Quick definition:A roguelike is a game genre built around procedurally generated levels, turn-based play and permanent death, so every run starts fresh and one mistake can end a character for good.
Meaning
A roguelike is a type of video game in which the player guides a single character through a series of levels that are generated by the game rather than designed by hand. Each attempt, called a run, produces a different layout, different enemies and different items, so no two playthroughs are the same.
The defining rule is permanent death, often shortened to permadeath. When the character dies, the run ends and progress is lost, which makes every decision matter. Classic examples play in turns on a grid, though many modern games borrow only the random levels and the high stakes.
Games that keep some permanent upgrades between runs are often called roguelites, a looser label for the same family. The distinction is debated, and players do not always agree on where one term stops and the other starts.
Origin:The name comes from Rogue, a text-based dungeon game created around 1980 by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman. It spread through university computers running Unix and inspired many imitators. Players began describing those games as Rogue-like, and the phrase was shortened to roguelike over time. Example:A player starts a run, picks a character and descends through floors of a dungeon that has never been seen before. On the sixth floor a hidden trap defeats the character. The run ends, the dungeon is lost, and the next attempt begins with an entirely new layout.
Did you know?In 2008, developers at the International Roguelike Development Conference in Berlin drew up a list of traits that define the genre. It became known as the Berlin Interpretation and is still cited whenever people argue over what counts as a roguelike.
