Meaning of "rogue like"
- Thread starter Slam
- Start date
I'd go one further and wondered what the difference is between Rogue-Like and Rogue-Lite.
Whenever I see that I tend to assume it's a one life type thing. You die it's game over. Restart again, sometime with things to upgrade yourself for the next go.
Whenever I see that I tend to assume it's a one life type thing. You die it's game over. Restart again, sometime with things to upgrade yourself for the next go.
I find this to be a very interesting question, because I’ve been dissatisfied with the common attempts at definition of rogue-lites.
A rogue-like is quite well defined, mainly: top-down dungeon crawler, procedurally generated levels, procedural weapons and loot,
permadeath without hold over for restarts, and a few I can't quite remember now.
Now, the puzzling thing is that people think there’s some commonality between rogue-like and rogue-lite. None of the above
definitions need apply to a rogue-lite, except, normally, the procedural levels. A rogue-lite can be an FPS, a platformer, any genre
with procedurally generated maps, really. I’ve even come across one or two games that called themselves rogue-lite (can’t remember
the names now), although the levels were hand-crafted but the loot was procedurally handled.
So, this means that rogue-likes and rogue-lites need, if you apply the definitions, to have nothing in common whatsoever. It might
mean that any game that has one or two characteristics of a rogue-like may call itself rogue-lite (sort of mix-and-match), but this
is not anywhere near a satisfying definition.
But still, strangely enough, I mostly find myself being able to tell which game is a rogue-lite, and which ones aren't.
A rogue-like is quite well defined, mainly: top-down dungeon crawler, procedurally generated levels, procedural weapons and loot,
permadeath without hold over for restarts, and a few I can't quite remember now.
Now, the puzzling thing is that people think there’s some commonality between rogue-like and rogue-lite. None of the above
definitions need apply to a rogue-lite, except, normally, the procedural levels. A rogue-lite can be an FPS, a platformer, any genre
with procedurally generated maps, really. I’ve even come across one or two games that called themselves rogue-lite (can’t remember
the names now), although the levels were hand-crafted but the loot was procedurally handled.
So, this means that rogue-likes and rogue-lites need, if you apply the definitions, to have nothing in common whatsoever. It might
mean that any game that has one or two characteristics of a rogue-like may call itself rogue-lite (sort of mix-and-match), but this
is not anywhere near a satisfying definition.
But still, strangely enough, I mostly find myself being able to tell which game is a rogue-lite, and which ones aren't.
I would say so - I've not seen it so much lately but around 2005-2010 or so it was quite often banded around for any game that had dungeons connected either via a surface level or a hub system and RPG type implementation of weapons and loot regardless of any procedural elements or not, permadeath or not, etc.
Im sure I played an early game that this genre stems from on an Amiga as a kid years ago. Was a brilliant dungeon sprawler shooting game with many enemies, lots of keys and chests offering loot and upgrades. Always played with a friend in co-op too. If anyone can remember the name of a game like that please share (it wasnt the original Rogue)
The Chaos Engine?