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2025-10-02(Thu)14:32:29
No.
37
<section>"Roguelikes and Roguelites - Two different genres and their footprint on gaming", by Aboveup.
2018-Aug-23
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZz5N8qpHdQ<span class="post-quote">
>Roguelikes are games like Rogue</span><span class="post-quote">
>Roguelites are games that are "lite" on Rogue's mechanics and concepts</span>
I find the overall structure of this video kinda funny.
It poses a question, answers it immediately, then it asks "in spite of that simple answer, why is there still confusion?"
----
I'll do a transcript of this later.
Done.</section>
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2026-02-11(Wed)16:17:44
No.
144
<section>00:00
Every now and again, people still ask me: "Hey, Above. What's the difference between a 'Roguelite' and a 'Roguelike'?"
It's a question with a simple enough answer and one that shouldn't be complicated, so the answer is the same every time.
Roguelikes are games like Rogue
Roguelites are games that are "lite" on Rogue's mechanics and concepts
Usually that's enough of an answer to clear confusion for most people. I've always struggled with why this question remains so prevalant, because it seems fairly obvious.
One genre popped up by being inspired by the design and philosophy of one game, exploring it in their own different ways. The other came up later, inspired by all these different takes on the same core gameplay, trying to see how the design philosophy stacks when attahced to other genres.
So... why do people keep getting confused?
There's a few reasons for this, the main one being general misconceptions thrown around for various reasons.
Not all misconceptions have to come from intentional attempts at disrupting conversations around the topic, as I'm not using the word in an explicitly negative way.
Some people try to engage with something that they see is popular, and because they don't really get the appeal themselves, they come up with reasons that to the best of their knowledge describes why they think others are drawn to it.
This is often a genuine attempt to understand an audience that they don't relate to, while acknowledging that this exists and that there is a market for it.</section>
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2026-02-11(Wed)16:20:08
No.
145
<section><span class="post-quote"><a class="post-backlink" href="#144">>>144</a></span>
01:25
A good example for this is the late TotalBiscuit. He made a genuine attempt to understand the genre that was clearly not aimed at him, and it left him frustrated and exasperated at the driving design choices within the genre.
Explorative design aimed at learning from mistakes where death doesn't immediately spell failure, but whether you learned something about how the game works, how interactions and synergies work, or gained familiarity and confidence in your ability, spells whether or not this run meant something or not [sic].
That's not something he could get behind, and yet he never really gave up on the genre either, continuing to play and cover games within it, and doing overly long videos rambling about his understanding of what makes games in that genre part of it.
I used to get very frustrated at this, but looking back on it, I think his attempts at understanding something that was clearly not for him is at least admirable, and certainly better than the behavior and attitudes of a lot of people who can't wrap their heads around something not having them as the audience that it's catering to, especially in his position where he got to play a lot of new, smaller releases with limited time for each one.
A good Rogue or Roguelite is a lot like a fighting game; it takes a long time before you get a good feeling for an engine or game system, and sometimes you can't really judge a game from your first few hours with it (yeah, I regret my early positivity on "Beyond Dead" [Aboveup's video series focusing on Roguelikes + Roguelites] with this one).
Sometimes the starting point of a game feels really well made and interesting make you [sic] want to dive deeper into it, only to find out that there isn't a deeper depth to the game. For a genre that needs a decent level of depth and understanding to really flourish, as that's what help staves the monotony of repeated runs, not having that only makes the game's experience a drag.
Some games hope to replace that depth - that learning curve - with an artificial one. Usually going for persistent stat upgrades, so it doesn't matter how good or bad you are. Your winning chances are largely built around how many hours you've previously spent grinding out money or experience to buy global base stat upgrades, as you can actually damanage enemies and survive attacks after grinding.
Some people prefer that, as the concept of actually having to improve and grow as a player through your own efforts by paying attention to what's happening, and learning to read direction [sic] of your run and make calls based on that, is too challenging and "cheap". That sense of constant internal progression is favored due to their own perceived lack of progression as a player.
