Roguelike
Encyclopedia
The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing
Role-playing game (video games)
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...

 video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death
Permanent death
In role-playing video games , permanent death is a situation in which player characters die permanently and are removed from the game...

, and turn-based movement. Most roguelikes feature ASCII
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...

 graphics, with newer ones increasingly offering tile-based graphics
Sprite (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...

. Games are typically dungeon crawl
Dungeon crawl
A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinthine environment, battling various monsters, and looting any treasure they may find...

s, with many monsters, items, and environmental features. Computer roguelikes usually employ the majority of the keyboard to facilitate interaction with items and the environment. The name of the genre comes from the 1980
1980 in video gaming
-Notable releases:* May 22, Namco releases Pac-Man, which is their biggest selling game of all time* December, Nintendo releases the Radar Scope arcade game...

 game Rogue
Rogue (computer game)
Rogue is a dungeon crawling video game first developed by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman around 1980. It was a favorite on college Unix systems in the early to mid-1980s, in part due to the procedural generation of game content. Rogue popularized dungeon crawling as a video game trope, leading...

.

Origin

The roguelike genre takes its name from Rogue
Rogue (computer game)
Rogue is a dungeon crawling video game first developed by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman around 1980. It was a favorite on college Unix systems in the early to mid-1980s, in part due to the procedural generation of game content. Rogue popularized dungeon crawling as a video game trope, leading...

, a role-playing video game
Role-playing game (video games)
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...

 based on the Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

 role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...

s, including concepts such as stats
Statistic (role-playing games)
A statistic in role-playing games is a piece of data which represents a particular aspect of a fictional character. That piece of data is usually a integer or, in some cases, a set of dice....

 and experience points.

Some features of Rogue existed in earlier games, notably: Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure gave its name to the computer adventure game genre . It was originally designed by Will Crowther, a programmer and caving enthusiast who based the layout on part of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky...

 (1975), Dungeon
Dungeon (computer game)
Dungeon was one of the earliest computer role-playing games, running on PDP-10 mainframe computers manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation.-History:...

 (1975), DND
Dnd (computer game)
dnd is a computer role-playing game. The name dnd is derived from the abbreviation "DND" from the original role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, which was first released in 1975....

/Telengard
Telengard
Telengard is a computer-based video game that provides an early example of the dungeon crawl genre. The game, written in 1978 by Daniel Lawrence , was purchased by Avalon Hill in 1982 and made available on multiple computer platforms...

 (1976), Beneath Apple Manor
Beneath Apple Manor
Beneath Apple Manor is an early roguelike game released by Don Worth for microcomputers, which had a Lo-Res Apple release in 1978 and high-res multi-platform releases in 1982 and 1983 . The goal is to obtain a Golden Apple on the bottom floor of the dungeon...

 (1978), and several written for the PLATO system, such as the multi-user games dnd
Dnd (computer game)
dnd is a computer role-playing game. The name dnd is derived from the abbreviation "DND" from the original role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, which was first released in 1975....

 (1975) and Moria
Moria (PLATO)
Moria is a dungeon crawl style computer role-playing game first developed for the PLATO system around 1975, with copyright dates listed as 1978 and 1984...

 (1975). DND, dnd, Beneath Apple Manor, and Moria all utilized limited graphics. Moria offered a primitive first-person
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...

, three-dimensional
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...

 view, while DND and dnd presented a top-down map view similar to Rogue. Dungeon had not only a top-down map view, but line-of-sight code and a textual display, and Beneath Apple Manor had the former two features as well.

In Rogue, Moria, and Beneath Apple Manor, the dungeon
Dungeon
A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period...

 is randomly regenerated
Random dungeon
A random dungeon is a dungeon in a role-playing video game which is procedurally generated by the computer using an algorithm, such that the dungeon is laid out differently every time the player enters it, and a player often never plays through quite the same dungeon twice. Random dungeons are...

 when the player begins, creating a new challenge
Replay value
Replay value or replayability is a term found in combination with video games, but it may be also used to describe other kinds of games, movies, music, or theater plays. In video games, the term replay value is used to describe the entertainment value of playing a game more than once...

 each time.

These games present a plain view. Traditionally, an "@" sign represents the player character
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...

. Letters of the alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...

 represent other characters
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...

