Approved Old School Roguelikes Are An Experience Like No Other

[xuvetyn96]

I think I'd like to start trying to get my thoughts out there by writing articles, so here's a draft about an RPG genre that I love very much!

Old School Roguelikes Are An Experience Like No Other​

While browsing Steam, or most any video game distribution service, you’ve most likely come across a collection of games under the “roguelike” genre at one point or another. The roguelike has exploded in over the past decade, with dozens of independent games being released under this label. Ask someone their favorite roguelike, and you’ll probably receive answers such as Risk of Rain, Hades, Darkest Dungeon, and The Binding of Isaac. All great games in their own right, but a far cry from the origins of the genre. They all may bear two of the most important traits of roguelikes — permadeath and procedural generation — but the genre has changed substantially in the past forty years. Forty years? That’s right, roguelikes have been around for a long time. In fact, there is a whole world of roguelikes dwelling beneath the multitude of titles that dominate the indie market. A world that still lives on today, with passionate fans and developers. So let me take you into this wonderful world of ASCII and @ signs, beginning with one simple, yet controversial, question:

What exactly is a roguelike?​

There is no one answer. Earlier, I mentioned that the two traits in pretty much every roguelike are permadeath and procedural generation. But is that all that makes a roguelike? Under those rules, you could load up a Minecraft world in hardcore mode and call it a roguelike. Most people, however, would disagree with that assertion. This is because of an unmistakable aspect of the DNA of the roguelike: its origins lie firmly in the RPG genre. Indeed, all the first roguelikes were full fledged RPGs, and most roguelikes today include at least some degree of RPG elements. So now we have a vague set of qualifications for what a roguelike is, but the truth is we will never be able to have an exact definition of the roguelike; the genre has evolved too much since it’s inception to allow for that. But today, I’m going to be talking specifically about the old school roguelikes. The ones that laid the groundwork for the modern roguelike. And there is only one place we can possibly start.

1980: The First Roguelike… kinda​

Though the definition of a roguelike is still hotly debated, there is one thing that everyone can agree upon: the origin of the genre — Rogue. The simplest definition of a roguelike is that it is a game that is, well, like Rogue. So if you want to be pedantic, I suppose Rogue itself isn’t even a roguelike. It’s just Rogue, the grandfather to the roguelike. Released in 1980, this game set the precedent for the mechanics of subsequent games in the genre. The concept of Rogue is simple, yet very well executed.
You must venture through the 26 levels of the Dungeons of Doom in order to retrieve the fabled Amulet of Yendor, and then return with it to the surface. Each of the levels is randomly generated so that every run is different from the last. Even the multitude of potions, scrolls, and wands you uncover will do something different each time, and must be identified. An amber potion from one run may heal you, while in the next, it could be poison. Rogue is viewed from a top down perspective, and the graphics are made up of simple ASCII — the player is represented by a little smiley face (or an @ sign, in some versions, which would become the symbol of the player character in many an old school roguelike). Movement is tile based and turn based. And the mechanics of the game itself, like many classic RPGs, pulls heavily from Dungeons & Dragons. As you venture further into the dungeon, you level up and acquire better gear in order to face the increasingly powerful traps and monsters you will encounter at each new depth. All the while, the need for food constantly pushes you further into the dungeon. There are also many actions you can take, which correspond to different buttons on the keyboard. “W” allows you to choose a weapon to Wield, while “d” lets you drop an item.

Rogue, and the games it spawned, are fascinating, in that they are completely knowledge based. You don’t need good aim or reaction time. The turn based system lets you take all the time in the world you need to strategize. Most of the skill that you gain from playing these games is in the form of knowledge. When to use certain scrolls, which enemies to avoid, and how to counter them. Old school roguelikes are complicated. And Rogue actually appears quite simple once you’ve played some of the other big titles from the early days of the genre. But Rogue set the formula for the roguelike: randomly generated, dungeon-crawling RPGs, where a death meant starting over from the very beginning.

