this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023
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Interested! My first roguelike was, well, rogue. Never got overly into it, but spent many many hours playing ADOM, nethack, and others. I hope there's a community already, and if not, let's make one!
That's the spirit. I've played dead cells and rouge legacy
Both excellent games. Though not entirely what I'm looking for. If you've never had the experience of a traditional roguelike I would HIGHLY recommend Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It's free and has a tile version, and can even be played directly in your browser. It's complex and unforgiving at first but an excellent intro to the genre. And when it does start to click its one of the most well paced RLs I've ever played.
I didn't realize you said 'roguelikes' at first 😅 I'm more into roguelites I'll admit. Is Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup a -lite or -like?
The definition isn't an absolutely hard one, but I think that DCSS would be pretty uncontroversially a roguelike.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike
See the section on "Berlin Interpretation", which is one commonly-used set of factors to determine whether something is a roguelike.
oh wow that's more restrictive than I thought it was
I have a love/hate with the Berlin Interpretation. While I certainly prefer my RLs that way, I think some times it gets used to gatekeep excellent RLs kind of on the fringe of the interpretation.
Yeah, I can see the turnbased requirement there
No worries at all! While I personally prefer the more traditional RLs, I know that's not everyone's thing.
DCSS is definitely -like. But it's not terribly hard to grasp and can be an incredibly fun time if you don't mind failure.
A good way to tell between -lite and -like is that lite you get stronger (ex. Stats increase) between runs while -like only unlocks new content.
Another one: if it needs a pause button it's 'lite.
(I am willing to give Necrodancer an honorary pass)
I would absolutely give Necrodancer a pass as well!
Oh, that's a good rule of thumb
Adding to what @Grenfur@lemmy.one says:
Roguelites like dead cells etc draw inspiration and mechanics from roguelikes.
The main differences are rogue etc are tile- and turn based in a sense. Nothing moves unless you move.
And the in depth meta progression in the modern rogue lites wasn't really a thing in roguelikes.
I remember in Nethack you could technically remove some monster types permanently and find "bones" of former runs but that's about it.
Not everyone uses that definition, including me. A common definition would separate likes and lites more or less at the meta progression; if each run gets easier, it would be lite. This would put something like Spelunky under like and Rogue Legacy under lite, regardless of turn based.
I honestly didn't know that about spelunky, I never really got into it.
After looking it up a bit, would you count the Tunnel Man into meta progression? Obviously not the same as unlockeables and powerups in RogueLegacy etc.
There's room for these definitions to get fuzzy really fast, as is the case with any genre of any medium, but while the Tunnel Man is a form of meta progression, the game makes it pretty clear that using the tunnels to beat the game isn't beating it "for real". Even using my definition, games like Dead Cells and 20XX blur the line between -likes and -lites a ton.
Been a while since I've played spelunky, is the tunnel man the shortcut to later levels? Because it exists in Shiten the Wanderer and it's definitely still a roguelike. There are small deviations, like this, unlocking companions and keeping a storage room with limited access, but everything else is pretty straightforward roguelike.
That's the thing in the end, no clear definition exists. The "Berlin interpretation" is just a bunch of guidelines, and even the most "roguelikes" of roguelikes deviate a bit from it (stuff like "no modes" is even broken by 3 out of 5 games the interpretation considers "canon").
Personally I consider real time to be a bit of a stretch, but yeah, stuff like spelunky or crypt of the necrodancer blur the line.
Not Hades and Dead Cells though. I love them, but they feel way too different to play for me to consider them the same genre.
Ah alright, didn't realize Grenfur said 'roguelike' and not 'roguelite. I'm not that big a fan of roguelikes
Roguelikes are like beer. Often times you have to find one you like to get a taste for them. That said, beer is also not for everyone :).
That sounds like a good analogy :)
I've never even touched rogue actually. Played quite a bit of ADOM though. Definitely a good time :). Also there's a post up above with links to RL communities :)