 (usually opposing monster
Monster
A monster is any fictional creature, usually found in legends or horror fiction, that is somewhat hideous and may produce physical harm or mental fear by either its appearance or its actions...

s). Some versions of Rogue only made use of capital letters, but present-day roguelikes vary capitalization to supply additional visual cues. A dog, for example, may be represented by the letter "d", and a dragon
European dragon
European dragons are legendary creatures in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe.In European folklore, a dragon is a serpentine legendary creature. The Latin word draco, as in constellation Draco, comes directly from Greek δράκων,...

 by a "D". Coloration may signal further distinction between creatures. For example, a Red Dragon might be represented by a red "D" and a Blue Dragon by a blue "D", each of differing abilities significant to player strategy. Additional dungeon features are represented by other ASCII
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...

 (or ANSI
ANSI escape code
ANSI escape sequences are characters embedded in the text used to control formatting, color, and other output options on video text terminals. Almost all terminal emulators designed to show text output from a remote computer, and to show text output from local software, interpret at least some of...

) symbols. A traditional sampling follows.

 ------                             -  Wall

 |....|      ############           #  Unlit hallway

 |....|      #          #           .  Lit area

 |.$..+########         #           $  Some quantity of gold

 |....|       #      ---+---        +  A door

 ------       #      |.....|        |  Wall

              #      |.!...|        !  A magic potion

              #      |.....|

              #      |..@..|        @  The adventurer

   ----       #      |.....|

   |..|       #######+..D..|        D  A red dragon

   |<.+###    #      |.....|        <  Stairs to a higher level

   ----  #    #      |.?...|        ?  A magic scroll

         ######      -------



Graphical adaptations are available for most early roguelikes, and it is not uncommon for new development projects to adopt a graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

.

Players issue game commands with at most a few keystrokes, rather than with sentences interpreted by a parser
Parsing
In computer science and linguistics, parsing, or, more formally, syntactic analysis, is the process of analyzing a text, made of a sequence of tokens , to determine its grammatical structure with respect to a given formal grammar...

 or by means of a pointing device
Pointing device
A pointing device is an input interface that allows a user to input spatial data to a computer...

 such as a mouse
Mouse (computing)
In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons...

. For example, in NetHack
NetHack
NetHack is a single-player roguelike video game originally released in 1987. It is a descendant of an earlier game called Hack , which is a descendant of Rogue...

 one would press "r" to read a scroll
Scroll
A scroll is a roll of parchment, papyrus, or paper, which has been drawn or written upon.Scroll may also refer to:*Scroll , the decoratively curved end of the pegbox of string instruments such as violins...

, "d" to drop an item, and "q" to quaff (drink) a potion
Potion
A potion is a consumable medicine or poison.In mythology and literature, a potion is usually made by a magician, sorcerer, dragon, fairy or witch and has magical properties. It might be used to heal, bewitch or poison people...

.

Gameplay

The gameplay elements characterizing the roguelike genre were explicitly defined at the International Roguelike Development Conference 2008. Some of the "high value factors" used in this definition include:
  • Roguelike games randomly generate dungeon levels
    Level (computer and video games)
    A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...

    ; though they may include static levels as well. Generated layouts typically incorporate rooms connected by corridors, some of which may be preset to a degree (e.g., monster lairs or treasuries). Open areas or natural features, like rivers, may also occur.

  • The identity of magical
    Magic (gaming)
    Some role-playing games or game systems can include a set of rules that are used to portray magic in the paranormal sense. These rules simulate the effects that magic would have within the game context, according to how the game designer intended the magic to be portrayed...

     items varies across games. Newly discovered objects only offer a vague physical description that is randomized between games, with purposes and capabilities left unstated. For example, a "bubbly" potion might heal wounds one game, then poison the player character in the next. Items are often subject to alteration, acquiring specific traits, such as a curse, or direct player modification.

  • The combat system is turn-based
    Turn-based strategy
    A turn-based strategy game is a strategy game where players take turns when playing...

     instead of real-time
    Real-time strategy
    Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....

    . Gameplay is usually step-based, where player actions are performed serially and take a variable measure of in-game time to complete. Game processes (e.g., monster movement and interaction, progressive effects such as poisoning or starvation) advance based on the passage of time dictated by these actions.

  • Most are single-player games. On multi-user
    Multi-user
    Multi-user is a term that defines an operating system or application software that allows concurrent access by multiple users of a computer. Time-sharing systems are multi-user systems. Most batch processing systems for mainframe computers may also be considered "multi-user", to avoid leaving the...

     systems, scoreboards are often shared between players. Some roguelikes allow traces of former player characters to appear in later game sessions in the form of ghost
    Ghost
    In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...

    s or grave markings
    Headstone
    A headstone, tombstone, or gravestone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. In most cases they have the deceased's name, date of birth, and date of death inscribed on them, along with a personal message, or prayer.- Use :...

