Roguelite

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Roguelite (or roguelike-like) is a subgenre of role-playing computer games created by independent developers after a resurgence of the roguelike genre in the Western market after 2000. Roguelite usually incorporates some, but not all of Rogue’s core gameplay and mechanics.

Often confused with roguelike, many of roguelite games make use of concepts like procedurally generated maps and permadeath, while combining with another gameplay genre that isn’t normally associated with roguelike such as action games or platformers.

Origin

The term “roguelite” or “roguelike-like” comes from an ongoing debate in the video game community about the “true” definition of roguelike and a “Berlin Interpretation” drafted in 2008 that defined a number of high and low-value factors that distinguished the "pure" roguelike games from edge case or newer surge of “roguelike” games.

Many games that have the Berlin Interpretation elements call themselves "roguelike,” but in actuality bear little resemblance to the original Rogue, causing confusion and dilution of the term roguelike. People who agree with The Berlin Interpretation disliked the dilution of the term. So the term "rogue-lite" or "roguelike-like" has been used by some to differentiate between games that possess some, but not all, of the Berlin Interpretation features and those that accurately follow the Berlin Interpretation definition.

Gameplay and Design

Each roguelite games consist of multiple mechanics from Rogue, but the ones that always come up in every roguelite are procedurally generated maps and/or some form of permadeath that has been diluted to decrease the difficulty. With a short gameplay loop and victory conditions that are fundamentally different from traditional roguelikes that can be played indefinitely. The shortness of a single gameplay run in rogue-lites can motivate players to continually replay the game in the hope of reaching completion, making replayability a high-value factor in these types of games. Several games considered as rogue-lites feature fixed events, even if the means to reach that may be through procedural generation, whereas a roguelike game typically lacks this level of predictability. For example, in Enter the Gungeon, in every level that the players have to go through, there will be a boss room that has a roster of bosses that will randomly appear on that specific floor.

To lessen the difficulty and frustration that derive from permadeath mechanic, roguelite offer a progression system after a player finished a “run” whether the player succeed in achieving the victory condition for the game or failed, by completing certain goals will unlock permanent features such as a new character that can be select at the start of the game or new addition to the items and monsters that will appear in the procedural generation of the game's levels.

History

After the roguelike genre saw a resurgence in Western markets after 2000 through independent developers roguelite has been gaining more and more tractions as more and more indie developers began to incorporate roguelike elements into genres not normally associated with roguelikes, creating games that would form the basis of this new subgenre. Two of the earliest cited examples of rogue-lites are Strange Adventures in Infinite Space (2002) and its sequel Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space (2005) by Digital Eel both space exploration games that included randomly generated planets and encounters, and permadeath. Digital Eel based their work on the space exploration game Starflight along with roguelikes like NetHack but wanted to provide a shorter experience that would be easier to replay, akin to tabletop beer and pretzels games like Deathmaze and The Sorcerer's Cave that has elements in common with roguelikes.

The roguelite genre games are continuing to be made in recent years such as Darkest Dungeon II, Risk of Rain 2, Vampire Survivors, etc. The genre is becoming more common to the gaming industry and is a great tool that helps elevate other genres all together. The newfound success in roguelites is considered part of a larger trend in those players looking for "rich play experiences", as described by 100 Rogues developer Keith Burgun, that more popular titles may not always offer. David Bamguart of Gaslamp Games stated that there is a thrill of the risk inherent in roguelites with random generation and permadeath, helping the player become more invested in the fate of their player character: "The deadly precariousness inherent to the unknown environments of roguelikes gives that investment a great deal of meaning." Additionally, many of these newer rogue-lites strive to address the apparent high difficulty and ruthlessness that traditional roguelikes were known for, in which newer players will be able to find more help through walkthrough guides on the internet rather than playing the game themselves.. Fabien Fischer suggests that players have taken to independently developed roguelites as they have tired from "superficial gameplay, whitewashing spectacle, the content craze, and Skinner Box design" in titles produced by AAA developers and publishers.

Impact

For smaller indie developers, the procedural-generated world allows teams to deliver many hours worth of game content without spending resources and development time on fleshing out detailed worlds. This also allows developers to devote more time in building out more complex gameplay features and their interacting systems that are part of the enjoyment of roguelike and rogue-lite games. McMillen of The Binding of Isaac stated that incorporating roguelike elements into other game genres can be difficult due to overcoming the complex interfaces roguelikes tend to have, but once a means to do so is found, "it becomes an increasingly beautiful, deep, and everlasting design that allows you to generate a seemingly dynamic experience for players, so that each time they play your game they're getting a totally new adventure". Examples of successful games that have integrated roguelike components into other genres include Dead Cells, a roguelike incorporated with Metroidvania-style of platform games; Slay the Spire, bringing roguelike progression to a deck building game; Crypt of the Necrodancer which uses a rhythm game-style approach in a roguelike dungeon; Enter the Gungeon which establishes roguelike progression in a shoot 'em up, Vampire Survivors, a minimalistic roguelike shoot 'em up, and Hades, a roguelike action role-playing game, was built to strongly incorporate elements of non-linear narrative into the game, giving the reason for the player to continually delve into replaying the game, and helped to draw in players to the roguelike genre that otherwise had been put off by its high difficulty level before.

References

This article "Roguelite" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Roguelite. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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