On Games And Design

Roguelites: A Primer

A week or so ago, I did a tier list of all the roguelites I've played thus far. You can see that here if you're interested in seeing some of my hot takes before you read on so you can judge me more intensely.

But after making that post I started thinking a bit more on roguelites as a whole. I've been playing roguelites for easily over a decade now, having started with the flash version of Binding of Isaac. I have also been playing roguelikes for longer, since I played my fair share of NetHack, DCSS etc. Lites have diverged significantly from the likes, which is what lead me to write this primer. I wanted to write about what I think is the core of a roguelite game, and how that has evolved and changed over the years. To start, I want to open with what I call 'Relics'

Binding of Isaac, and the rise of Relics

When Binding of Isaac released, it was a huge hit. I don't think I need to go into too much detail about it being a Zelda 1 pastiche or the other surrounding elements; I will just recommend giving the remake a shot provided you can overlook the aesthetics.

The thing that always stuck with me is how Isaac managed unlocks. Isaac encapsulated all of the player power and growth throughout each individual run in passive or active items that you could find within treasure rooms on each floor. These passives could be something as simple as extra range or damage, to things that radically change how you fire projectiles or even change your shot type entirely. This concept is something you can see in almost every modern day roguelite: Balatro, Risk of Rain, Slay the Spire and Monster Train and Hades too. They might differ in what they name their upgrades, but I think simplifying it to relics works.

What makes relics differ from equipment is that there is little to no active inventory management. Once you pick it up it's just part of your power for that run; some games might put a limit on the number of relics you can hold at once or allow some basic swapping but it's meant to be as unobtrusive as possible.

This abstraction lets you fully control the pace of a player throughout the metagame, gradually ramping up power or complexity as the player gets better.

The game grows deeper the more you grow

In the world of roguelites, beating the game is no longer the end of the game, and losing the game is no longer the end of your progression. Isaac stumbled into this in a very smart manner, mostly. As you express mastery over the game by defeating bosses, the game pulls back the curtain little by little. You unlock new floors, new items are added to the pool and new characters change how you play. The idea at its core is that you get progressively stronger the further you progress, and the game matches your strength in turn.

This also serves as a soft tutorial, ensuring that you don't just wander into an area out of your depth. Some games do more with this; Time Break Chronicles unlocks new heroes as you move onwards, Dead Cells gives you boss stem cells which serve as 'world tiers' for the difficulty and Halls of Torment bridges the gap between roguelite and ARPG with new equipment you can build around.

Balatro interestingly enough, has optional metaprogression that you can just disable if you want to play the full game right off the bat. I think the existence of this metaprogression, even optional, is core to the roguelite experience.

The obvious stuff

A run-based structure with permadeath is something I think we can all agree on is also core. Also some form of randomization between runs, either through enemy placement, level design, nodes etc. The actual game you play can be almost anything. Shooter, puzzler, gambling, card game, coin game, you can build a framework around it for a roguelite experience.

There's a few different themes for these frameworks though that games fall into. You have traditional roguelites where the losing condition is you running out of life. Balatro popularized (and Luck Be a Landlord created) the score attack roguelite where you have to meet a specific threshold to continue. This has allowed for plinko, pachinko, slot machines and more to fit under this genre. And I think the Vampire Survivors subgenre of pure unbridled player power is different enough to be considered it's own thing now.

So what makes a roguelite in my opinion?

  1. An easily expandable system of relics which serve as the gameplay abstraction for player power throughout a run
    • Form: Equipment (Halls of Torment, Dead Cells)
    • Form: Limited relics (Balatro)
    • Form: Characters (Time Break Chronicles, World of Horror)
  2. Metaprogression
    • Form: Metacurrency and purchasable upgrades (Vampire Survivors)
    • Form: Achievements and unlocks (Ark's Wonder Dungeon, Binding of Isaac)
    • Form: Town development (Loop Hero, BallXPit)
  3. Permadeath and a run-based structure
  4. Run randomization

Additionally, roguelites currently have the following core gameplay loops:

Final thoughts and rambles

This isn't an all-encompassing list. People have been pulling influence from roguelikes for decades, making games that are arguably on the verge of being the first roguelite. Lufia 2 and the Ancient Cave being a great example, because it has a form of metaprogression in blue chest items you can find during your runs. The Mystery Dungeon games operate in the exact middle as well, where they have persistently increasing player power but not necessarily full metaprogression elements, if that makes sense.

Next up, I'm going to do a deeper dive into The Binding of Isaac since I think it's a perfect point to talk about specific roguelite design.

#roguelites

#roguelites