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What exactly defines a Roguelike game and what is the difference between them and Roguelite games?

GnomeSlice
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Aequitas
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    The letter "t". – au revoir Dec 08 '15 at 05:24
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    Can we add in RogueElite games which make Roguelikes seem like Roguelites?! – aslum Dec 08 '15 at 14:54
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    @aslum No, clearly RogueElite should either not be used, or refer to Rogue-like games that are also like Elite, about open-universe space exploration and trading (e.g. ASCII Sector http://asciisector.net/). ;-> – Dronz Dec 08 '15 at 19:47
  • @Dronz So Everspace? – aslum Dec 08 '15 at 19:48
  • @aslum Well I'm partly joking, but no. I meant like ASCII Sector, as linked above. Everspace is described as "There are fantastic and vast space sims out there featuring super realistic space physics and billions of stars to travel to. But we believe that combining easy-to-pick-up gameplay with AAA-quality graphics and sound with a captivating, non-linear story is something that many of you have still been waiting for." which is very un-Rogue-like, it seems to me, even if it has a non-linear story. I'd just call that a dynamic universe. Or if it must be "like" something, EliteLike. – Dronz Dec 08 '15 at 19:56
  • In Polynesian languages, they will switch the Ks and Ts. For example, "Eye" is 'Mata' in Tongan, and 'Maka' in Hawaiian, "Death" is 'Mate' (Mah-Tay) in Tongan, and 'Make' (Mah-Kay) in Hawaiian. – BillyNair Jun 10 '16 at 15:45

2 Answers2

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A roguelite is not-quite-a-roguelike. It's a fuzzy definition, but it's a starting place. (I've also heard the term roguelikelike.)

Back in 2008, some guys at the International Roguelike Development Conference 2008 in Berlin were annoyed about how some games were claiming to be roguelikes, but they weren't enough like Rogue. So they nailed down a fairly-solid definition of what was allowed to call itself a "roguelike." Not everyone subscribes to this definition, but it's a definition, and so it gets used. Here are the "high-value" points that a game should have to be called a roguelike by the Berlin Interpretation:

  1. Turn-based action.
  2. Tile-based movement.
  3. Randomly-generated map.
  4. Permadeath.
  5. Movement, battle and other actions take place in the same mode. Every action should be available at any point of the game. (Overland maps, dialogue trees or cut scenes, shopping screens, and other such interfaces violate this rule.)
  6. Complexity. There's more than one solution for various common goals.
  7. Resource management.
  8. Most of the game is hack 'n' slash.
  9. Exploration and discovery.

There's also a half-dozen "low-value" factors that are often part of a roguelike, but aren't required. I'm ignoring these, because they don't help us find the line between a roguelike and a roguelite.

Not every formally-approved roguelike follows every one of those tenets: #5, "only one game mode", gets violated on a regular basis in small ways: Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM), Iter Vehemens Ad Necem (IVAN), and Alphaman each have an overland map of some sort. So even roguelikes aren't always roguelikes. (#5 should really get moved to the "low-value factors" section of the Berlin Interpretation, or modified to add "usually". And it really needs an exception for inventory management or some such, because a too-strict reading could exclude Rogue itself from being a roguelike!)

The line between roguelike an roguelite is fuzzy; it resembles the definition of pornography a bit: "I'll know it when I see it." (SFW) A roguelite is missing one or more of those high-value characteristics, but missing one or more of those traits doesn't automatically make it a roguelite. And it might be possible to make a game that hits all of the high-value characteristics and yet isn't a roguelike. Here's a few examples of roguelites:

  • Rogue Legacy is a real-time platformer game that resembles Castlevania more than Rogue. It has permadeath and random maps and all the rest, but it's a very different kind of game.
  • Sunless Sea is even further out: it's a real-time game about sailing a ship, and a large fraction of the game is played as a sort of Choose Your Own Adventure as you pick actions in a dialogue tree. It still has permadeath, random maps, resource management, and the game centers around exploration.
  • Out There is a roguelite in a different way: there's no combat at all, but the map is still (somewhat) random, the game is turn-based, all of the threats come from resource management, and it focuses on exploration.
  • FTL: Faster Than Light has exploration, randomness, permadeath, and resource management, but there are three different game modes: real-time combat, the turn-based sector map, and the dialogue tree.
  • Diablo and its sequels predate the term "roguelite", but they fit it quite nicely if you'd like to apply it: real-time combat in a randomly-generated dungeon.

There are also some alternate definitions of roguelike. I've used the Berlin Interpretation here because it's the most strongly-defined term, but even among people who create roguelikes, there's no consensus. Each of the definitions strongly resemble each other, but different people pick different traits to be "most important," and different traits that are "common among roguelikes, but not mandatory."

It's hard to nail down what a roguelite is because all you can really say is "See that? It's not that. But it's kinda close." There's a number of them now, and they all diverge from a classic roguelike in different ways.

