No, it wasn't always nebulous. Roguelike was a well-established genre for decades before it got hijacked and now means nothing.
Like all genres, games within the roguelike genre (or what some people call "traditional roguelikes") have some variance. But if you played two games in the "traditional roguelike" genre, you'd definitely feel the similarities.
These days if you pick two random games on Steam with the "roguelike" tag, you're going to get two experiences which are not even reminiscent of the other.
0x01FE 2 days ago [-]
Great video
GuB-42 2 days ago [-]
Nowadays, roguelike = permadeath + procedural generation, roguelite = roguelike with some elements that carry over the next game.
The actual roguelikes that look like Rogue: text based, turn-by-turn dungeon crawlers are often now called "traditional roguelikes".
At first glance, it looks like a traditional roguelike, but maybe some elements carry over, putting it in the "roguelite" territory.
mcv 2 days ago [-]
What do you mean by "carry over"? Even in Nethack, you can find the graves of previous characters.
dolni 2 days ago [-]
The meaning degraded much earlier than just a couple years ago. People thought it was cool so they latched onto it. It seems like that process started 7-8 years ago, maybe even a bit further back.
jghn 2 days ago [-]
I played a *lot* of rogue in the early 80s. I can't remember a single game marketed as a "roguelike" that I've played that reminded me of playing rogue.
mcv 2 days ago [-]
I haven't played Rogue, but I've played a lot of Moria, Nethack, and AdoM. Those are what I think of when I hear "Roguelike", although even AdoM might be stretching it a bit with its massive non-random outdoor area.
Der_Einzige 2 days ago [-]
The term for OG roguelikes is the "Berlin interpretation" of roguelikes.
samrus 2 days ago [-]
This is great. Old school game dev where youd built the whole engine optimized for the game rather than using an over generalized mess like unity or unreal
h1fra 2 days ago [-]
Programming might be a roguelike game, you fail many times at a task, starting from scratch again and again, until you master the field
lock1 2 days ago [-]
Real life might be a (hardcore) roguelike game too! ... except you can't restart on failure or reroll your starter kit
monsieurbanana 2 days ago [-]
> except you can't restart on failure
The jury's still out in that one
tigerlily 2 days ago [-]
And that's the trouble with death in rl, the permanence was never implied.
escapecharacter 2 days ago [-]
No one lets me use their bones files IRL though
camdroidw 2 days ago [-]
I know engineers don't like marketing but guys please please put screenshots before anything
Edit: okay I see them now but I quit the page once and I'm sure I'm not alone.
colordrops 2 days ago [-]
This is crazy in a good way
t222ic 2 days ago [-]
it actually … is?
Severian 2 days ago [-]
I use NP++ almost my entire day, and this would be great for short breaks. Awesome job!
shreyaha 2 days ago [-]
wow really a feel-good game
grimgrin 2 days ago [-]
this is the kinda github account I follow, peep their other work
adornKey 2 days ago [-]
Congratulations!
anupj 2 days ago [-]
[dead]
Rendered at 15:17:48 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Like all genres, games within the roguelike genre (or what some people call "traditional roguelikes") have some variance. But if you played two games in the "traditional roguelike" genre, you'd definitely feel the similarities.
These days if you pick two random games on Steam with the "roguelike" tag, you're going to get two experiences which are not even reminiscent of the other.
The actual roguelikes that look like Rogue: text based, turn-by-turn dungeon crawlers are often now called "traditional roguelikes".
At first glance, it looks like a traditional roguelike, but maybe some elements carry over, putting it in the "roguelite" territory.
The jury's still out in that one
Edit: okay I see them now but I quit the page once and I'm sure I'm not alone.