The last two years have seen the triumphant return of the games we dub roguelike. Games with randomly generated levels, permanent death, and ever-increasing
difficulty. The genre was revitalized by Spelunky, made a smash hit by FTL, and
continues to ride high on the back of games like Rogue Legacy.
But this type of game has been around for over 20 years.
It's actually one of the oldest types of video games ever created.
People played the original rogue on the old mainframes at universities and lost hours to Sword of Fargoal on their
C64's in the 80s. So why did this genre disappear from the mainstream, and more importantly,
why did it return? Well the first answer is actually fairly simple: Usability.
The return of roguelikes may be the best argument for the power of usability that the game industry has ever made.
I mean, Dwarf Fortress may be one of the best roguelikes ever created,
but its impenetrability has kept it from being the worldwide success
it should be. Contrast Dwarf fortress with many of the modern roguelike games. If you look at today's roguelikes
you'll find that the most successful ones all share one thing in common.
They pull in elements from other genres and apply them to the roguelike in order to make it more immediately
approachable, familiar, and understandable to players. The clearest examples of this can be found in Games like Rogue Legacy
and Risk of Rain, where they took the conventions of the
Platforming genre and applied the permanent death and randomized maps that roguelike games are famous for. This gave them something that was immediately
recognizable to players that also routed usually unwieldy elements of the genre like
abilities and item descriptions in simple physical things that a player can immediately
understand, allowing for descriptions like "Makes you jump higher", rather than the more complicated set of math and statistics that we're used to from roguelikes
even in Games like FTL, they use the JRPG convention of
instantiated combat encounters to simplify things and then they streamlined rooms into just being single events and dropped most of the statistics that could have
easily gone into a spacefaring
Roguelike game
So while I do love me some rogue likes such as sword of the stars: the pit, and tales of maj'eyal filled with
Statistics and hundreds of items to discover we've not seen these games gain the traction that many of the other Modern roguelikes have
these games have come a long way from the Genres Ascii beginnings and especially in the case of things like sword of the stars: the Pit
though they have made a clear effort to make the traditional form of the genre as usable as possible
They still don't have nearly the reach of a game like FTL
I've only got rough sales numbers, but it seems clear that adoption rates are fairly corollary with usability
So what does that tell us?
What does it mean that as soon as roguelikes became more usable? They garnered a great deal more success?
Well it tells us one thing people want roguelikes
They just don't want to have to put in quite so much work to understand them so we have to ask
Why?
Why are roguelikes powerful?
What makes them such a compelling form of play and to answer that question we have to look at their two main elements?
Randomized maps and permanent death. so randomized maps and by that I mean randomized space, events, encounters, and loot
What do they give us they give us a dynamic?
Problem to solve every time we enter the game the game becomes more about learning how to use the systems and mechanics you've been presented
To adapt to whatever a particular run throws at you more than it does memorizing things or even finding specific answers to problems
That's compelling. It
Continuously challenges our problem-solving abilities and new and interesting ways while also giving us an opportunity to exercise our creativity
Finding novel and unique solutions to odd combinations of random events
It also gets us to really dig into the systems in ways that most games usually don't by presenting the player with random problems
Roguelike games continuously push the player to discover new facets of the games mechanics and come to a deeper understanding
Of the rules that govern play, but randomization also does one other thing
It makes every game feel fresh and exciting
because it creates the unexplored there's always the hope for that great run and the fear that just around the next corner will be the
challenge that stops you in your tracks each step forward feels like a discovery each step has that thrill of the unknown. The
other central element to roguelikes is permanent death. In the old days dying in a roguelike meant starting the game over completely from Square one
losing everything but many modern roguelikes have begun to feature some limited persistence that carries over between
Playthroughs either through unlocks or minor character improvements that persist past death and with apologies to perma death purists the developers of these games have
Found that having that tiny bit of persistence still leaves the player with much of the benefit of a permanent death system
So I'm including them in this discussion. So what does permanent death add to roguelikes well first off
It adds meaning to the game each life is important. It's not just your stAndard disposable video game character life
It's something you're invested in. second
It wipes the slate clean each game by starting you back as a blank slate every time and then presenting you with randomized maps
Challenges and resources to work with the game forces you to find new solutions to the problems it presents. It
Forces you to adjust to the things presented to you instead of having you fall back on old
Skills or habits that you've come to rely on with a character you've built up over time
I expect to see roguelike elements make their way into more and more games in the future
And I think we'll see roguelikes continue to experiment with other genres to make themselves more approachable and Accessible
And will this be as ubiquitous as the RPG izing of everything that we've seen over the last Few years the slapping of experience bars
over every type of Gameplay
I doubt it, but be on the lookout I expect you'll see roguelike elements creeping in where you least expect it. See you next week