1983 – 1994: The Roguelike Evolves​

It wasn’t long before other developers began to take inspiration from the unique formula of Rogue, and this is where the first actual roguelikes emerged. Moria in 1983, loosely inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, had the player delving into the mines of Moria, through one hundred sprawling levels, to kill the Balrog. Moria was notable for introducing a town level — a home base above the dungeon where the player can return to sell loot and resupply. It also included character creation (heavily lifted from D&D) that was absent in Rogue. The player could choose their race and class, which influenced their stats, abilities, and starting items.

1984’s Hack would be a little more similar to Rogue, once again having the player venture into the Dungeons of Doom to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor. Like Moria, however, the player can choose a class. The player also receives a pet companion that follows them around the dungeon, helping them fight monsters. Additionally, the dungeon contains shops where the player can purchase items, and there is a vast array of new items and mechanics.

These two games would be extremely influential in the development of the genre, with perhaps the two most well known old school roguelikes being spawned from them: NetHack (1987), which expanded greatly upon Hack, and Angband (1993), which expanded on Moria. In 1994, the third major old school roguelike was released: Ancient Domains of Mystery, or, ADOM. This game featured an entire overworld, where the player travels between towns and dungeons, accepting quests from different NPCs, while still being unmistakably roguelike in its mechanics and presentation.

All three of these games still receive new updates to this day. ADOM even recently received a graphical release. But the main game I want to elaborate on is NetHack. To me, NetHack is the perfect encapsulation of everything that makes the roguelike genre so great. Not just due to its insane mechanics, but also the dedication of its fans and developers.

You see, NetHack is possibly the deepest, most complex game you will ever play​

Well, second only to Dwarf Fortress.

Take one look at the NetHack wiki, and you will be blown away. NetHack took what Hack had done and expanded on it times a thousand. The absolute compendium of knowledge a NetHack player must keep stored in their head in order to actually beat the game is mind boggling. The amount of actions that the player can perform in NetHack, and all the different outcomes that can result from them depending on the circumstances, are so vast that the community coined the phrase "The DevTeam Thinks of Everything" to describe the tremendous effort on the behalf of the developers to account for every possible situation the player may encounter in this beast of a game.

To fully illustrate the crazy complexity of this game would require an entire article of its own. There are over fifty actions you can perform in NetHack, including praying, kicking, engraving, and dipping, which can all be used in different situations to warrant different results. Dip an arrow into a potion of sickness and now you have a poison arrow. Kick a tree, and you may get an apple... or release a swarm of bees. Kick a door to break it open, but make sure you don't kick down a shopkeeper's door or he won't be too happy with you. I've been playing NetHack on and off for years, and still never beat it, but I'm still always finding something new.

Starting a run of an old school roguelike is great if you want to kill some time. The truth is, even after you've played for a while, you'll find most of your runs will end relatively quickly. Yet it doesn't feel frustrating. You'll come away learning something from each run, and find yourself making more and more progress each time. It's an extremely satisfying experience, and taking the time to explore a roguelike, especially one as complex as NetHack, can be very rewarding.

So while the modern roguelike market may be becoming oversaturated, remember that the old school roguelike community is still kicking to this day. And I can only hope that retro gamers will continue to keep the tradition of the roguelike alive for years to come.

 

[xman8245]

I see no mention of the term "Roguelite".

 

[xuvetyn96]

I see no mention of the term "Roguelite".

I actually had a paragraph delving into that but ended up deleting it because I didn't want to get too bogged down on the definition of the roguelike and how most newer "roguelikes" are actually "roguelites." I wanted to focus more on the original roguelikes themselves and how different they are from the modern genre rather than the ongoing purist debate on the category of newer releases. Do you think it could benefit from some more explanation of the roguelite classification? I was mainly worried that the article would become too dense if I did, but I'd be happy to add more elaboration.

