If you haven't strayed too far from the gaming world, you must have heard of the term "roguelike". When you see this word, what games come to mind? Is it one of the five major roguelikes, or is it The Binding of Isaac, or maybe Spelunky or Dead Cells, Hades, or even the "meat pigeon" mode in many mobile games?
Well... where should I start with this? Roguelike itself is not a very new game genre, after all, Rogue itself is a product of the 1980s. College students at that time could become obsessed with their characters represented by characters jumping on the CRT screen. And Rogue is indeed a game that transcends time. The countless trash roguelikes on the market prove this.
So what makes Rogue so fun? Let's start with the most familiar one: randomness. We humans love randomness. Just look at how much profit loot boxes in games or virtual gambling machines in second-tier games can bring to these people in a year. Rogue can be said to be a pioneer in this regard. It is true that before that, there was a game called Pedit5 that had some randomness, but it was Rogue that made everyone remember. What random things are there in Rogue? First of all, of course, the map is random, the items inside are also random, and the enemies, of course, don't need to be mentioned. Secondly, the effects of the items are random. So you can't just look at it and know what this thing does. This also means that the items are not entirely positive. In addition to randomness, in Rogue, failure is failure, there is absolutely no "start over as a hero" thing. YOLO is not just a joke, as long as you are not careful, your character will say goodbye to you. This design that seems to be disgusting is as important as randomness in my opinion, and it is also a point that most games gradually abandon in order to take care of the player's experience. I can say that if your game only does randomness but hesitates in permanent death, I can only say that you don't understand what roguelike is.
In addition to these two widely spread points, Rogue also has some interesting ideas. For example, most instructions in the game have separate keys and can only be operated with these keys. Press "e" to eat, press "r" to read, press "q" to drink, and so on. The game also uses hjklyubn to move, doesn't it have a taste of vi? Another example is using characters to represent the screen. Although this is also a helpless move, it provides a place for successors to show their skills. You can think of whatever elements you want, you don't need to draw them, just use characters and text descriptions. So later roguelikes can be said to have many interesting items. Nethack is famous for the chemical reactions between game elements, which is also an important point in roguelike. The possibilities of cooperation between items in The Binding of Isaac are many, and now think about this interaction involving both players and enemies. For example, enemies in the game can pick up wands, and if they have higher intelligence, they can use them. If this wand is a tricky thing, you're in trouble. Another example is that you can transform into a monster. If you become a rust monster, you can't eat to fill your stomach, you can only eat metal products. Another example is that aquatic creatures in the game will drag you into the water, but if you apply oil to your armor, you won't be afraid. Or use the scroll of extinction to exterminate a race, want to exterminate dragons but this scroll is cursed and summons a bunch of dragons, and so on.
In addition to these, resource management is also a very important aspect of roguelike. Rogue has a food clock, so you can't just keep going, otherwise, you will easily starve to death. In a broader sense, various games more or less have this aspect of management, but in roguelike, because you only have one life, you must carefully consider your choices. There are gains and losses, and when to take risks and when to be conservative are all places worth considering. It can be said that good resource management is a very test of the designer's level of design. For example, in The Binding of Isaac, money, keys, and bombs, how to maximize the use of these items without spending hundreds of hours is not understood.
This leads to why roguelike is so addictive: randomness is important, but randomness alone is meaningless. After all, the duration of my hand washing is also random, but that's not fun. Excellent roguelikes can make you feel that you are constantly getting stronger, and this strength has nothing to do with the game. Because every time you face the same dangerous world, but you gradually learn better ways to deal with it. Just like the protagonist of a reincarnation galgame. After countless failures, your brain finally understands what the game is all about, and then you have a chance to taste the fruit of victory. At that time, you will feel that you are so awesome! And soon you will find that your winning rate is also increasing. You gradually discover that the disgusting designs in the game are not as scary as they seem, and now the world in the game is more familiar to you than your own home.
So far, it seems that there is no problem, so where does it go wrong? Please listen to me continue to ramble. It is said that later, a person named Derek Yu was not satisfied with the fun but highly difficult and punishing nature of roguelikes, so he decided to make a 2D side-scrolling game with its core elements. So Spelunky was born. Although the purpose of Spelunky is to simplify roguelike, it doesn't mean that the game is easy. The controls in Spelunky are very intuitive, and the controls are also very responsive, but that's because when you die, you won't find excuses to cover up. I mentioned randomness, permanent death, and chemical reactions earlier, right? This game learned from them. First of all, there is nothing to say about randomness, and permanent death is slightly weakened because you can spend money to dig tunnels in the game, which can quickly take you to the later stages; however, the significance is not that great because if you don't have enough items, you can't pass it, it's more like a practice function. The chemical reactions are interesting. You can go online and find the death compilations of this game because this game is really chaotic (mainly killing you).
After a few years, there were more and more imitators like this. The Binding of Isaac is definitely a fuse that ignited this genre. I really have nothing to say about this game. Let's get to the point. I mentioned earlier that one of the joys of roguelike is becoming stronger independent of game data. This is indeed fun, but not many people can persist until that point. After all, who wants to be hammered by an entertainment project every day, and it's not like multiplayer games where you can blame others. So some people opened Pandora's Box: permanent currency. These currencies are usually given to you when you die, and then you can use these currencies to purchase permanent attribute upgrades or buffs or functions that help you. There are so many games like this now. In the early days, there was Rogue Legacy, a randomly generated Castlevania game. Coincidentally, another game with a similar idea inherited its legacy: Dead Cells. How important cells are in Dead Cells and how they are related to game progress, do I need to say? After that, more and more games started on this path.
I'm afraid some people still don't understand what I'm talking about in detail. For this kind of permanent upgrade behavior, it is a double-edged sword, and it is a double-edged sword that most people don't understand how to play. Games like Spelunky, which are fast-paced practice, can be said to be more convenient for players; but now the designer's idea is to let you die repeatedly, use the currency of death to exchange for upgrades, and exchange for values. Once their thinking has changed to this, they have already fallen into a certain strange circle. RPG games, and even most games with leveling up, you can rely on repeatedly killing monsters to level up and mindlessly pass. There are also some weird games that gradually reduce experience points or set level restrictions, or other methods that prevent you from endlessly farming resources. Do you see the problem? Playing roguelike is about starting from scratch and then moving towards success, completing the game with your own brain. Although when you brush these permanent currencies, you will also understand the game better, can you really say that this learning efficiency is higher? It is better to say that the majority of those who design like this are using this design to cover up the fact that they cannot design a fair and challenging game framework. And now the more inverted point is that many people think that this fig leaf is what makes roguelike fun, which is really... hard for me to understand.
If you think this is already outrageous, the definition of roguelike has even been further weakened. Some people really think that having randomness is roguelike. In the forum, the Hollow Knight players and Hades players argue about which one is the better roguelike is not a joke I made up. Many indie games are also doing this now. For example, "Returnal". If the issue of permanent currency is a roundabout way of farming resources, the indie games are not even pretending anymore, it's just something that randomly gives you buffs. Really, at this point, you might as well let me choose cards, don't bother with so many things. The simulation universe in Star Trains is also a bit embarrassing, it's hard to find where the roguelike elements are without a magnifying glass.
I've been babbling for so long and it's not very useful. After all, these people won't disappear just because I complain about them here. So please consider the definition of roguelike in your heart.