PotatoEngineer
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    As an additional, not everybody follows that Berlin Interpetation and call games "roguelike" even tough they "shouldn't". But that's standard for non-standard, fuzzy words like generes. – DJ Pirtu Dec 08 '15 at 08:43
  • So Hack is a roguelike but Larn isn't since it has shop screens and multiple dungeons? Could you have multiple dungeons if you didn't have shop screens, like nethack I guess? – DRF Dec 08 '15 at 11:11
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    Really surprised by point 5 on that list since it effectively excludes the last decade of design in the genre. Taken literally it even pushes out games like Angband and its many derivatives. ADOM is many things, but "lite" isn't one of them. – Bob Tway Dec 08 '15 at 12:24
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    What is meant by 'special shop screens'? Whats a not special shop screen? That one really throws me. – David says Reinstate Monica Dec 08 '15 at 14:15
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    @DavidGrinberg Haven't played Rogue or Hack, but in NetHack shops are just rooms with items on the floor, and a shopkeeper creature in them. When you pick up an item, the shopkeeper creature blocks the door, and will not leave that square unless you use the pay command p to deduct currency from your inventory and transfer ownership of the item to you. There is no difference between a shop and any other room, or shopping and otherwise picking up items littering the dungeon, aside from the need to use the p command. – KRyan Dec 08 '15 at 16:52
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    (Though I do wonder if NetHack's "Itemized billing?" and subsequent series of confirmation prompts would qualify as "special screens," seeing as they are unique confirmation prompts not used else where. I agree that point 5 seems really dumb and just like adamant grognard-ism refusing any and all changes.) – KRyan Dec 08 '15 at 16:55
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    @MattThrower, I've tweaked the definition of #5 a bit so that ADOM stops getting excluded. You also get a bonus rant about how little sense #5 makes! – PotatoEngineer Dec 08 '15 at 17:09
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    @PaulMarshall Thanks. That point really is madness, as you note - your linked article even points out that it excludes bands and the idea that bands aren't part of the Roguelike genre is just silly semantics. – Bob Tway Dec 09 '15 at 09:29
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    Slightly tangential, but can we agree that games that provide upgrading that persists across death do not qualify as having 'permadeath', and are therefor not roguelikes? Rogue Legacy being a great example... I don't feel like that's permadeath at all. As a comparison... would you call Super Mario Brothers permadeath? I think not... – Mir May 15 '17 at 18:37
  • @Mir - I agree. Well, they called it a 'lite, and I guess it's covered under "very differently kind of game"...? – Malady Sep 06 '19 at 12:39
  • @Mir in regards to permadeath, what about games where permadeath is an optional setting? I'm thinking of Cadence of Hyrule, for example - does it go from roguelite to roguelike if you start it in permadeath mode? – TKoL Jun 29 '21 at 11:49
  • I also think games like Dead Cells provide a bit of a grey area in regards to unlocks - the unlocks persist across runs, but they only allow you to have a chance to receive that weapon. And the weapon you start with at the start of a run will normally be underpowered by the time you're finishing a run. I'm almost willing to say something like "it's more like a roguelike once you have all the unlocks" – TKoL Jun 29 '21 at 11:52
  • @TKoL Modern dilution of the term aside - I think the defining characteristic of Roguelike was originally that the only thing that enabled players to progress farther on subsequent runs was player knowledge and skill. So any kind of unlock, even just unlocking RNG weapon pools, breaks that idea. Certainly, in this case, once completely unlocked a roguelite game essentially becomes roguelike because now nothing changes... but it isn't really designed or balanced around that, and for the majority of players that probably isn't the primary experience. Most quit before complete unlock I assume. – Mir Jul 05 '21 at 16:39
  • @Mir in the case of deadcells, most quit far before the actual ending of the game. The actual ending of the game can only be reached by increasing the difficulty level 4 or 5 times, by beating it on each previous difficulty level. There's an argument to be made that that IS the real game, and most people just won't ever experience it. once completely unlocked a roguelite game essentially becomes roguelike because now nothing changes is how I view this late stage of the game -- that it's evolved into something closer to a roguelike. – TKoL Jul 06 '21 at 08:23
  • @TKoL Right but... An extremely experienced dead cells player can't sit down at a fresh install and beat it in a single go. Even if they could kill the Hand with the starter gear since nothing is unlocked... it's not really 'the end' until you've done it on 5bdc really, which you can't possibly do without resetting. And I'm not sure anyone is killing 5bdc hand with the starter gear. This need for unlocks pretty much moves it firmly into RogueLITE in my mind. It is not a roguelike the way I've defined it. – Mir Jul 06 '21 at 19:50
  • By the Berlin Interpretation, Dead Cells is a roguelike. It has tile-based movement, etc. etc. etc. Progression unlocks violate the spirit of the Berlin Interpretation, but not the letter. That said, we don't have 100% agreement on the definition of a roguelike, so arguing over unlocks is very much in the spirit of "defining a roguelike." – PotatoEngineer Jul 08 '21 at 19:43
  • The purpose of Berlin Interpretation was to explain what the community was talking about, not to define things. They were not annoyed at games being called roguelikes, because that annoying trend actually started after the Berlin Interpretation was created (roguelike fans were always arguing about definitions, or about games such as Decker, Dwarf Fortress, or Legerdemain, but that was not an issue -- the trend really started with Spelunky in 2009 and Binding of Isaac in 2011, when people started using that word without ever playing an actual roguelike). – Zeno Rogue Jul 20 '21 at 08:45
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As far as I know RogueLite has been casually used for Roguelike games that do not contain the permadeath element.

From Wikipedia:

With computers and video game consoles capable of more advanced graphics and gameplay, numerous games have emerged that are loosely based on the classic roguelike design but diverge in one or more features. Many of these games use the concept of procedural-generated maps and permadeath, while moving away from tile-based movement and turn-based gameplay. As such, the term "roguelike" has been used to describe games that possess one or more of the features of the Berlin Interpretation though not necessarily all of the features. The term "roguelike-like" or "rogue-lite" has been used to distinguish these games that possess some, but not all, of the Berlin Interpretation features from those that exactly meet the Berlin roguelike definition.

Aequitas
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Michael
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