 

[Yousef]

I actually had a paragraph delving into that but ended up deleting it because I didn't want to get too bogged down on the definition of the roguelike and how most newer "roguelikes" are actually "roguelites." I wanted to focus more on the original roguelikes themselves and how different they are from the modern genre rather than the ongoing purist debate on the category of newer releases. Do you think it could benefit from some more explanation of the roguelite classification? I was mainly worried that the article would become too dense if I did, but I'd be happy to add more elaboration.

I would say don’t worry about it too much. Your piece is in a decent enough shape as is. Not to mention, your guild app draft is not obligated to be the exact draft you publish for the full article. Go in the direction you’re comfortable with. I was gonna leave a longer comment after I finished reading your draft but felt the need to reply to this first haha.

 

[xman8245]

Do you think it could benefit from some more explanation of the roguelite classification? I was mainly worried that the article would become too dense if I did, but I'd be happy to add more elaboration.

I'm not in the WG so your results may vary, but by introducing the term you could have easily skipped over all clarification with that one simple trick.
It also leads into a conversation about grid-based dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Master. By showing what roguelites *miss* you could almost instantly jump into talk of early gameplay mechanics and the big roguelikes of that time.

 

[Yousef]

I think I'd like to start trying to get my thoughts out there by writing articles, so here's a draft about an RPG genre that I love very much!

Old School Roguelikes Are An Experience Like No Other​

While browsing Steam, or most any video game distribution service, you’ve most likely come across a collection of games under the “roguelike” genre at one point or another. The roguelike has exploded in over the past decade, with dozens of independent games being released under this label. Ask someone their favorite roguelike, and you’ll probably receive answers such as Risk of Rain, Hades, Darkest Dungeon, and The Binding of Isaac. All great games in their own right, but a far cry from the origins of the genre. They all may bear two of the most important traits of roguelikes — permadeath and procedural generation — but the genre has changed substantially in the past forty years. Forty years? That’s right, roguelikes have been around for a long time. In fact, there is a whole world of roguelikes dwelling beneath the multitude of titles that dominate the indie market. A world that still lives on today, with passionate fans and developers. So let me take you into this wonderful world of ASCII and @ signs, beginning with one simple, yet controversial, question:

What exactly is a roguelike?​

There is no one answer. Earlier, I mentioned that the two traits in pretty much every roguelike are permadeath and procedural generation. But is that all that makes a roguelike? Under those rules, you could load up a Minecraft world in hardcore mode and call it a roguelike. Most people, however, would disagree with that assertion. This is because of an unmistakable aspect of the DNA of the roguelike: its origins lie firmly in the RPG genre. Indeed, all the first roguelikes were full fledged RPGs, and most roguelikes today include at least some degree of RPG elements. So now we have a vague set of qualifications for what a roguelike is, but the truth is we will never be able to have an exact definition of the roguelike; the genre has evolved too much since it’s inception to allow for that. But today, I’m going to be talking specifically about the old school roguelikes. The ones that laid the groundwork for the modern roguelike. And there is only one place we can possibly start.

1980: The First Roguelike… kinda​

Though the definition of a roguelike is still hotly debated, there is one thing that everyone can agree upon: the origin of the genre — Rogue. The simplest definition of a roguelike is that it is a game that is, well, like Rogue. So if you want to be pedantic, I suppose Rogue itself isn’t even a roguelike. It’s just Rogue, the grandfather to the roguelike. Released in 1980, this game set the precedent for the mechanics of subsequent games in the genre. The concept of Rogue is simple, yet very well executed.
You must venture through the 26 levels of the Dungeons of Doom in order to retrieve the fabled Amulet of Yendor, and then return with it to the surface. Each of the levels is randomly generated so that every run is different from the last. Even the multitude of potions, scrolls, and wands you uncover will do something different each time, and must be identified. An amber potion from one run may heal you, while in the next, it could be poison. Rogue is viewed from a top down perspective, and the graphics are made up of simple ASCII — the player is represented by a little smiley face (or an @ sign, in some versions, which would become the symbol of the player character in many an old school roguelike). Movement is tile based and turn based. And the mechanics of the game itself, like many classic RPGs, pulls heavily from Dungeons & Dragons. As you venture further into the dungeon, you level up and acquire better gear in order to face the increasingly powerful traps and monsters you will encounter at each new depth. All the while, the need for food constantly pushes you further into the dungeon. There are also many actions you can take, which correspond to different buttons on the keyboard. “W” allows you to choose a weapon to Wield, while “d” lets you drop an item.

