We need a law akin to Godwin's: if any online discussion continues long enough, someone will almost certainly argue about the definition of "roguelike."
When I think of a "roguelike", I think of a game that is played in "runs" where a run is typically 60 minutes or less, but completing a game round is not completing the entire game, as it will take several runs to unlock all the features and content. You are also generally not expected to be able to complete a run to the final boss in your first several attempts.
Hades, FTL, Vampire Survivors, Gunfire Reborn, and Crypt of the Necrodancer all satisfy these.
RimWorld is not at all a roguelike because a "run" can easily last hundreds of hours.
The classic roguelikes can take many hours to complete and do not have any kind of between-run unlocking. By some common definitions, unlockable content makes a game not a roguelike. I wouldn't go that far, but I'd never call Vampire Survivors a roguelike, either.
It's hard to say because the terms end up shifting to mean various things as the genre solidifies. I personally like using roguelite for games such as Hades, in which case the operating features are procedural generation, permadeath, and metaprogress with each run
I’ve used roguelite the same way. It’s definitely my preferred model for the space, mostly because I’m bad at games, so the meta progress gives me the feeling of progression without nearly so much work!
The design concept is absolutely perfect for working adults. Instead of having a session where you make slow progress on a very long adventure, you get an actual self-contained experience while also making some headway towards a larger goal each time.
The strict roguelike fans would argue that these are in fact roguelites, since there is some (small) amount of carryover between runs. The more orthodox view is that every run starts from zero.
I don't think most roguelike players would describe those games as roguelikes, though.
The quintessential roguelikes are Nethack, Moria, Angband and AdoM. You're a @ fighting monsters represented by other ascii characters, in an environment (usually a dungeon, though AdoM expanded that) represented by ascii characters. Procedurally generated, turn-based, super deadly, very tactical, with an almost infinite amount of stuff you can find, use, or do. Playing all the way through the end is nearly impossible, would take many hours on a single run, but years to learn and master the game to the point that you can actually make it that far in a single run.
I can understand adding some graphics to the game (though I'm personally not a fan of that), and AdoM certainly showed how the genre can be stretched from a single dungeon to a landscape with multiple very different dungeons, but the further you move away from this core, the less roguelike the game becomes. Because it simply becomes less like the original game rogue (which nobody seems to have played).
I suppose 'roguelite' is a more suitable name for games that take some of the roguelike elements but not all of them, and make it into something completely different.
Why do you think a group of people who never played a roguelike (a term with an established meaning for decades) should be the ones to redefine what a term means?
The only people who use "roguelike" so loosely are people who never knew what it meant in the first place.
You seem to be under the (imo mistaken) impression that language is prescriptive. The idea that we define a term and then people will either use it "correctly" or gave stigma for being wrong.
Imo, language is descriptive - people use a word a certain way and the definition evolves to meet that usage.
Just like how "literally" means "figuratively" in some contexts. You might feel that's wrong, but fundamentally the language is being used that way.
Words can't just mean what anybody wants, whenever they want. Otherwise communication becomes impossible.
Define roguelike. You tell me what you think it means, and we will see if that definition is applied with consistency.
> Just like how "literally" means "figuratively" in some contexts. You might feel that's wrong, but fundamentally the language is being used that way.
Congratulations, you have discovered sarcasm. The meaning of literally is not different because people employ sarcasm. It means that they are being sarcastic. You literally can't be sarcastic if a word like "literally" doesn't have an agreed upon meaning.
Literally isn't always used in a sarcastic tone. "That was like, literally the biggest breakfast anyone has ever eaten!" Means it was a very large breakfast.
And words can change meaning to whatever is understandable. Definitions follow usage, not the other way around. Merriam Webster didn't write "yeet" down and then a bunch of teens started using it.
A roguelike prominently and predominantly features some combination of most of the following:
1) Run based (re)play, typically starting from a weak state and moving into a strong state. Then restarting at that weak state many times.
2) Randomization of the run in upgrades, powers, environment, or choices. Thinking on your feet and dealing with the random. Typically, environmental randomization is necessary.
3) Permanent death within a run. No save scumming - if you die in a run you'll have to start another run
4) Some sort of meta progression, whether that's a home base the player returns to, or just the increased knowledge of game systems (like in Nethack)
5) A community consensus that the game is a roguelike.
6) Emergent gameplay from multiple overlapping systems, often interacting in unexpected ways
7) Exploration or selecting paths through an environment where progress in the game usually requires leaving familiar areas and entering unfamiliar ones
So rogue and Nethack meet all of those, absolutely. But so does Hades and Spelunky and binding of Isaac and Hades and FTL. Some games have roguelike elements, but are probably not roguelikes, say Inscryption.
Four out of seven is MOST. "Parts of 2" is all that is required, because you used OR. And realistically, it meets 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7.
"Community consensus that it is a roguelike" is not a real definition, anyway. Did you think yourself particularly clever for coming up with that one?
Anyway, thank you for proving my point. Your inability to adequately "roguelike" demonstrates that, as I have been saying, it doesn't actually mean anything the way people use it.
The issue is not with players categorizing a game as a roguelike (or not), it’s developers categorizing their game as a marketing tactic. The way discovery works on a platform such as Steam, developers are incentivized to tick as many boxes as possible on the genre list in order to get their game seen by as many players as possible. In effect, this self-categorization lets developers dilute the meaning of genre labels in order to make money.
Roguelike just happened to be one of the genre labels with a long-standing and passionate community. Now the community members are everywhere speaking out against this dilution. This is not gatekeeping — anyone is welcome to play roguelikes — it’s preservation of the genre’s distinctiveness.
Gatekeeping pertains to people, not things. If you have a rock n' roll club you're allowed to say that "Happy Birthday" is not a rock n' roll song. That's different from saying "people who like the Happy Birthday song aren't allowed in the club", which is gatekeeping.
"Roguelike" is nowadays commonly defined by having a meta progression system (unlocks). Scroll through reviews of a game like Noita or DCSS (Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup) and you will see some people complaining the game doesn't have (enough) permanent unlocks.
No one really knows what a roguelike is, yet it is repeated ad infinitum. If the general populace doesn't really know what a roguelike is, why not describe it with proper wording like:
mostly shallow content sold as something shiny in a repetitive way, lack of original story/background, time vampire if no proper checkpoint/save system in place.
The best egregious example of terrible game design is the game called Returnal where the game designers sentenced the player to recollect most of the items/loot upon failure because who knows why. This isn't a problem in itself if done properly, but why going through the same area again and again, why collect the proper weapon again if you fail at a boss, is just plain stupidity or malignancy.
So in essence a childish idiot sentences you to replay his "super creation" multiple times, because he thought that's cool. thank you.
you, the gamer, will come into this equation with your most precious resource: time. how do you want to spend your time? by repeating the same BORING shit or progressing and experiencing new, stimulating areas while a story is told to you?