When a genre already isn't for you and you're not in touch with the player-bases of these games, playing games all over the spectrum in quality and design philosophies is going to end up making you even more confused as to what the appeal of a genre is.
Like, if you don't like fighting games, and rarely communicate with anyone who DOES, and you have to randomly cover "Brutal: Paws of Fury", vanilla "Street Fighter 2", "Mortal Kombat 2", and then "Clay Fighter 63 1/3", you probably aren't going to come from this exepreince with an understanding of why people enjoy this genre, and you might start confusing the design choices of the BAD ones as part of the genre that has GOOD games in there, leading you to believe such stupid nonsense as "this game is good in spite of the genre's design being all over it".</section>
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2026-02-11(Wed)16:23:02
No.
146
<section><span class="post-quote"><a class="post-backlink" href="#145">>>145</a></span>
04:33
My main frustration with TotalBiscuit's statements made back then were that... a lot of people watched his videos, equally unsure of what the genre was, and they didn't get much wiser from the experience.
Now of course, not everyone approaches things they don't understand with this intention of attempting to understand it, and this is where the real issue starts seeping in.
Some people will take the well-intended coverage of a confused person and use this as the basis of their judgment of a genre that they have not played in order to discuss it.
This is the Internet after all, so if this thing is not aimed at you, it sucks and it should stop existing.
Unfortunately, there's other people covering games, genres, and mechanics, in serious essay formats with a serious voice that aren't much wiser than this.
This leads to such dumb statements being repeated by others who are equally unaware of the goings-on in the genres as them, as the information is laid out to them as if it's coming from a point of understanding and experience, when it's clearly coming from someone having never played a single game in this entire spectrum.
Statements ranging from "Roguelikes as a genre haven't evolved or changed since Rogue" and "Roguelite was an elitist term veterans of the Roguelike genre came up with to talk down the evolution of their genre and stop it from happening".
Or even pushing the concept of a static arcade-style score shooter like "Devil Daggers" being an evolution of the Roguelike genre when it's just doing what arcade games do: give you the same experience each time to compete for times or scores with friends.
Or even that traditional Roguelikes have never had major releases and no major physical releases on store shelves, thus having had no major impact on progress within games.
Anyone who says these kinds of things and pretends they've experienced anything from the genre themselves, or says they're involved with it, or is pretending to educate an audience, is straight up lying to you in order to spin a really weird narrative to dismiss the thing that they don't like.
So let's back up a bit, and address each of these things I've said just now, one by one.</section>
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2026-02-11(Wed)16:28:48
No.
147
<section><span class="post-quote"><a class="post-backlink" href="#146">>>146</a></span>
06:33
Roguelikes have evolved a lot since Rogue. Quickly googling screenshots of most of the genre is mainly going to give you ASCII art games - even newer ASCII art games, but the titles DO need a lower level of graphical fidelity to do what they do properly.
Anyone who has played Dwarf Fotress knows how surprisingly demanding that game can get, due to how much it's constantly procssing. You might not see anything majorly [sic] happening graphically, but an entire world is actively evolving as you play, with economies, historic events, towns coming and going, natural disasters... all that stuff.
It isn't backstory; it's happening to other parts of the world as you play, and all of it can have an effect on your surroundings, even if not directly.
Naturally, a game like that can't happen without massive leaps forwards, both through internal development on the game itself, but also within the genre that it surrounds itself in.
Roguelike aren't a dead genre as people who don't pay attention to [sic] think it is.
As of making this video, NetHack's last update was on the 27th of April, 2018. That's about 3 months ago.
ADOM [Ancient Domains of Mystery] released in 1994, came out on Steam in 2015, and had its most recent patch in May this year.
Angband came out in 1990, with the last stable release being six months ago, December 2017.
It's not just old games that still get updated either.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup came out in 2006, with the most recent patch being in July of this year [2018].
TOME [Tales of Maj'Eyal] came out in 2009 [he clarified in captions that the game's DEVELOPMENT started in 2009, whilst its first major release was in 2012], and is one of the big popular ones.
Dungeons of Dredmore came out in 2011, and Brogue - a fairly popular game these days - came out in 2015.