Rogue, and the games it spawned, are fascinating, in that they are completely knowledge based. You don’t need good aim or reaction time. The turn based system lets you take all the time in the world you need to strategize. Most of the skill that you gain from playing these games is in the form of knowledge. When to use certain scrolls, which enemies to avoid, and how to counter them. Old school roguelikes are complicated. And Rogue actually appears quite simple once you’ve played some of the other big titles from the early days of the genre. But Rogue set the formula for the roguelike: randomly generated, dungeon-crawling RPGs, where a death meant starting over from the very beginning.

1983 – 1994: The Roguelike Evolves​

It wasn’t long before other developers began to take inspiration from the unique formula of Rogue, and this is where the first actual roguelikes emerged. Moria in 1983, loosely inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, had the player delving into the mines of Moria, through one hundred sprawling levels, to kill the Balrog. Moria was notable for introducing a town level — a home base above the dungeon where the player can return to sell loot and resupply. It also included character creation (heavily lifted from D&D) that was absent in Rogue. The player could choose their race and class, which influenced their stats, abilities, and starting items.

1984’s Hack would be a little more similar to Rogue, once again having the player venture into the Dungeons of Doom to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor. Like Moria, however, the player can choose a class. The player also receives a pet companion that follows them around the dungeon, helping them fight monsters. Additionally, the dungeon contains shops where the player can purchase items, and there is a vast array of new items and mechanics.

These two games would be extremely influential in the development of the genre, with perhaps the two most well known old school roguelikes being spawned from them: NetHack (1987), which expanded greatly upon Hack, and Angband (1993), which expanded on Moria. In 1994, the third major old school roguelike was released: Ancient Domains of Mystery, or, ADOM. This game featured an entire overworld, where the player travels between towns and dungeons, accepting quests from different NPCs, while still being unmistakably roguelike in its mechanics and presentation.

All three of these games still receive new updates to this day. ADOM even recently received a graphical release. But the main game I want to elaborate on is NetHack. To me, NetHack is the perfect encapsulation of everything that makes the roguelike genre so great. Not just due to its insane mechanics, but also the dedication of its fans and developers.

You see, NetHack is possibly the deepest, most complex game you will ever play​

Well, second only to Dwarf Fortress.

Take one look at the NetHack wiki, and you will be blown away. NetHack took what Hack had done and expanded on it times a thousand. The absolute compendium of knowledge a NetHack player must keep stored in their head in order to actually beat the game is mind boggling. The amount of actions that the player can perform in NetHack, and all the different outcomes that can result from them depending on the circumstances, are so vast that the community coined the phrase "The DevTeam Thinks of Everything" to describe the tremendous effort on the behalf of the developers to account for every possible situation the player may encounter in this beast of a game.

Hello. Sorry for not getting back at you. Now I’m gonna leave the longer comment I promised.

I’d say this was a good read. I love learning about genres I know little about! Funny enough, I’ve had suspicions about this genre not translating well to modern gaming. I would know, I’m a big fan of the original Dragon Warrior and I know for a fact a game like that coming out today would only garnar a niche following if it weren’t for the brand power.

That said, the discrepancies between old and new rogues are something I find interesting. It’s not too unlike modern Metroidvanias compared To the two namesake games the genre is based on. Although I don’t know enough about rogues to continue making that comparison.

However I do have to ask. At which point does one draw a line? I believe enough differences between an old and a new style could warrant separate subgenres being created, not to imply the necessity of that here. But it’s basically the solution for separating Classicvania vs Metroidvania fans (aka people who prefer side scrolling vanias over exploratory ones.

