Please send help. I can’t stop playing these roguelikes.

2025 was a very good year for my favorite genre.

See full article...

 

[furyleika]

If you enjoyed Hades and want a very similar game (Hadeslike?) in a sci-fi setting that doesn’t take itself too seriously, try [Redacted]. Seriously, it’s a ton of fun.


View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2229940/REDACTED/

Thanks! I will investigate and appreciate the recommendation.

 

[OldFart69]

And FWIW, the purists have already chimed in here as none of the games listed are techinically rogue-likes. "Rogue-likes" are not supposed to involve any kind of in-game progression from run to run. Once you die, your run ends, and your next run starts from square one. Permanent unlocks or progression/bonuses that persist and make your future runs easier put these games in the category of "rogue-lite".

I'm curious, how would you classify Hack/Nethack, where you can go down and sometimes find your body (and loot) from a previous run?

I lost count of the times I found my body and was thinking "Oh hot damn, all my good armor and weapons!" as I picked up the items: "you have picked up a +3 plate armor", "you have picked up a staff of magic missile.", "you have picked up a dead basilisk.", "you turn to stone."

 

[OldFart69]

Diablo is basically Rogue with better graphics. Similar strategies too.

 

[japtor]

The term itself does not mean literally anything. That a pretty ungenerous misinterpretation of what I said.

It's a specific modifier you can attach to almost anything. That's why you don't just say roguelike. You'd say dungeon crawler roguelike, or FPS Roguelike, or Poker Roguelike.

It has a specific meaning and vibe, and there are people who are into that randomized structure across a variety of genres.

Yeah this. Like I mean it does have meaning, but it's not a gameplay/genre descriptor by itself, any more than "multiplayer" or "online" or whatever. As you say it does say something about overall structure that does have value on its own (...like I myself have never been able to get too deep into one), so it's still useful by itself, if limited.

 

[Distraction]

I don’t play many roguish games, but I I do recommend The Last Spell if you like Turn-based tactical games.

It’s also a tower defense game (another genre I don’t typically play).

Each area is a ~10 stage invasion scenario where you fight waves of demons and undead all night and party build defenses every day. If you clear an area, the story progresses and new areas are revealed on the map with new level 1 heroes waiting.

The randomness affects the pool of talents each character can access at level up, their class, and gear. It forces you to adapt your play style and discover cool synergies.

Two things I don’t like are that it’s got a rogue-like auto-save system, which means if I misplace a section of wall, I alt-F4 to quit and reload. Battles also take a long, long time. Overwhelming numbers of enemies plus turn-based equals slow. Getting to the final stages of an area is a slog, and once you know how to play, the early stages aren’t that much of a challenge. The later ones get really tough, so it really sucks if you die at the end.

It’s got a cool, no frills story where the world has almost been destroyed, but there’s one last chance to save it.

The tactical combat is great. Every battle builds to the point where it seems truly hopeless, but somehow it isn’t.

 

[OldFart69]

People can disagree what Rogue Lite means. But Rogue-like clearly means 'something like Rogue". What that "like" or similar to is can be debated but since such a term is intended to distinguish a game from games not-like-Rogue, I would expect that permadeath and procedurally generated levels would be at least two of the defining characteristics.

 

[polkacore]

Remember when there used to be a a solid distinction between roguelike and roguelite? These are roguelites. You aren't starting over on death with no meta progression like in the original Rogue, Brogue, Caves of Qud, etc.

 

[Isaacc7]

Some people can reliably win many of the classic roguelikes repeatedly. It's not true of all of them - it's certainly not true of Rogue itself, which is more in the 1 in 50 category, if even that.

I look at it like Solitaire; a lot of the harder ones come out only very rarely. All you can do is figure out a strategy to maximise that small chance, and one day or another your ship will reach port.

I am amazed at how some people have gotten so good at ascending in Nethack that they resort to challenges like vegetarian and pacifist to keep it interesting. And the speed runs… my God, they demonstrate an absolute mastery of the game.

 

[Isaacc7]

None of these games bear any real resemblance to actual rogue though... I would like to see more actual rogue-likes, not these things.. not that this genre is bad, it's just nothing like rogue..

Angband is my actual roguelike of choice and I've been playing it since the amiga.. I even once transferred a save game from the amiga to the PC (6 years later) and managed to load up the game and continue[1]. That was my first winner, a hobbit mage back in the GoI days. I've only won once since...

I'd love a nice roguelike for iOS/iPadOS too...