    . Multi-player derivatives such as TomeNET, MAngband, and Crossfire
    Crossfire (computer game)
    Crossfire is a free and open source cross-platform multiplayer online computer role-playing gameCrossfire features a tile based graphic system with a pseudo-isometric perspective. All content is licensed under the GNU GPL...

     do exist and are playable online.

  • Roguelikes traditionally implement permadeath
    Permanent death
    In role-playing video games , permanent death is a situation in which player characters die permanently and are removed from the game...

    . Once a character dies, the player must begin a new game. A "save game" feature will only provide suspension of gameplay and not a limitlessly recoverable state; the stored session
    Saved game
    A saved game is a piece of digitally stored information about the progress of a player in a video game. This saved game can be reloaded later, so the player can continue where he or she had stopped...

     is deleted upon resumption or character death. Players can circumvent this by backing up stored game data ("save scumming"), an act that is usually considered cheating
    Cheating (video games)
    Cheating in video games involves a video game player using non-standard methods for creating an advantage beyond normal gameplay, usually to make the game easier, or may also create unusual effects which do not necessarily make the game easier to play, such as giving characters different...

    .

Mainstream success

Roguelike games long remained the domain of computer geek
Geek
The word geek is a slang term, with different meanings ranging from "a computer expert or enthusiast" to "a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts", with a general pejorative meaning of "a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp[ecially] one who is perceived to...

s. However, according to 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....

's Jeremy Parish, action role-playing game
Action role-playing game
Action role-playing games form a loosely defined sub-genre of role-playing video games that incorporate elements of action or action-adventure games, emphasizing real-time action where the player has direct control over characters, instead of turn-based or menu-based combat...

s such as Blizzard's hugely successful Diablo
Diablo (video game)
Diablo is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game developed by Blizzard North and released by Blizzard Entertainment on December 31, 1996....

 can be considered types of roguelikes, due to their similar premise: players slash their way
Hack and slash
Hack and slash or hack and slay, abbreviated H&S or HnS, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat. "Hack and slash" was originally used to describe an aspect of pen-and-paper role-playing games , carrying over from there to MUDs, MMORPGs, and video games in general...

 (in real time) through increasingly difficult monsters and attain treasure while traversing deeper into randomly-generated dungeons to complete quests. Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...

's Wagner James Au attested that, when he visited their offices, "Blizzard's designers readily acknowledged their debt to Nethack and other Roguelikes". Moreover, the permanent death
Permanent death
In role-playing video games , permanent death is a situation in which player characters die permanently and are removed from the game...

 feature of the roguelike is retained in Diablo 2s hardcore mode, as well as Runic Games' Torchlight
Torchlight
Torchlight is an action role-playing game developed by Runic Games and published by Perfect World, released for Windows in October 2009. The fantasy-themed game is set in the fictional town of Torchlight and the expansive caverns and dungeons nearby, which adventurers explore to collect valuable...

.

Still, the first mainstream success of proper roguelike games (turn-based, randomly generated dungeon crawlers with no or limited save feature) was in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 where the genre is now widely popular. The success is due primarily to the Mystery Dungeon series by Chunsoft
Chunsoft
is a Japanese video game developer specializing in console RPGs and visual novels. It was founded by Koichi Nakamura, a video game designer from Enix...

. The series began as a Super Famicom game called Torneko no Daibōken: Fushigi no Dungeon
Torneko no Daiboken: Fushigi no Dungeon
is the first game in the Mysterious Dungeon series. This installment features Torneko , the merchant from Dragon Warrior IV...

 (lit tran. The Great Adventure of Torneko: Dungeon of Mystery), which is a spin-off of the Dragon Quest
Dragon Quest
, published as Dragon Warrior in North America until 2005,Due to the inconsistent usage by sources since Square Enix obtained the naming rights to Dragon Quest in North America. Dragon Quest has been used by sources to refer to games released solely under the Dragon Warrior titles...

 series. The finely tuned game balance as well as the use of easily recognized 2D animated monsters from a well-known franchise drawn by Akira Toriyama
Akira Toriyama
is a Japanese manga artist and game artist known mostly for his creation of Dragon Ball in 1984. Toriyama admires Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy and was impressed by Walt Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which he remembers for the great art...

