Hacker News Reader

Comment by TulliusCicero | Hacker News Reader

These days it usually refers to games that have permadeath + procedurally generated levels, so every time you die you start the whole game over (but an entire 'run' isn't very long, less than two hours definitely, often less than one). Sometimes there's "meta progression" that does actually persist some unlocks or upgrades in between runs.

Originally rogue likes were that, but specifically in the gameplay genre of turn-based dungeon crawling RPG's. These days they can be in other genres: twin stick shooters, card games, action platformers, etc.

View on HN

To add some details.

While runs are typically short, it is not always the case. What makes permadeath more acceptable is that thanks to procedural generation, your next run will be different from your last one, avoiding the repetition that can make starting over such a bad experience.

It is such a great combo that permadeath and procedural generation are most often seen together, the roguelike/roguelite formula.

Permadeath is very engaging, try playing a game in "hardcore" mode if it is available and you will see what I mean, it plays with your emotions like nothing else. Problem is, once you are dead, starting over is a tedious experience, same levels, same story, no more surprises, etc... That's where procedural generation comes in, giving you new levels and maintaining the level of excitement on every run. The sense of progression comes from going further and further as you get better.

In the same way, procedural generation is great but for a single run, it will never be as good as a handcrafted environment, it really shines when you do multiple runs, and a great way of making people do multiple runs is, you guessed it, permadeath.

Right, roguelikes in a lot of ways are similar to ye old arcade and console games that were short on content but were very challenging; the 'content' was effectively that you had to die a whole lot and reset back to the beginning of the game, gradually getting further each time as you got better.

Contra for the NES would be an excellent example of this. The whole game lasts less than an hour for even a moderately-paced run, but it's quite difficult if you're not used to that specific type of game, so in practice it'll take much longer than that for most people to beat it, as they have to restart multiple times. Same deal for Super Mario Bros 1.

Roguelikes are the same kind of loop, but with the improvement that the levels are somewhat different each time. They're still usually similar enough in style/theme/enemies that skills carry over from run to run, but you at least can't just brute force memorize everything. You have to Git Gud or you'll be stuck forever.

I _think_ that the meta progression is the sticking point that determines whether the game is a roguelike or a roguelite, roguelite being the one with the meta progression.

It can be, but I've also seen the definition of, "a roguelike is a turn-based dungeon crawling RPG, a rogue-lite is when the game mechanics are some other genre".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com