Named for their similarity to the 1980 video game Rogue, ‘roguelikes’ have one of gaming’s richest, most interesting histories, represent one of gaming’s most enduringly popular genres, and one of its most enduringly influential in terms of game design. The roguelike’s history stretches back to the earliest days of video gaming but also continues to affect a tangible influence on modern gaming in the form of ‘roguelite’ games, which are directly inspired by roguelikes.

This episode investigates the history of the roguelike genre and how this history is told, concentrating on three particularly illuminative aspects of the discourse surrounding it which I will discuss under the headings of complexity, controversy, and creativity. The history of the roguelike genre is the history of a type of game designed around a particular set of gaming preferences which favour high complexity, high difficulty, deep strategy, and a punishing learning curve, and prioritize gameplay at the expense of aesthetics. But so complicated are roguelikes that their history cannot be told without mentioning the markedly intense, detailed, fractious, 40-year long debate which has raged in the fan community over the meaning of its own genre label. Out of this debate, a set of design principles and game mechanics emerged as definitive of older, traditional roguelikes such that the history of roguelikes is one of a prolific, diverse hotbed of creativity deliberately constrained by a certain design philosophy.

The most recent chapter in this history are ‘roguelites’, which take direct inspiration from roguelikes but take a freer, less constrained and more modernized approach to their creativity with roguelike mechanics. Roguelites creatively remix the mechanics associated with traditional roguelikes, blending them with other genres, and implementing modernized graphics and design techniques.

This episode is based on a talk presented at a game studies conference at the University of Innsbruck in 2024, presented with the same title.  KONF: Spielgeschichte(n) - Games und Game Studies in medienkulturgeschichtlicher Perspektive, Innsbruck (11.04.-13.04.2024)

Watch the video version on YouTube here.

Credits

Written and presented by James Cartlidge
Produced by Greta Rauleac
Original music by James Cartlidge

Breaking the Game is a YouTube channel and podcast series about philosophy and video game studies. It aims to facilitate discussions about games, the games industry and philosophy with wider audiences. It mainly (though not exclusively) focusses on the indie games sphere, and current and future philosophical topics include phenomenology, existentialism, political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of mind/consciousness, cognitive science, psychoanalysis and psychology. It is based on the postdoctoral research of James Cartlidge.

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