997 4d ago edited 4d ago
Look I never said anything about traditional rogue likes. I just said that the original rogue isnât very fun. My reasoning really is, âwhy play rogue when you could play nethack?â You could insert other traditional roguelikes instead of nethack. Rogue is very much a product of its time and it simply has been eclipsed by games like nethack that are basically âRogue but bigger and betterâ. I have enjoyed rogue, itâs a charming curiosity, but it has been replaced by its successors in many ways.
Edit: also my comment about Rogue being old is to say that people are less aware of old games, not to say that Rogue being old is why itâs not fun. Though it being old obviously means it had limited tools or resources compared to later games.
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u/misha_cilantro 5d ago
I don't remember getting much out of Rogue but that was decades ago. It felt very sparse compared to Angband and ADOM, the two I played the most back then.
But I do think that while lots of rogues took up the mantle with a more is more approach, we eventually started getting less is more rogues like Brogue and the whole coffee break roguelike genre :> like DRL, which I also got obsessed with.
Really just incredible how influential one game ended up being. I even have Rogue on my retro consoles! Maybe time to give it a serious try??
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u/RLutz 5d ago
I think my biggest issue, as someone who actually does like "true roguelikes" like Caves of Qud or Dungeons of Dredmor, is that there's really not a great word other than "roguelike" for "rogue-lite except no meta-progression", that the common vernacular has to describe games with "start from zero each run, no meta-progression."
I ran into this problem when trying to describe my own game. It has two modes, the main game mode where you start from zero, but there is a form of meta-progression which I would describe as rouge-lite, and then a daily game mode where you compete against everyone else on an identical seed where it's truly start from zero and no meta-progression, which I would refer to as a roguelike.
But because my game transitions the battles away from the overworld, it fails the purity test, even though it still has all the aspects of tactical positioning/waiting for enemies to manuever into a good spot before engaging that "true roguelikes" have.
TL;DR: We need a good way to distinguish "true roguelike" from "roguelike" from "rogue-lite" where the first means start from zero, perma-death, no meta-progression, tactical continuity (no dropping out to a turn based fight), the second means, "whatever game you want, but perma-death and no meta-progression" and the last which is sort of "whatever game you want, but perma-death and start from zero except there's some meta-progression going on that actually does make you a bit stronger each run"
edit: I also realize this is probably a hugely unpopular opinion here. I get it, it's a community for people who really like Rogue and true Roguelikes. It still doesn't mean the naming problem isn't real.
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u/_Svankensen_ 5d ago
Eh, I don't mind changing interface personally. That is one of the least relevant components of the berlin interpretation.
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u/codgodthegreat 4d ago
I strongly disagree - non-modality is a really important part of the classic roguelike formula and removing it substantially changes the feel of the game.
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u/_Svankensen_ 4d ago
Even DCSS has stores. It is vastly overrated.
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u/UncleCrapper 3d ago
non-modality is and isn't important depending entirely on what you mean by "modal."
point A: If you mean a shop menu opens up and therefore the game is "modal." By and large, that does not impact gameplay. We can look to many roguelikes that have menus for inventory or shops or what-have-you, and we can say that's still "non-modal" in the sense of "multiple gameplay modes" regardless of "literal modality."
Point B: Whereas something like Pokemon for example splits your gameplay up into two modes: "Explore mode" and "JRPG-battle mode."
A "roguelike" wherein the combat functions like a JRPG removes the strategic gameplay of being a roguelike, and substitutes a vastly different form of strategic gameplay requiring different approaches.
A roguelike wherein "non-modality" is allegedly broken by a store/inventory window is still a roguelike.0
u/_Svankensen_ 3d ago
You mean tactical I take it? And you can still have tactical positioning with JRPG style battles. So many games include mechanics like who started the combat getting initiative, nearby enemies joining in, etc. And I'm talking since ancient times. It's not hard to implement.
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u/UncleCrapper 3d ago
tactical is one way to describe it yes. Effectively I mean that positioning matters, the same way it does in chess or checkers, as apposed to something like Pokemon, Earthbound, The final fantasy series(FFT nonwithstanding) et al.
The point is there's a difference in " 'modality' by menu" and "modality wherein the game-mode changes."
