In today’s Byte size we’re exploring a gaming question.
Why is a roguelike called a roguelike?
The words Rogue-like seem more and more common today than they did just a few years ago.
We’ve gone from an era where rogue-likes were few and far between to a place where
rogue-likes have carved out their own, ever expanding category.
But when you look at other game genres; Platformer, racing, puzzle, action, strategy, casual,
adventure, the defining word is usually a literal explanation of the game style.
Unless you take a tag like indie of course, which could mean anything, really.
So why Rogue like?
Well the meaning of rogue is usually associated with a dishonest scoundrel, a rascal or if
you want to take the comic book line, a character with the involuntary ability to absorb mental
and physical characteristics from whatever she touches.
But when we talk about rogue-likes, it pretty much goes back to this single game.
This is Rogue.
Created in 1980 by Michael Troy and Glenn Wichman on a college unix system.
The premise of Rogue is quite simple.
You take an overhead view of a dungeon, created using ASCII characters, starting in the uppermost
chamber.
The goal is to fight your way to the bottom level, retrieve the amulet of Yendor (which
spells Rodney backwards) and then ascend to the surface.
The game was influenced by the mainframe text game Colossal Cave Adventure, as well as the
classic table top RPG, Dungeons & Dragons.
The game was later ported to various systems including this version on the IBM PC, as well
as Commodore 64, Spectrum and even the Amiga and Atari ST, although with slightly improved
graphics.
Anyway, there are some main characteristics of the game which are worth noting;
The first is that the levels are procedurally generated.
Resulting in different experiences on each play.
The second is the overhead perspective.
The third is the fantasy dungeon setting, and unmapped “fog of war” style levels,
which require you to crawl through and find your path.
The forth are the RPG elements (which is indeed also a separate genre in itself), which are
based around evolving and changing character attributes & progression.
The fifth is the realism aspect of being permanently dead, when you die – until you start a new
game, at least.
Now these key elements alone would go on to form the entire genre that is the Rogue-like,
hence the name, but then you already knew that.
The original name of Rogue was based around our protagonist, represented initially with
an ampersand symbol.
Before Rogue, there was in fact another game with similar characteristics; Beneath Apple
Manor released in 1978 for the Apple II, but I guess Apple-like just sounds like a small
child proclaiming his dietary preference, and so we’ll just brush that aside for a
second.
Early on throughout the 80s, 90s and even 00s, the rogue-like was quite a niche genre.
A gaming style reserved for those in the know.
Other games would copy the rogue-like formula, such as Hack, which introduced shop elements
and the expansive Net Hack.
These early titles stuck to it’s tried and tested, imagination inducing premise, and
a group of hard-core fanatics would emerge, all sharing source coding and tweaking their
own variations on the formula.
It’s not really until titles like Spelunky and Rogue Legacy came along in the recent
past however, that the rogue-like genre became something large.
Now, it’s also arguable that since that happened, the actual formula that made a rogue-like
has also been taken away from the genre.
If you look at games like Spelunky, or Rogue Legacy, you’ll find that really, the only
thing carried through is the procedurally generated level – I mean there are RPG elements
as well, but it doesn’t feel like the gritty rogue fantasy of the 80s we knew and loved.
I mean these games could easily have been chucked in the indie category, and all would
be dandy.
But they were not, and it’s almost as if, by becoming mainstream, by plugging square
plugs into round holes, the original core of the rogue-like is starting to become lost.
Because of this, at a Roguelike Developement conference held in Berlin during 2008, factors
were determined as to what the rogue-like definition means.
This extensive list includes, random tile based levels, permanent death, turn based
combat, emergent gameplay, hack and slash action, magical items, resource management,
and mostly single player.
The full list of definitions seems a bit over the top in my opinion, and to most gamers
it’s easy to see if a game is a rogue-like or if it’s actually rogue-unlike.
So we arrive at a place where there are now two views.
We have the view that these newer games, these square plugs, aren’t rogue-likes at all.
They’re close, but they miss key elements and the feel of the original, and are thus,
no cigar.
On the other hand we have the view that the rogue-like genre has simply expanded, and
taken on new horizons as technology and game development have grown.
Which-ever view you fall on, it’s clear that there are a lot of games which now fall
into the roguelike category, but which don’t really look or feel like the game which started
it.
Rogue.
Or possibly Beneath Apple Manor.