[1] the only problem with the save file was that one of my items lost it's ResPoi, and as my character was at level 76, that was "a problem"... I played super slow and carefully until I got another source of ResPoi

Both I Nethack and Pathos are available on the Apple App Store. Both of which of clones of Nethack. I guess I’m just old to think that a roguelike game should at least remind me of Rogue. I’m not sure what any of these games have to do with Rogue except maybe some procedural generation?

 

[Isaacc7]

The term itself does not mean literally anything. That a pretty ungenerous misinterpretation of what I said.

It's a specific modifier you can attach to almost anything. That's why you don't just say roguelike. You'd say dungeon crawler roguelike, or FPS Roguelike, or Poker Roguelike.

It has a specific meaning and vibe, and there are people who are into that randomized structure across a variety of genres.

Thank you, that is the first comment that has helped me understand what all of the games in the article had in common, a vibe.

 

[Isaacc7]

I'm curious, how would you classify Hack/Nethack, where you can go down and sometimes find your body (and loot) from a previous run?

I lost count of the times I found my body and was thinking "Oh hot damn, all my good armor and weapons!" as I picked up the items: "you have picked up a +3 plate armor", "you have picked up a staff of magic missile.", "you have picked up a dead basilisk.", "you turn to stone."

Not all servers have bones files. Some people do object to it. Maybe I don’t play enough but I haven’t ever come across my own bones files. Whenever I do come across someone’s body I start to sweat knowing that whatever killed them is lurking nearby lol.

 

[Baumi]

Clover Pit seems like a game I would hate; the slot machines In Pokemon games were more that enough thank you.

Yeah. While there are plenty of game concepts that can suck me in for unhealthy amounts of time, the whole slot machine thing just never appealed to me for some reason.

 

[Amiga4000T]

Loved Hades and enjoyed Vampire Survivors as well and I'm waiting for Hades 2 to be released on XBox.

Started playing Ball x Pit last week and it's a huge timesink. Sometimes I think about if it's worth wasting those hours but I just can't stop playing...

 

[Hazakurain]

It’s been co-opted by indie game developers who want the sweet nostalgic retro cachet associated with Rogue and its descendants.

I think it's quite stretching the truth.

The reality is that most people don't even know it comes from Rogue and they just think "random + meta prog + runs = roguelike" and that's it.

 

[raxadian]

Yeah. While there are plenty of game concepts that can suck me in for unhealthy amounts of time, the whole slot machine thing just never appealed to me for some reason.

It is literally all fake luck based, as in the math algorithm decides everything. There is a reason people doesn't bother to fo speedruns in games were the mayority of things is luck based or that's all random generated levels.

 

[AbidingArs]

I think it's quite stretching the truth.

The reality is that most people don't even know it comes from Rogue and they just think "random + meta prog + runs = roguelike" and that's it.

And I don't think it helps that roguelite and roguelike sound very similar and are spelled almost identically. I always have to take a few seconds to try to remember/reason out which one is supposed to be which as far as whether there is any progression in game or just improvement in the player's understanding of the game between runs. I only know there is such a difference due to Ars Technica - though I don't remember if it was an earlier article that covered the difference or the comments discussing it that informed me.

 

[Hazakurain]

And I don't think it helps that roguelite and roguelike sound very similar and are spelled almost identically. I always have to take a few seconds to try to remember/reason out which one is supposed to be which as far as whether there is any progression in game or just improvement in the player's understanding of the game between runs. I only know there is such a difference due to Ars Technica - though I don't remember if it was an earlier article that covered the difference or the comments discussing it that informed me.

Quite honestly, most people mix them at this point anyway, so even if you do know the difference, nothing proves you that the person you are interacting with does too. Hell, I have even seen it happen in gaming articles.

The genre is due for a renaming, much like "doom-likes" became "FPS".

 

[4imble]

A great omission is Death Must Die
It's in early access and built by I thin, 3 people if you can believe that.
Graphics look wicked and the gameplay is fun.

 

[EnPeaSea]

A great omission is Death Must Die
It's in early access and built by I thin, 3 people if you can believe that.
Graphics look wicked and the gameplay is fun.

That was released in 2023, this article is about Rogue-ish games released this year.

 

[Fred Duck]

The way Apple has allowed mobile games to be ruthlessly monetized and refunds difficult also makes consumers rightly suspicious of any kind of large upfront payment for a game.