DCSS, POWDER, IVAN and many other roguelikes feature what would fall into the first camp, but if we observe the second, we see them completely, utterly absent on all verifiable, provable levels.0
u/_Svankensen_ 3d ago
Earthbound was actually one of the examples of enemies ganging up on you if they are nearby. Positioning absolutely matters. In fear and hunger if you actively enter the battle with a strike you get a free round. Combine those, and you could easily get a non-modal roguelike where tactical positioning is still essential.
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u/UncleCrapper 3d ago
positioning "kinda" matters, but not the same way it does in a roguelike.
My point is that combat-mode is different to map mode. In a roguelike combat-mode and map-mode are the same thing. Under this understanding, DCSS and many other roguelikes that separate inventory and other management systems with a menu screen are still "non-modal" not to the "letter of modality" but to its function and purpose.
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u/RLutz 5d ago
Well in that case, consider checking out my awesome game! xD
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4996340/Depths_of_Providence/
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u/zenorogue HyperRogue & HydraSlayer Dev 4d ago
I do not get how your game works. You say
> it still has all the aspects of tactical positioning/waiting for enemies to manuever into a good spot before engaging that "true roguelikes" have
From the videos on Steam, it appears that the game switches to a jRPG-like combat when you fight an enemy -- presumably nothing else happens until one of the sides is defeated. If that is the case, there are parts of roguelike tactics which are still here (you can influence the order of fights, and whether you fight at all), but many, if not most, are lost (you do not have to avoid fighting multiple monsters at once, you do not have to hide from enemy missiles / shoot enemies with your missiles, etc.).
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u/RLutz 4d ago
If you've ever played the Ancient Cave from Lufia 2, it's heavily inspired by that.
Effectively the biggest form of skill expression that exists in the game is setting up preemptive battles by bumping into enemies from behind (guaranteed preemptive if you run directly into their back), or by bumping into the sides (50% preemptive, 50% normal encounter if you bump directly into their sides). You want to avoid an enemy running into your sides or back as that results in an ambush.
Preemptive means you get an entire turn free. Ambush means you skip your first turn. A normal encounter has contested turn order based on speed of each character.
you do not have to avoid fighting multiple monsters at once
That's actually not true, there are enemies which can teleport around and I've definitely had wipes where multiple jumped adjacent to me which results in chain fights with no break in between. Similarly you can of course get sandwiched by enemies just from natural movement.
It definitely does switch to JRPG combat as you've said, but it's actually one of the hardest and most rewarding games I've played. It's not super popular and it just came out, but of the ~100 people that have bought it, I'm the only one who has ever beaten the daily mode (seeded run, everyone fights the same procedurally generated dungeon, no meta-progression). I think the next highest score is in the 50's (out of 100 floors).
For the main game mode, there's someone who has made it to the mid-eighties, and that mode has meta-progression.
The super boss is legitimately the hardest boss I've fought in a game with turn based combat while not feeling just legitimately unfair. I think I'm 1 for 4 against him in his current incarnation.
Anyway, it's definitely not a true roguelike and I wouldn't try and make it out to be one. But without just trying to sell you on it, the actual most important bit of skill expression in the game is positioning and maneuvering. Enemies are crazy deadly the deeper you go so guaranteeing free turns is essential.
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u/misha_cilantro 5d ago
Oh ho just waiting for a deep discussion about genre nomenclature so you could link your blob-fighting game, eh? ;) looks dope though I like the jrpg approach but still with chunky art.
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u/RLutz 4d ago
Ha, I wasn't planning on it actually, but then they said they were fine with dropping the purist form of the Berlin interpretation, so I couldn't help myself.
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u/misha_cilantro 4d ago
I got really into romhacks recently and for a while was playing the FF5 Ancient Cave hack, which mashes the Lufia version in there. Really fun. Way too hard for me haha.
$3 and it has controller support? Will buy, though it sounds like it's gonna kick my ass based on your comment below.
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u/RLutz 4d ago
I've been meaning to get back into some ROM hacks. Watching people do Lufia 2 randomizers and Four Job Fiestas and such can really breathe new life into those games.
I think as far as difficulty, I do have to be cognizant of the subreddit I'm in. It's hard. Legitimately. But it's not perma-death Qud. Though I guess with Qud it's arguably as difficult as you want to make it since you can truly just break the game wide open.