I wish both you and @ATenderLad best of luck in getting accepted into the guild ?

 

[xuvetyn96]

Hello. Sorry for not getting back at you. Now I’m gonna leave the longer comment I promised.

I’d say this was a good read. I love learning about genres I know little about! Funny enough, I’ve had suspicions about this genre not translating well to modern gaming. I would know, I’m a big fan of the original Dragon Warrior and I know for a fact a game like that coming out today would only garnar a niche following if it weren’t for the brand power.

That said, the discrepancies between old and new rogues are something I find interesting. It’s not too unlike modern Metroidvanias compared To the two namesake games the genre is based on. Although I don’t know enough about rogues to continue making that comparison.

However I do have to ask. At which point does one draw a line? I believe enough differences between an old and a new style could warrant separate subgenres being created, not to imply the necessity of that here. But it’s basically the solution for separating Classicvania vs Metroidvania fans (aka people who prefer side scrolling vanias over exploratory ones.

I wish both you and @ATenderLad best of luck in getting accepted into the guild ?

No worries! And thank you, I appreciate your thoughts!

And that is an interesting point you bring up. Have modern roguelikes drifted too far away from the games they are inspired by that they should be considered a different genre in their own? Or should we accept that genres are bound to change over time, especially when they've been around as long as this one? I personally think that the roguelite label should have been used more, that way it's easier to differentiate what sort of game you're talking about when discussing roguelikes, but at this point so many recent roguelites have gained popularity under the roguelike label that it's futile trying to make the differentiation. Nobody actually cares about the semantics of the term roguelike except for old school roguelike fans, which is why I, personally, have just started to accept these newer games as roguelikes while referring to the games that follow the original formula as "old school roguelikes." There's nothing wrong with change, it's bound to happen, and I love modern roguelikes. My main concern is that the original establishers and innovators of the genre will gradually be forgotten with all these new indie titles being crammed under the same roof, which I suppose is why I wrote this article! They were highly influential on the RPG genre, with the formula for Diablo basically being lifted straight from Moria/Angband.

Anyway, all that aside, I just wanted to say that I actually finally beat Castlevania for the first time and am currently slowly chipping away at the first Dragon Warrior (I have it on Delta on my phone and hop on to grind some enemies when I'm bored). I am interested in the point about Metroidvanias you brought up. I always felt that the Castlevania influence on modern Metroidvanias specifically stems from Symphony of the Night and similar Castlevania games rather than the Classicvanias, right?

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

Sorry for delay it's been chaotic!
I've set you up, welcome to the guild!

 

[xuvetyn96]

Sorry for delay it's been chaotic!
I've set you up, welcome to the guild!

Thank you so much!

 

[Yousef]

No worries! And thank you, I appreciate your thoughts!

And that is an interesting point you bring up. Have modern roguelikes drifted too far away from the games they are inspired by that they should be considered a different genre in their own? Or should we accept that genres are bound to change over time, especially when they've been around as long as this one? I personally think that the roguelite label should have been used more, that way it's easier to differentiate what sort of game you're talking about when discussing roguelikes, but at this point so many recent roguelites have gained popularity under the roguelike label that it's futile trying to make the differentiation. Nobody actually cares about the semantics of the term roguelike except for old school roguelike fans, which is why I, personally, have just started to accept these newer games as roguelikes while referring to the games that follow the original formula as "old school roguelikes." There's nothing wrong with change, it's bound to happen, and I love modern roguelikes. My main concern is that the original establishers and innovators of the genre will gradually be forgotten with all these new indie titles being crammed under the same roof, which I suppose is why I wrote this article! They were highly influential on the RPG genre, with the formula for Diablo basically being lifted straight from Moria/Angband.

Anyway, all that aside, I just wanted to say that I actually finally beat Castlevania for the first time and am currently slowly chipping away at the first Dragon Warrior (I have it on Delta on my phone and hop on to grind some enemies when I'm bored). I am interested in the point about Metroidvanias you brought up. I always felt that the Castlevania influence on modern Metroidvanias specifically stems from Symphony of the Night and similar Castlevania games rather than the Classicvanias, right?

