Roguelikes and their Appeal

Roguelike games incorporate a very small genre, and are relatively unknown to many "casual" gamers. This is unfortunate, as many are quite enjoyable. They are small, quirky, and usually short games, that you either enjoy immensely, or hate with a passion.

A Very Brief History of Roguelikes

The term "roguelike" refers to the game "Rogue," a small ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Exchange. It's basically the keys of a keyboard, and not as complicated as it sounds. Go here for more information. ASCII here is used as a design type, easy to run on basic computers. Look at the picture below for an example.) based game which is the first of the genre. Several similar games came before it, but this was the one that pioneered it for the future. Now there are many roguelikes, and some have become very popular, albeit, generally among a specific crowd. The meaning of the term "roguelike" too, is sharply disputed, though most agree that it's key factors are permanent death, and randomization.

Why They are Often Avoided

Roguelikes are often looked over because of there apparent simplicity, unnecessary complexity (I'll explain in one second) and general bad graphics. In addition, few actually know what it is, because "Rouge" is such an old game. I introduced several of my friends to the genre recently, and they had never seen anything like it.

The games often appear to be ridiculously simple at first glance -


Screenshot of Rogue. It's a lot more complicated than it looks to play.

However, there are many complex rules. You must play  close attention to your health, hunger, and items, and do not know what your items do until you try them out. This can be potentially dangerous, as any old flask you encounter may be a flask of incineration, rather bad to drink. For the rest of that game then, any flask that would have been the same color, staff that would have been made of the same wood, or scroll that with the same inscription will be renamed to what it does. However, this will be reset between games. If a pink potion is a potion of healing in your first game, it may still be a potion of incineration in the next. This, and the monsters becoming stronger faster than you level up, make this an extremely difficult game. The difficulty curve is very steep in roguelikes.

Many roguelikes have graphics similar to the one above (in the ASCII format) or have very grainy graphics, such as the picture below.


Screenshot of Dungeon Crawl - Stone Soup

 This may lead people with certain graphical standards to avoid most of these. It's a shame, as they are missing on some rather enjoyable games.

 The Enjoyment Factor

These games are extremely difficult, but also very unique. This can lead the adventurous gamer to enjoy these immensely, but those who want to play it safe are better staying with whatever they had been playing before. There is also a great amount of luck involved, and a substantial amount of pleasurable torture (If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's my blog about that. It's not one of my best ones, but it will give you an idea of what I mean.) I have played many, many, many, many rounds of roguelikes, but have never finished a game, always dying. Only about half the time is it even from monsters, other times I starve, or set myself on fire (Those flasks of incineration scare me so much.) or die in other ways that are my fault, but not totally, as I lacked the materials to save myself.

Where to Start -

If you are at all interested in what I had to say, here are some good places to start with roguelikes. Most of these you will have to download, but they are really small. All mentioned below are available for free, so give it a try.

Brogue, a nice and simple one, and a good introduction to roguelikes, can be found here.

Rogue, the original, can be found here.

Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup, my favorite of the complicated ones, is available here. The tile version has the graphics shown above, while the console versions graphics are more similar to that of Rogue.

Nethack, another popular free roguelike, is available here. This is one that I have not played, and therefore can not recommend strongly.

There is a roguelike available for free on PSN mobile as well, Adventure Bar Labyrinth. It is free, and a rather nice game, albeit there are some things you have to get via in-game purchases (with real money.) This one is very different from the others, as the potions and scrols you get are pre-identified (The staffs however, are not), there are some ways to get out of the dungeon while keeping your items (most, but not all, require paying real money, or finding extremely rare items) and a kitchen system that allows you to make recipes and gain bonuses for the dungeon.