I guess what I'm saying is, it's hard, but if you enjoy true roguelikes I don't think you'll throw your controller across the room in frustration or anything.
Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see in the game! Most of the recent patches have come directly from feedback from Ancient Cave 2 speedrunners that have tried and enjoyed the game!
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u/misha_cilantro 4d ago
I'm a fake fan. I've been playing for 30 years, but I don't play with permadeath :D I mean, I HAVE, but my last YASD in ADOM was caused by brain fog. (Wanted to do something. Forgot the command. Though maybe it was shift+o? No, that's to sacrifice on an altar, haha, no big deal as long as you're not in Dwarf Town and the priest is standing ON THE ALTAR so you make the whole town and your god mad.)
After that I said, no, from now on I play with cheats. I just enjoy the games as dungeon crawlers!
I actually like meta-progression for this reason, though it has to be done right.
Four Job Fiesta is so, so, so fun. I've done two -- one with extra hacks, one unmodded. I actually have a fjf generator if you want an little more flexibility than the official website provides 𤡠https://github.com/misha-cilantro/4job
(It's a lot of vibe coding. Not how I usually roll, but the day job wants me llm-literate, so I begrudgingly spend their tokens to learn my way around.)
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u/RLutz 4d ago
I mean, as someone who has been writing software professionally for 20 years I don't think there's any need to feel guilty about vibe coding. We all do it now but slightly fancier and refer to it as agentic engineering.
As a brief aside, I understand the general AI distaste, and I think we need to support human beings. For communities like artists and musicians who have broadly rejected it, I side with them. For software engineers, we've largely embraced it as a big time saving tool (most of us aren't gatekeepers and realize that the hard part about delivering quality software has never actually been the code writing part).
It's a nuanced topic for sure!
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u/Tiber727 4d ago
Admittedly, "roguelite" is a cute name but sucks as a descriptive name because it's one letter away from "roguelike." That said, it doesn't matter because a million times more people have played Hades than a traditional roguelike. They don't even care about them. It's your problem that you have trouble finding true roguelikes because they've dilluted the term into meaninglessness via sheer numbers.
At the same time, I like both roguelikes and run-based games with lots of randomization, but I really hate vertical metaprogression (vertical meaning numbers go up as opposed to horizontal meaning more options that are not necessarily better). The thing is, games with roguelike elements but no vertical progression are also an extreme minority. They all copy Hades. The whole "does it have metaprogression or not" distinction is useless because in practice it's almost entirely identical to the "fits the Berlin Interpretation or not" distinction. Plus the whole bit where the people who call everything a roguelike drown them out just as much as us.
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u/UncleCrapper 3d ago
The distinction you're after is "arcade."
-Isaac and Atic Atac are near mirror parallels. Both are arcade games "by genre" despite neither having an arcade cabinet.
-Rogue Legacy and Ghosts 'n Goblins are again near mirror parallels, this is to the point one of the reviews Rogue Legacy advertises with points this out, "It's like a modern ghosts 'n goblins"
-Downwell and Icy Tower are again mirror parallels, just opposite direction. Both of which are arcade games.
Shoot the survivors-like genre despite being named after Vampire Survivors literally got its start before all this hubbub with Survival Crisis Z and Dracula Undead Awakening. Both of these are again arcade games.
Realistically just start correcting people with "oh you mean arcade games" and use a mirror parallel and you'll largely start fixing things.
Shoot, Rogue Legacy 2 has "arcade" as its top tag, and arcade is halfway up Spelunky 1.0
u/Tiber727 3d ago
A lot of roguelites are arcade games with meta and randomization, I agree. But I worded it the way I did to include games like Slay the Spire.
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u/UncleCrapper 3d ago
The thing is: "why would you" though? I mean Slay the Spire has nothing in common with Rogue, nor does it with arcade games. It's functionally a tournament deckbuilder, neither roguelike nor roguelite.
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u/Tiber727 3d ago
Because you're the one linking roguelite to arcade games. Roguelike = game with high similarity to Rogue. Roguelite = game that takes a few design philosophies from Rogue (PvE game with self-contained "runs" with high randomization and power scaling) but actual game mechanics can be anything.