Wait, most portable handheld computing devices run android and you're blaming Apple? So google are digging their heels in to prevent monetisation? How are refunds difficult? It's not the fault of publishers who set the prices that only Cave and a few other experience publishers can set reasonable prices for full experiences? After all in the early days, there were 3 tiers of pricing, with middle being almost free and the lowest being free. There is a psychological barrier between download and start for free vs needing to pay (even a token amount) upfront.

If anything, you should blame google because android APKs were hacked to bits to the point that everyone stopped offering full experiences for a single payment because of android. Instead of dropping android like the bit of poo it is, they said no! It's too large a market even though most of the users simply want to pirate everything as in windows' early days. So they leant more into online requirements and with that comes ever more IAP.

Apple has actually done more to address this problem than anyone else with their Arcade subscription, but after the initial year or two that hasn't been drawing in as many big games as it used to.

If I were Apple, Arcade would be somewhat depressing. Apple helped fund Arcade titles and many developers, instead of using that to craft something specific to Apple Arcade, simply made "an experience" and used AA to beta test it, then when the window of exclusivity ending, simply ran off.

I don't agree that if there were more AAA desktop style games people would buy them. The Switch audience and the iOS audience are very different. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think if those games Capcom put out last year had sold well we would have seen a lot more developers following them.

It would always be an uphill fight. They're not being released concurrently with the other versions but even so experiencing isn't a major focus for Macs and due to the hardware, you'll never get all of the bells and whistles as on wintel. When you've a multi-platform title, there's always one platform that's the real target so it's likely best to play on that. (Just as when there are multiple control schemes, one will very likely be clearly superior.)

If you want actual roguelikes try shattered pixel dungeon on mobile or caves of qud on steam.

Cheers for that. I've installed SPD on my Mac here and word of warning, it does change your resolution so your windows will temporarily shift and may appear to freeze but in the end, it doesn't cause any harm. It's quite a nice rougelike. It even explains how to unlock the other classes instead of having us look online.

 

[Tofystedeth]

People can disagree what Rogue Lite means. But Rogue-like clearly means 'something like Rogue". What that "like" or similar to is can be debated but since such a term is intended to distinguish a game from games not-like-Rogue, I would expect that permadeath and procedurally generated levels would be at least two of the defining characteristics.

Basically the rubric I use is:
Something is "A Roguelike", no additional modifiers if it meets

• Is a grid based dungeon crawler (potentially some squinting required depending on shape of grid or what you consider a dungeon)
• Is run-based
• procedurally generated
• has permadeath, at least as an option
• Has fairly complex systems, interlinking in a simulationy and hopefully expected way, e.g. the ability to wield a cockatrice as a weapon to petrify enemies.
• Does not have meta-progression that directly increases your power between runs. Only unlocks that add new classes/items you might encounter. Power gain between runs comes only from knowledge of how to play and exploit the systems.

Things like Rogue (the trivial example), Nethack, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup ,Ragnarok/Valhalla (my favorite old one), Caves of Qud (my favorite new one), etc.

Something is a Roguelike + X if it meets most of those criteria, but has some twists. Pretty much always the last 5 items, but there is a different genre attached.

So Spelunky would fit, as it shifts the genre into a 2D platformer, but has no power scaling built in, and the simulationy part is more physics stuff.
Slay the Spire moves the genre into deck building game, and the rules are now interactions between cards and relics, but again has no power scaling.

Binding of Isaac is maybe an edge case as most unlocked don't directly increase power, but there are a few things like powerful new items you can unlock that if you find them in your run can certainly give you a huge boost, and some things for a few characters that once you've gotten some particular achievements will let some characters start with particular items suited to their playstyle (such as The Lost starting with Holy Mantle, which helps mitigate his extreme fragility). But there's no metaprogression currency, and most unlocks are simply new ways to play and new things to find, and several unlocks are just flat out things that increase difficulty.

Roguelites generally meet the middle 4 items, and often meet at least part of the first one, but have some form of metaprogression. And while the naming convention seems to have settled on "Lite" I think it might be largely for the (potentially confusing) similarity in sound to RogueLike. I certainly don't view it as a derogatory, since a huge, huge portion of my games played and time spent playing games since RogueLites became a thing has been RogueLites.

 

[TheWerewolf]

walks over
unplugs computer
removes GPU
smashes it to bits

There. Problem solved. Bill is in the mail. Now go outside, touch grass (or snow) and stop whining.

 

[Barleyman]

I am amazed at how some people have gotten so good at ascending in Nethack that they resort to challenges like vegetarian and pacifist to keep it interesting. And the speed runs… my God, they demonstrate an absolute mastery of the game.