Caves of Qud, one of the better modern ones, came out in 2015 as well.
It's a bit weird to suggest a genre hasn't evolved, or has died, when it's so steadily chugging on, experimenting with new ideas and ways to balance and present themselves in minimalistic ways as they've continued to do so over the years.
When you look at the original Rogue and compare it to current state of most Roguelikes, you can see evolution has definitely happened. Saying it HASN'T because the gameplay focus of a genre has STAYED to that of the genre is like saying "fighting games haven't evolved unless you count Musou as part of it, because it's still a one-on-one fight with too much focus on technical inputs".
It doesn't make any sense.</section>
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2026-02-11(Wed)16:31:21
No.
148
<section><span class="post-quote"><a class="post-backlink" href="#147">>>147</a></span>
08:50
"Roguelite" isn't a term that's thrown around by elitists to stop the evolution of the genre that they want to keep locked down.
In fact, "Rogue-lite" was coined by the developers of a Roguelite game, as a way to separate this new branch of development for a genre that was attracting a different audience than the ongoing genre that had its own existing audience. This is generally what genre indicators are for; to give a signal to people who like one thing that they might like this other thing for having similar design philosophies and ideas.
The developers who did this? They made Rogue Legacy. Now, say what you want about that game's design quality and focus on permanent upgrades, and lack of experimentation or possible player expression. The developers at least understood what they were going for was a very light approach on the mechanics typically used.
Now there IS some frustration from fans of the traditional Roguelikes, and it isn't because of elitism. Not everyone who likes ONE of the two genres likes the other. Some people within the Roguelite communities exclusively like the VERY "lite" variety where you passively earn upgrades to plow through the later parts without really engaging with anything deeply. Some people want the "lite" variety with the more traditional values and less grind, focusing on self-improvement (like me). Some people exclusively like the platformers. Even just on the "lite" side of things, people tend to be very split and it makes sense. These games are all VERY different from each other.
Others just want a Roguelike, and want to keep up with Roguelike releases. They're not into platformers, or first-person shooters. Their games often don't get the coverage that they deserve, except from whispers within their own community.
It's something that's especially bad on platforms where people not in the know about genres are allowed to tag games themselves, like Steam.
So the Roguelike tag on steam is almost exclusively flooded with "lite" titles, making the traditional "like" games very hard to find without a means outside of the platform.</section>
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2026-02-11(Wed)16:38:15
No.
149
<section><span class="post-quote"><a class="post-backlink" href="#148">>>148</a></span>
10:39
What's especially weird though is the belief that traditional Roguelikes have had no major game releases outside of the small indie titles made on PC with no budget.
It's said a few times on video by a few people, and has since been repeated by a lot of people who don't know better, even though everyone really, REALLY should.
Because there are several traditional roguelikes released physically, reaching store shelves as a major release, that pretty much EVERYONE is familiar with.
Let's start with this one...
<div class="post-image-holder"><span class="post-image-type">PNG</span><img alt="shiren_the_wanderer.png" class="post-image" data-image-hash="b143e6031b15d9c5ee18959e92ac6fe630fbc22a9f887b933766269721cc5d15" data-media-id="534" data-media-supertype="IMAGE" data-media-type="image/png" data-url-src-full="https://media.jovian-embers.net/up_d15/b143e6031b15d9c5ee18959e92ac6fe630fbc22a9f887b933766269721cc5d15.png" url-src-thumb="https://media.jovian-embers.net/up_d15/t_b143e6031b15d9c5ee18959e92ac6fe630fbc22a9f887b933766269721cc5d15.png" /></div>
Oh, what's that? You've never seen this? You've never heard of this?
This is "Shiren the Wanderer" on the Super Nintendo. It might be better known for the larger series it's part of. There's a release with the English subtitle on the Nintendo DS; it's called "Mystery Dungeon".
