I would call Hades and pretty much anything people call an “action roguelike” a roguelite, but I have a hard time calling something not a roguelike for using graphics, even being pretty strict about the definition. Like, there are a number of originally-ASCII roguelikes that have tilesets. Those don’t functionally change the game in any way than other than directly dropping the tiles in. Does that mean that Nethack-family games or Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup aren’t roguelikes?
My red lines are:
Gotta be turn-based. Maybe I’d accept a purely forced-turn version of a turn-based roguelike, like Mangband.
At least some element of procedurally-generated maps and loot that alters how one needs to play the game from run to run. I’d definitely call many games that still have many handcrafted maps – Tales of Mag’eyal 2 or Caves of Qud, say – roguelikes.
At least the option for permadeath, and that that be the primary mode of play. Some Caves of Qud was originally permadeath-only, but added a mode that avoids it.
Grid-based. Hex grid is fine, like Hoplite.
Those are Berlin Interpretation elements. In addition:
Top-down view (or functionally-equivalent, like equivalent, like isometric). I wouldn’t call a first-person grid-based game – and there were a lot of 1980s and 1990s RPGs that used that structure – a roguelike.
Only direct control of one character at a time. I wouldn’t rule out Nethack for indirectly-controlled pets or Caves of Qud for letting one switch which character the player’s “mind” is controlling.
I don’t think that I’d make it a hard requirement, but all good roguelikes that I’ve played involve a lot of analysis and trying to find synergies among character abilities or item or monster or map characteristics, often in nonobvious ways. That’s a big part of the game.
The idea is that “roguelike” = a game like Rogue, which according to some people, requires checking most if not all of the boxes including ASCII, proc-gen, perma-death, turn-based, … while the term “rougelite” is less strict. But I think we’re past the point of that distinction being adopted into mainstream.
I’d also say we’re well past that point. Generally from my experience, the only difference between a rogue-like and -lite is that the latter has some form of permanent progression between runs. Though, often times even that distinction is ignored.
its still wierd to me athat non ascii things are refered to as roguelike.
Hence the term “roguelite”
I would call Hades and pretty much anything people call an “action roguelike” a roguelite, but I have a hard time calling something not a roguelike for using graphics, even being pretty strict about the definition. Like, there are a number of originally-ASCII roguelikes that have tilesets. Those don’t functionally change the game in any way than other than directly dropping the tiles in. Does that mean that Nethack-family games or Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup aren’t roguelikes?
My red lines are:
Gotta be turn-based. Maybe I’d accept a purely forced-turn version of a turn-based roguelike, like Mangband.
At least some element of procedurally-generated maps and loot that alters how one needs to play the game from run to run. I’d definitely call many games that still have many handcrafted maps – Tales of Mag’eyal 2 or Caves of Qud, say – roguelikes.
At least the option for permadeath, and that that be the primary mode of play. Some Caves of Qud was originally permadeath-only, but added a mode that avoids it.
Grid-based. Hex grid is fine, like Hoplite.
Those are Berlin Interpretation elements. In addition:
Top-down view (or functionally-equivalent, like equivalent, like isometric). I wouldn’t call a first-person grid-based game – and there were a lot of 1980s and 1990s RPGs that used that structure – a roguelike.
Only direct control of one character at a time. I wouldn’t rule out Nethack for indirectly-controlled pets or Caves of Qud for letting one switch which character the player’s “mind” is controlling.
I don’t think that I’d make it a hard requirement, but all good roguelikes that I’ve played involve a lot of analysis and trying to find synergies among character abilities or item or monster or map characteristics, often in nonobvious ways. That’s a big part of the game.
I mean, its not about the art style, its about the gameplay loop.
The idea is that “roguelike” = a game like Rogue, which according to some people, requires checking most if not all of the boxes including ASCII, proc-gen, perma-death, turn-based, … while the term “rougelite” is less strict. But I think we’re past the point of that distinction being adopted into mainstream.
I’d also say we’re well past that point. Generally from my experience, the only difference between a rogue-like and -lite is that the latter has some form of permanent progression between runs. Though, often times even that distinction is ignored.
Yeah I guess for me it originally about a game I could play on the terminal that had such complexity.