, who is the creator of various hit manga and anime such as Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. It was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995; later the 519 individual chapters were published into 42 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. Dragon Ball was inspired by the classical Chinese novel Journey to the...

 series led to the game becoming a sleeper hit in 1993 selling in excess of 800,000 copies. The game was also voted as the 78th best game of all time in the Japanese Famitsu
Famitsu
is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Enterbrain, Inc. and Tokuma. Currently, there are five Famitsū magazines: Shūkan Famitsū, Famitsū PS3 + PSP, Famitsū Xbox 360, Famitsū Wii+DS, and Famitsū Wave DVD...

 magazine.

Subsequently, Chunsoft has built Mysteries dungeon series on well drawn animated characters and monsters from easily recognized and well established franchises. Chunsoft managed to flatten the steep learning curve of roguelike games by introducing multiple dungeon with progressive difficulty, hence delaying the introduction of more punishing aspects of gameplay to later advanced stages (or only after completing the main plot). In some series, the permanent death feature applies to the hard mode only and this has been controversial among fans of older series who prefer more challenging (and some argue more addictive) gameplay. Due to lower requirement for hardware specs, smaller data size requirement and the casual nature of gameplay, not to mention its infinite replayability, the series has been particularly successful as games for hand-held consoles and, more recently, mobile phones.

This format resulted in four successful sub-series: the Torneko series based on Dragon Quest, the Chocobo (series) based on Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy
is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is developed and owned by Square Enix . The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science-fantasy role-playing video games , but includes motion pictures, anime, printed media, and other merchandise...

, the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon
- Manga :*Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Ginji's Rescue Team, manga adaption of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team and Red Rescue Team*Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blazing Exploration Team, manga adaption of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Explorers of Darkness, and Explorers of Sky.-...

 series based on Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...

, and the Shiren the Wanderer series, which is the only one based on original characters (plus two failed series based on the Gundam
Gundam
The is a metaseries of anime created by Sunrise studios that features giant robots called "Mobile Suits" ; usually the protagonist's MS will carry the name Gundam....

 and Tower of Druaga
Tower of Druaga
is a maze-based action role-playing arcade game released by Namco in 1984, in Japan and the United States. It is the first game in the Babylonian Castle Saga series of games....

 franchises). These series have become "the staple of the Japanese game market". The first Chocobo game, which had a less punishing save system for a much younger target audience, sold 1.165.798 copies and the first Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games, Blue and Red Rescue Team, sold 3.08 million together, popularizing the core gameplay of roguelikes to a global audience.

The no-save feature of the Torneko and Shiren series, which is the main premise of roguelike games, was described as "the worst flaw in any RPG is the lack of a decent save system" by Worthplaying.com and "[going] against the very foundation of what an RPG should be" by Gaming Age. Eurogamer argued that "its sadistic, repetitive nature ....that's precisely what's appealing about it. The stakes are far higher, making the rewards much sweeter." The latest Mystery Dungeon series to be marketed to the West for console is Shiren the Wanderer 3 for Wii console which features 3D rendered characters. In the West, it is marketed simply as "Shiren the Wanderer", reflecting the lack of recognition of previous series in the West. The game has three difficulty modes, Easy mode where half of inventory and all the attained levels are saved upon defeat, Normal mode where you lose all the inventory but retain the levels you've gained, and Hard mode which features permanent death (rather than dying, the character are brought back to the entrance of dungeon, lose all the inventories and revert to level 1).

See also

  • Chronology of roguelike video games
    Chronology of roguelike video games
    This is a selected list of roguelike video games, and action RPGs directly inspired by them.-Legend:-Roguelikes:-Action role-playing games:...

  • MUD
    MUD
    A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...

  • ADOM
  • DoomRL
    DoomRL
    DoomRL is a roguelike video game for Microsoft Windows and Linux, whose setting is based on the first-person shooters Doom and Doom II...

  • Telengard
    Telengard
    Telengard is a computer-based video game that provides an early example of the dungeon crawl genre. The game, written in 1978 by Daniel Lawrence , was purchased by Avalon Hill in 1982 and made available on multiple computer platforms...


External links

  • rec.games.roguelike Usenet hierarchy at Google Groups
    Google Groups
    Google Groups is a service from Google Inc. that supports discussion groups, including many Usenet newsgroups, based on common interests. The service was started in 1995 as Deja News, and was transitioned to Google Groups after a February 2001 buyout....

  • @Play - A column about roguelikes and their various aspects by John Harris at GameSetWatch.
  • Roguebasin - The Roguelike information wiki
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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