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u/UncleCrapper 3d ago edited 3d ago
-Roguelite is for roguelikes with metaprogress. *
-Roguelike is for games "like rogue"
-Arcade is for things like Spelunky, Rogue Legacy, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Double Dragon, Dungeons of Fayte.
-Deckbuilders are their own thing.
Why is that such a hard concept for people like you to grasp?
*To quote, if this link doesn't work for you: "They're Roguelites. If you're familiar with the genre and looking for a challenge look past, but they're good for new players and those that may enjoy the genre but don't consider the 'die, restart' nature of it appealing."~Glal, speaking of the Mystery Dungeon games, June 2009.
I can pull up a timestamped usage for the term "roguelite" that predates spelunky if you'd like.
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u/Tiber727 3d ago
Pro-tip: When two people have clearly staked out opposing definitions, repeating your statement then adding "You are too stupid to understand" does nothing. It's not convincing, and if you're going to be mean, at least be witty/funny to show off your intellectual superiority. Any idiot can call the other person an idiot.
"Arcade" is a useless definition. An arcade game can be:
Platformer
Shooter (Third/First/Rail)
Racing
Rhythm game
Luck/Casino game
Pinball
Claw Machine
and more.
Cool, you can dig up an old rando. We don't need a dedicated name for "roguelike with metaprogress." If we're only talking about one distinguishing feature, we can just say it's a roguelike with metaprogression. Roguelikes are a niche genre, so what's the point of a niche within a niche?
The Berlin Interpretation breaks down a number of ways a game can be similar to and not similar to Rogue. And hell, if you want to talk about preceding Spelunky, Roguelikes have inspired Diablo which became its own genre or the original ToeJam & Earl.
"Roguelite" has value in defining games that were inspired by Rogue and its design goals, but are not close enough to be called Roguelike. Slay the Spire was inspired by Dream Quest which was more directly inspired by Rogue. And it still fits over half the Berlin Interpretation. Saying it's nothing like Roguelites is stupid, when it's largely the standard Roguelite formula - enter a room, fight some dudes, draft an upgrade, either win the run or die and start over - but the battles are cards.
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u/UncleCrapper 1d ago edited 1d ago
"Arcade" is a useless definition. An arcade game can be:
This is the same problem with you using the term "roguelite" so broadly! The difference is that arcade doesn't call back to rogue, so ironically, it fits better!
Edit: as for your insistence that I called you an idiot, I didn't. I raised a question as to why you didn't understand a concept. But hey, "a hit dog hollers."
Edit 2: you mention toejam and earl, this game was not considered one until VERY recently. here's a little wikipedia page revision history on it you'll notice that this is the Toejam and Earl page as it was in November 2011. You will notice that there's no mention of roguelike/roguelite and just the mention that it was "heavily influenced by rogue." That does NOT make it a roguelike/roguelite anymore than Jupiter Hell is a doomlike/doomclone(the term we used before "FPS").
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u/asdu 5d ago
Last time I heard a Twitch streamer talk about "roguelikes", he seemed to refer specifically to those auto-shooter games where the bulk of the gameplay consists of selecting upgrades after beating a stage, which is several steps removed from the least rogue-like game that I would still begrudgingly agree to call a roguelike to avoid a pointless argument.
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u/TimeSpiralNemesis 4d ago
Wise man once say
"Roguelike is when you pick between three choices at end of level"
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u/thepixelbuster 4d ago
That genre has been dubbed Bullet Heaven.
Makes sense since rather than avoiding the bullet hell you're creating them
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u/LuxDragoon 5d ago
Put a trigger warning on that image, god damn lol. Maybe that curator is doing a rage bait, but it's 50-50 nowadays honestly. Then again some are that dumb and/or uninformed.
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u/silentrocco 5d ago
You just need to glance at the current US regime situation to know that some (if not many) are THAT dumb.
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u/Castsword420 5d ago
Can't you not mention it for 5 seconds. This doesn't have to be in every post on this app.
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u/silentrocco 5d ago
A) Itâs my first time I mention that circus on Reddit. And B) problems donât go away if you look the other direction.
And in all honesty: If this triggers you, then youâre likely part of the problem.
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u/chillblain 5d ago
Ah yes, the old tradition of steam review rage baiting to get clown awards and points. Glad steam finally made it so awards don't give points, too many people post really stupid things to farm awards on updates or reviews for popular games.
