If you haven't strayed too far from the gaming world, you must have heard of the term "roguelike". When you see this word, what games come to mind? Is it one of the five major roguelikes, or is it The Binding of Isaac, or perhaps Spelunky or Dead Cells, Hades, or the "meat pigeon" mode in many mobile games?
Well... where should I start with this? Roguelike itself is not a very new game genre, after all, Rogue itself was created in the 1980s. At that time, college students could become obsessed with their characters represented by characters jumping on the CRT screen. And Rogue is indeed a game that transcends time. The countless roguelikes on the market now prove this.
So what makes Rogue so fun? Let's start with the most familiar one: randomness. We humans love randomness. Just look at how much profit loot boxes in games or virtual gambling machines in second-hand games can bring to these people in a year. Rogue can be said to be a pioneer in this regard. Admittedly, there was a game called pedit5 before that had some randomness, but it was still Rogue that made everyone remember it. What random things are there in Rogue? First of all, of course, the map is random, the items inside are random, and the enemies, of course, don't need to be mentioned. Secondly, the effects of the items are random. So you can't just look at it and know what this thing does. This also means that the items are not entirely positive. In addition to randomness, in Rogue, failure is failure, there is absolutely no "start over as a hero" thing. The phrase "YOLO" is not just for fun. If you're not careful, your character will bid you farewell. This design that seems disgusting is, in my opinion, as important as randomness and is gradually being abandoned by most games to cater to player experience. I can say that if your game only does randomness but hesitates in terms of permanent death, then you don't understand what roguelike is.
In addition to these widely spread points, Rogue also has some interesting ideas. For example, most commands in the game have separate keys and can only be operated with these keys. Press "e" to eat, "r" to read, "q" to drink, and so on. The game also uses "hjklyubn" to move, doesn't it have a taste of vi? Another example is using characters to represent the screen. Although this is also a helpless move, it provides a place for successors to show their skills. You can think of whatever elements you want, you don't have to draw them, just use characters and text descriptions. So the later roguelikes can be said to have many interesting items. Nethack is famous for the chemical reactions between game elements, which is also an important point in roguelike. The possibilities of cooperation between items in The Binding of Isaac are numerous, and now think about this interaction involving both players and enemies. For example, enemies in the game can pick up wands, and if they have higher intelligence, they can use them. If this wand is a tricky thing, you're in trouble. Another example is that you can transform into a monster, and if you turn into a rust monster, you can't eat to fill your stomach, you can only eat metal products. Another example is that aquatic creatures in the game will drag you into the water, but if you apply oil to your armor, you won't be afraid. Or use the scroll of extinction to wipe out a race, want to wipe out dragons but this scroll is cursed and summons a bunch of dragons, and so on.
In addition to these, resource management is also a very important aspect of roguelike. Rogue has a food clock, so you can't just keep going, otherwise you'll easily starve to death. In a broader sense, various games more or less have this aspect of management, but in roguelike, because you only have one life, you must carefully consider your choices. There are gains and losses, and when to take risks and when to be conservative are all worth considering. It can be said that good resource management is a test of the designer's level of design. For example, in The Binding of Isaac, money, keys, and bombs, how to maximize the use of these items without spending hundreds of hours is something you won't understand.
This leads to why roguelike is so addictive: randomness is important, but randomness alone is meaningless. After all, the duration of my hand-washing is also random, but that's not fun. Excellent roguelikes allow you to feel yourself getting stronger, and this strength has nothing to do with the game at all. Because every time you face the same dangerous world, but you gradually learn better ways to deal with it. It's like the protagonist of a reincarnation galgame. After countless failures, your brain finally understands what the game is all about, and then you have a chance to taste the fruit of victory. At that time, you will feel how awesome you are! And soon you will find that your win rate is also increasing. You gradually realize that the disgusting designs in the game are not as scary as they seem, and now the world in the game is more familiar to you than your own home.
So far, it seems that there is no problem with the situation, so where does it go wrong? Please allow me to continue. It is said that later, a person named Derek Yu was not satisfied with the fun but highly difficult and punishing nature of roguelikes, so he decided to make a 2D side-scrolling game with the core elements of roguelikes. And so Spelunky was born. Although the purpose of Spelunky is to simplify roguelikes, it doesn't mean that the game is easy. The controls in Spelunky are very intuitive, and the controls are very responsive, but that's because you won't find excuses when you die. I mentioned randomness and permanent death earlier, right? This game learned from them. First of all, there's nothing more to say about randomness, and permanent death has been slightly weakened because you can spend money to open tunnels in the game, which allows you to quickly reach the later stages; however, the significance is not that great because if you don't have enough items, you won't be able to pass. It's more like a practice feature. The chemical reactions are interesting. You can go online and find compilations of deaths in this game because it's really chaotic (mainly because it kills you).
After a few years, there were more and more imitators like this. The Binding of Isaac is definitely a fuse that ignited this genre. I don't have much to say about this game. Let's get to the point. I mentioned earlier that one of the joys of roguelike is becoming stronger independent of game data. This is indeed fun, but not many people can persist until that point. After all, who wants to be hammered by an entertainment project every day, and it's not like multiplayer games where you can blame others. So some people opened Pandora's box: permanent currency. These currencies are usually given to you when you die, and then you can use these currencies to purchase permanent attribute upgrades or buffs or functions that help you. There are so many games like this now. In the early days, there was Rogue Legacy, a randomly generated Castlevania game. Coincidentally, another game with a similar idea inherited its legacy: Dead Cells. How important cells are in Dead Cells and how they are related to game progress, do I still need to explain? After that, more and more games started down this path.
In case someone still doesn't understand what I'm talking about, let me explain in more detail. For this kind of permanent upgrade behavior, it's a double-edged sword, and most people don't understand it. Games like Spelunky, which are quick to practice, are relatively convenient for players; but now the designers' idea is to let you die repeatedly, use the currency of death to buy upgrades, and exchange for numerical values. Once they change their mindset to this, they have already fallen into a strange circle. RPG games, and even most games with leveling systems, allow you to mindlessly level up by repeatedly killing monsters. There are also some weird games that gradually reduce experience points or set level restrictions, or use other methods to prevent you from endlessly farming resources. Do you see the problem? Playing roguelike is about starting from scratch and then succeeding, completing the game with your own brain. Although when you farm these permanent currencies, you will also understand the game better, can you really say that this learning efficiency is higher? It is more accurate to say that the majority of those who design this way are using this design to cover up the fact that they cannot design a fair and challenging game framework. And now the more inverted point is that many people think that this fig leaf is what makes roguelike fun, which is really... hard for me to understand.
If you think this is already outrageous, the definition of roguelike has even been further weakened. Some people really think that having randomness is roguelike. In the forums, there are debates between Hollow Knight players and Hades players about which one is the better roguelike, and this is not a joke I made up. Recently, many indie games have also adopted this approach. For example, "Returnal". If the issue of permanent currency is a roundabout way of farming resources, indie games have completely given up on this, and it's just something that randomly gives you buffs. Really, at this point, you might as well let me choose cards, don't bother with all these unnecessary things. The simulated universe in Star Trains is also a bit embarrassing, and you can't even find the roguelike elements without a magnifying glass.
I've been rambling on for so long, and it doesn't really matter. After all, these people won't disappear just because I complain about them here. So, dear readers, please consider your own definition of roguelike.