Yeah well, for me the turning point was swapping amulet of reflection to amulet of life saving in my ascension kit (and gray dragon scale mail to silver dragon + cloak of magic). If you're not super careful, there are so many stupid ways to get killed, something will likely nail you even if you "know the game".

Some people are super methodical and won't e.g. touch eggs because there's 1/20 chance it's a cockatrice egg. That kind of people almost always win unless RNG really messes them up and they can't get bag of holding or something.

Personally I've died so many times because of Nethack fatigue if you like. Here I'm chopping up the mob in Croesus vault chop chop chop
--more--
"What?! How?!"
"That 'm' was a Mumak ffs?!"

Another semi-cheaty move was adding a mod that changes HP from green to yellow to red depending how badly you're hurt to wake you up in such cases.

 

[Barleyman]

I'm curious, how would you classify Hack/Nethack, where you can go down and sometimes find your body (and loot) from a previous run?

I lost count of the times I found my body and was thinking "Oh hot damn, all my good armor and weapons!" as I picked up the items: "you have picked up a +3 plate armor", "you have picked up a staff of magic missile.", "you have picked up a dead basilisk.", "you turn to stone."

You realize all items in bones are cursed? It's not a free lunch. Also, cockatrice corpse is dangerous to have around as you found out, I'd recommend leaving it alone whatever comedy value it superficially has.

 

[ScruffyDad]

You realize all items in bones are cursed? It's not a free lunch. Also, cockatrice corpse is dangerous to have around as you found out, I'd recommend leaving it alone whatever comedy value it superficially has.

I will never not wield a cockatrice corpse in my gloved hands and whack monsters with it.

 

[The Lurker Beneath]

Personally I've died so many times because of Nethack fatigue if you like. Here I'm chopping up the mob in Croesus vault chop chop chop
--more--
"What?! How?!"
"That 'm' was a Mumak ffs?!"

The infamous 'windshield monster' problem. [When they are like a swarm of harmless bugs to you and you hold a direction key down to slice through them.]

But one of them might be something else. That you could probably defeat or at least escape except that hammering it repeatedly in melee isn't the way.

It's not in all roguelikes but it's prevalent in the Moria line as well, which is fond of monsters that self-reproduce.

 

[Barleyman]

I will never not wield a cockatrice corpse in my gloved hands and whack monsters with it.

All fun and games until the first time you stumble.

 

[nogglebeak]

Yup, and the difference between Rogue-like and Rogue-Lite is small enough that does it really matter? Its a game with procedurally generated mechanics where dying is sorta the point but you get to keep some upgrades/experience across runs. Seems like bifurcating the Roge-lite/light games because of pedantry isn't really relevant, and 9 times out of 10 simply stating the Rogue-adjacent lineage will get the needed point across without requiring gamers to consult a glossary.

I think this is a hill that was never worth dying on and the battle is well and truly lost anyway. Best to just accept it and move on to more important things like Gif vs Jif.

The thing is it's not small at all. If you've ever played Rogue or and proper Rogue-like, the difference is so enormous that the co-opting of the term made no sense in the first place. Just because it's become popular and ubiquitous doesn't mean it ever made sense.

 

[japtor]

Just saw a thread elsewhere that reminded me of this one. I imagine it'd interest the people here that were looking for a Rogue-like roguelike (or roguelike like Rogue, or...):

I played 100 Roguelikes, so you dont have to*
_{*but I still hope you do check out some of them}

I clicked on it fully expecting the modern definition of "roguelike" as discussed here, but instead it's very much for the people looking for "traditional" ones (selected from this list), with a little summary/review of each game with a screenshot. Not for me but still pretty neat seeing various takes on the genre. Just for one example, Anoxic Depths in particular looks/sounds wild.

 

[Coolman13355]

Absolum

Not really a beat ‘em up fan? Me neither.

So, I'm the opposite, I love beat em ups, but haven't gotten into rogue-likes/lites. I heard about this game in the lead up to Marvel Cosmic Invasion, and was already greatly enjoying when this article dropped. Between my initial (and still enjoyment) of Cosmic Invasion along with my love for TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, which you didn't mention (the SNES version of Turtles in Time is better than the arcade) I was curious about yet another beat em up from the same pub/dev as Shredder's Revenge and Cosmic Invasion (plus the publisher also released Streets of Rage 4 a few years earlier). When I found it was also a rogue like some of my interest dropped. I did go ahead and grabbed it on the Steam Winter Sale though. (Which ended a few hours ago, sorry to anyone reading this that might've missed it. It did just go on sale on PSN though.)