<div class="post-image-holder"><span class="post-image-type">PNG</span><img alt="mystery_dungeon_DS.png" class="post-image" data-image-hash="0997f13055598cb91da4a4b93b444245786a8c3b2131b8330d2751e7c106345b" data-media-id="535" data-media-supertype="IMAGE" data-media-type="image/png" data-url-src-full="https://media.jovian-embers.net/up_45b/0997f13055598cb91da4a4b93b444245786a8c3b2131b8330d2751e7c106345b.png" url-src-thumb="https://media.jovian-embers.net/up_45b/t_0997f13055598cb91da4a4b93b444245786a8c3b2131b8330d2751e7c106345b.png" /></div>
Yeah, THAT Mystery Dungeon.
The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games use a very traditional roguelike combat system, complete with a food meter that drains as you spend more time in the dungeon, and a system that causes your attacks to have limited use instead of weapons having durability.
It's aimed at a younger audience, so the difficulty is kept to a minimum compared to the mainline games, but Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is a roguelike series with a lot of physical releases that nearly everyone has at least seen a copy of in stores once.</section>
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2026-02-11(Wed)16:39:29
No.
150
<section><span class="post-quote"><a class="post-backlink" href="#149">>>149</a></span>
11:54
Pokemon isn't the only thing that got this treatment in Japan either. For some reason, Japan respects the Roguelike genre a lot more than the West, and they have several fairly high-profile Roguelike releases, and some of them make it over the West. A lot of the time, the Western audience is so unaware of traditional western genres that when they play these games, they barely recognize it's a Roguelike.
For instance, if you look up lesser known PS1 JRPGs not made by Squaresoft, chances are you will run into "Azure Dreams", and not a single person will bring up what genre this game actually is, because they don't know. You see similar coverage for games like Chocobo's Dungeon, another spin-off of the Mystery Dungeon brand.
Japan has a very strong affinity towards dungeon crawling in general, since around the time Western outlets kept saying that first-person dungeon crawlers were dead, and Legend of Grimrock was heralded as this big return to this "abandoned" concept nobody was doing anymore, Etrian Odyssey was on their third Nintendo DS title, also released in the West.
In a similar sense, if you've ever seen the GDC talk about Diablo 1's development [Diablo: A Classic Game Postmortem (May 11, 2016)], you might remember how it basically started as a turn-based dungeon crawler styled after Rogue, but with graphics. It's why the game has a hardcore mode that translates to permadeath. During development, they made it real-time, which is when it started turning into the game that it is now.<span class="post-quote">
>Section playing the appropriate clips from the GDC presentation</span>
In a similar way, Falcom's "Dragon Slayer" is basically a real-time take on Rogue. There's talks about whether or not this makes the game constitute as the world's first ever Action RPG, and whether it's the first in what's now a genre of its own or not. The concept of moving into enemies to damage them in real time is very clearly what ended up evolving into the "Bump Combat" system that people are now more familiar with in the early "Ys" titles.
So not only are there major packaged releases within the genre, there's clear lines of evolution leading away with games starting their own different genres in the process, and both of them are basically seen as Action RPGs.</section>
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2026-02-11(Wed)16:45:12
No.
151
<section><span class="post-quote"><a class="post-backlink" href="#150">>>150</a></span>
15:07
With all of this said though, I want to take this time to announce something for the channel. "Beyond Dead" is going to have a format change, focusing on the major Roguelike release - mostly Japanese ones - to properly showcase these games from an understanding of the genre. There's a number of games I've always wanted to cover, and only recently have I gotten confident enough in my idea and formatting of "Beyond Dead" that I think it's time to move my focus to something that'll be a little harder to cover.
We might come back to Roguelites in the future, if a release really grabs my attention and does something new, or when certain previously released games come out of Early Access and I want to go back.
But for now, we'll be diving into some deep dungeons and explore some harder to explain games that look simpler on the surface, but have a lot going on in the background that you might not usually hear of.</section>
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2026-02-11(Wed)16:48:29
No.
152
<section><span class="post-quote"><a class="post-backlink" href="#151">>>151</a></span>
There's one more section here relating to AboveUp giving some final thank-yous for the video, showing the Patreon.
Maybe later I'll transcribe it for completeness' sake, but the real meat of the video has been transcribed, so that's good enough as a start.</section>