Good evening. Sorry for not getting back with you sooner, had unstable internet and this is quite a meaty topic haha. Excellent points you’re raising though! Going against the grain is definitely hard. “Don’t beat them, join them”. Although I also forgot to mention that genre classifications often exist less as means to navigate a gameplay type and more conversation clarify. Now this is the part where I’ll have to apologize in advance in case some examples I’ll mention may not click with you due to Iack of familiarity but I appreciate how we’re enriching each other’s genre knowledge but basically:

Doom is a shooter series I decently like. I’m not like a giant diehard fan, but I like it enough to know what I want out of it, and it’s classic doom I prefer. Doom 2016 and eternal were unfortunately not what I seek and while it’s fantastic that the series is so varied and attracts so many different people, it does get admittedly really tricky to navigate a conversation we’re both talking about our love for doom, but discuss completely different games. It’s not an inherently bad thing like I said, but it is a bit of a shame to realize we’re on different wavelength haha, makes it feel like there’s only a perceived connection haha.

To revisit your CV question though, it’s got a surprisingly uncomplicated answer for the uninitiated. Castlevania has a streamlined release of games up until symphony of the night, the birth of the “Metroidvania”, also known as exploratory platformers, games larger emphasis on having an open world with spread out progression gates you slowly unlock with key items. But prior to this, most castlevanias relied on a linear side scrolling, level based action format (sans Simon’s Quest, the second game)

There’s distinct discrepancies between the two, enough to warrant a name for the two sub genres. There’s no real debate what Metroidvanias should be called, so we’re left with the sidescrollers. I heard the popular YouTuber “HVGN” call them vintagevanias, but that’s too clunky of a term. Classicvanias is a lot easier to absorb and it’s my defacto for these discussions. Hope that helps!

Looking forward to your full article and welcome to the guild!

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

Side story. Back in, oh 2001 when i had no money, ADOM was free and ASCII, had windows and DOS builds; And it was also tiny (important for dialup and public library access). So i downloaded and played it, dying many many times (we're talking 50+)

In about 3 months ADOM (and Roguelikes) taught me valuable lessons. I learned how to kite, how to play strategically, to bottleneck my enemies and fight them one-on-one whenever i could, to minmax, to play dirty, and try to take every advantage i could in order to survive (and ADOM specific, you can specify how defensive you are so defaulting to hyper defensive and swapping to offensive, then switch to defensive when healing, etc). It's a method of play i fall back on when i'm not in a party/group in D&D.

 

[ColonelKurtz]

Yes ADOM is still one of my favorite games. I played many, many hours when I was younger. I only made it to the final chaos gate where the final boss was once (with a wizard) and after I died there I was never able to do it again. It's not like Nethack where you are a god when you've got an ascension kit, you are always very squishy and vulnerable in ADOM.

Now the only roguelikes I play is stuff like Dicing Knight for the Wonderswan, Shiren the Wanderer or Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

I only made it to the final chaos gate where the final boss was once (with a wizard) and after I died there I was never able to do it again.

Mmmm i think the best i got was 50th level, when i went out and fought a wizard in the plains and managed to beat the enemies quickly enough and not get hit with lightning. Otherwise i only ever beat the first dungeon.

But a major problem to me with ADOM, was the need for food. Yes i understand it can be a interesting component and a lot of earlier games had you dragging food around; But being a lizardman and spitting acid 2 times, and then die of hunger 10 steps later is a drag. Having to overstuff with food and then haul huge amounts of food or you will starve 5 levels down is a drag. Spending a lot of extra time growing stuff and going back to town, or cooking enemies and eating them, is a bit of a drag (and some monsters like the doppelganger you can't eat)

Games that remove that component and are more MMO-like with cooldowns like ToME is a bit easier to play, but eventually the turn based combat starts taking way too long.

 

[berkough]

Well, second only to Dwarf Fortress.

And maybe Caves of Qud.