Roguelikes & Roguelites: Joy in Failure
I’ve heard some people say that they feel the roguelike and roguelite genres of games have been experiencing a bit of a comeback in recent years with the success of titles like The Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy, Crypt of the Necrodancer, and Enter the Gungeon. I’m inclined to agree with this sentiment, which also has made me wonder, what is it that makes this genre feel so special? And why is it that I can die in Enter the Gungeon and not feel blinded by my frustration, even though in some cases I’ve lost over an hour of progress? Well, I think it’s because the term “progress” doesn’t carry the same meaning in these games that it does in most others.
For those unfamiliar, a roguelike is a type of game that typically involves dungeon crawling, randomly generated levels, and a type of player death that in some way is more punishing than most other games (i.e. lack of checkpoints or even permanent character death). They also contain elements of role-playing games in some form, such as the drive to seek out better equipment. A roguelite, as the name implies, is a type of game that contains some amount of these elements, but doesn’t quite fit the bill of a true roguelike (and the line between these two can be pretty hard to call in many cases). In general, both types of games tend to be quite difficult as well, with players expected to die many times.
When starting a roguelike or roguelite game, I feel that there’s something important you have to accept: you have to be willing to be bad at it more often than not. And even when you play better than usual, you’re still going to fail at some point. That’s because death, and the great level of challenge that is typically the cause of it, is at the heart of these games. Most people will refer to a simple attempt to progress through the game’s setting as a “run,” but not as a run to any particular place – that’s because they fully anticipate that they’re going to die before reaching the end of the game. No checkpoints, no extra lives (most of the time, anyway). You’ll gradually get better as you play the game more, but even more experienced players are always prepared for death to come at any moment.
So then, how does one discover a sense of joy and progress among this cycle of death? The answer is in the random nature of these games, as well as how they eke out rewards. Having randomly generated levels means starting a run is kind of like playing a mini-lottery – you could run into multiple rooms filled with the types of enemies that give you the most trouble, or you could get the exact opposite. Learning to make the best with what you’ve got is one of the innate charms of these games, and nothing’s more satisfying than finding just the right piece of equipment you need, or getting lucky with the types of rooms you encounter. Some games, such as Enter the Gungeon or Rogue Legacy also offer forms of permanent progression outside of the realm of checkpoints, like unlocking an item store at the beginning of the game, or so on.
With this level of difficulty and more random game structure, there are admittedly elements of these games that tend to turn many people away. But with this recent resurgence in popularity, I hope that more people will begin to pick these games up and see for themselves why “just one more run” can be so tempting.
Images Courtesy of:
Dodge Roll
Devolver Digital