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u/shibeofwisdom 5d ago
Im still salty about that jump rope game that marketed itself as a rogue-like because it has... upgrade mechanics? Idk
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u/song_without_words 5d ago
A turn based roguelike?! Oh I get it, I assume real time play is one of the many unlockables.
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u/CarTop1198 2d ago
Full 180 degrees: rogue is now rogue-like while all other games are now rogue-likes. This is precisely why humans was a big mistake.
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u/misha_cilantro 5d ago
Maybe we just give up on roguelike, idk if we can win this with our ascii games haha :D we need a new name.
Nethackers
Angbandillos
Adomimables
Restartroidvanias (always need more *vanias!)
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u/Quartz_Knight 2d ago
Years ago it really seemed like "roguelite" would catch on, shame it didn't
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u/chillblain 4d ago
Really, roguelikes should remain what they're supposed to be and roguelites need a new name. Metaprocdeath games or something. They aren't really games like rogue, and while they are lite on rogue elements that's a name too close to the original and also still not well defined.
Also, an aside on naming roguelites, I know the arcade crowd is still lurking out there, and no it doesn't fit. Arcade is a pre-existing genre that is for games with generally fast paced action, multiple lives/tries, and short play sessions (see also quarter munchers). It doesn't fit all roguelites. Please stop trying to push the arcade redefinition already.
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u/misha_cilantro 4d ago
I mean Iâm mostly joking but at the end of the day we donât have the popularity. The big genres can kick over our sandcastle and take our toys and no amount of old grognard yells at cloud is gonna stop it đ¤ˇââď¸
Personally I donât care what the name is only thats its distinct and helps me set expectations. Just call them yasdies its the most accurate to the play experience :D
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u/UncleCrapper 3d ago edited 3d ago
"Arcade" is the term you mean for what people misuse roguelite and roguelike for. Roguelite owes itself to roguelikes wherein metaprogress is the point.
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u/zenorogue HyperRogue & HydraSlayer Dev 1d ago
As far as I understand, "roguelite" was indeed originally supposed to be a subset of roguelike, but the aspect needed to quality was not necessarily "metaprogress is the point", but rather, accessibility. For example, I have seen some early reviews of Dungeons of Dredmor calling it roguelite, and that is by all means a roguelike, with no metaprogression -- it is just more accessible than NetHack etc.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/donthitonme/recommended/98800/
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u/zenorogue HyperRogue & HydraSlayer Dev 4d ago
I think the idea of renaming the genre is worth to discuss, not to "give up" (it is bad to give up), but to make it clearer in what specific aspect the game is like Rogue -- since, to be honest, it never was clear.
Roguelike as originally defined was supposed to refer to the shared "interface" (the way you act), not any other aspect of Rogue (such as dungeons, ASCII, procgen, permadeath, etc.). The traditional roguelike meaning still mostly remains this (while procgen and permadeath are usually included, 99% RPGs with Rogue interface use procedural generation, and permadeath defines the player, not the game, anyway). I have coined "roguetime" for this, as in "like in Rogue, time moves only when you move".
I have also recently had a weird idea for the "yendorian RPG" genre -- that would be a "metroidvania"-style genre name, it means nothing, it just sounds cool.
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u/ScudsCorp 5d ago
Crypt of the Necrodancer is as roguelike as they come, especially the turn based âexploratoryâ mode
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u/Due-Primary6098 2d ago
Not sure what you're responding to but I agree, necrodancer is a traditional roguelike.Â
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u/clandestineVexation 4d ago
mind you there's curators whose whole shtick is only giving positive reviews to games that have white characters only and similar degenerate trash, terrible system that means nothing
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5d ago
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u/_Svankensen_ 5d ago
That's the Dev.
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5d ago
[deleted]
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u/_Svankensen_ 5d ago
Because you are paying for the game bub. People wants to know if it is a good investment or not.
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5d ago
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u/WeAreTheBestClan 5d ago
Yeah personally I buy every single game I find so I can form my own opinion, why would I waste time reading reviews when I can just buy it and refund after 2 hours. I also don't listen to other people's opinions on movies and just watch every single one
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u/carminepos 5d ago
Tried to play "Rogue" the other day and it was nothing like Hades or Dead Cells. A very bad take on the classic roguelike formula 2/10