If you’re a roguelike enjoyer, you’ve probably run into a few that just plainly feel bad. You might not be able to pinpoint it, but there are several games in the genre that people might have recommended to you that don’t feel good, and (especially if you’re making one) it’s important to know why.
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There are at least ten elements I’d say make a roguelike truly special and worth playing, and if one nails all ten of these things, it’s a great time. Every roguelike doesn’t need to have every element, but the further we go on the list, the more important these things become.
For this list, because the difference between a roguelike and a roguelite is so minimal and hardly impacts the core game design, both will be covered as both have lessons to teach on properly implementing these design elements and mechanics.
10Motivation And Story
Hades' Interesting Narrative Motivates You To Progress
First, and least important, is to motivate the player to continue playing to the end of a run, which isn’t just “because the gameplay is fun”. While games like Balatro can get away with having pretty much no story whatsoever, it’s still good practice to have something.
This can be as little as an opening cutscene and scattered bits of lore, oras much as Hades' fleshed-out characters, hub world, and dialogue dispersed between and throughout runs. It’s not super necessary, but it’s definitely a nice addition.
9Dynamic Music
Balatro’s Ever-Changing OST Keeps You Engaged
When you’re making a game as varied as a roguelike, having one song play in every scenario isn’t going to cut it. You have to vary up the music in between smaller chunks of gameplay, at least a little bit. Whether that’s full-on Breath of the Wild-style dynamic soundtrack or just playing a different version of the same song sometimes.
Most popular roguelike games I know of do some form of dynamic music, whether it’s Enter the Gungeon shifting between calm music when all the enemies are gone and energetic music when they’re there,or again, Balatro using the same songin a massive variety of different ways for every scenario.
8Varied Visuals
Dicey Dungeons' Unique Environments Make It Memorable
While the original Rogue may have gotten by with incredibly samey visuals, we have the technology to not make players feel super bored anymore. Varying up the visual style of different areas, rooms, or just aesthetic filters on top of the game for different scenarios makes things interesting.
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Inscryption’s Kaycee mod keeps the same style throughout the entirety of a run, which often makes runs of that game blend into one cohesive mass. Dicey Dungeons, on the other hand, has a ton of different enemies, locations, and unique visuals, so even though they’re both deckbuilders, one has more visuals to stand on.
7Different Run Types
Hades' Weapons Start You Off On The Right Foot
Now onto gameplay, one important aspect you’ll see pop up in almost every roguelike is a way to make each run different from the get-go, dictated by player choice and not by the random elements throughout every run. This gives the player a sense of control while introducing content variety.
You can see this with Balatro’s Decks, Hades' weapons, Slay the Spire’s Characters, Downwell’s character types, and I could keep going. It’s just nice to have a choice to start your run off, especially if you get achievements and rewards for finishing each run type.
6Balanced Difficulty
Risk Of Rain’s Difficulty Meter Keeps You Moving
You’ve probably noticed if you’re a roguelike fan, but the vast majority of these games are not built for beginners, and the ones with a high skill ceiling are there, but are few and far between. You could just go straight into “hardest possible game” territory, but making your game paced well and adequately challenging is important.
For example, Risk of Rain has difficulty increase with time, on top of having several different difficulties, meaning you’re able to go slower to get more items on easier difficulty, but more skilled players can loot quicker on harder difficulties, so they don’t get overwhelmed. It’s a tough but important balancing act.
5Snappy Pacing
Downwell’s Fast-Paced Gameplay Feels Incredible
If you’re playing a game where you could lose all your progress at any moment, making it a slow, steady experience is kinda a bad idea. It’s much better if you can get a run going within seconds, and don’t have to wait too long, and the time between bits of action is minimized as much as possible.
Of course, it can’t be action all the time. That’s why a superfast-paced, arcadey game like Downwellhas little time voids where you’re able to not worry about combos, get a new gun or buy some items, and rest your mind for a little bit before jumping back in. Just make sure moments like these are optional, and you’re golden.
4Good Randomness
Risk Of Rain 2’s Consistent Maps Make The Game Better
Might be obvious, but having your random elements impact things that feel fair while also having consistency in some areas is a pretty necessary balance to strike. Every good roguelike has something consistent across every run, and while you shouldn’t have a lot of things be unaffected by RNG, you do need a few.
For example, inRisk of Rain 2, the stages always choose from the same geometryand layout, and places like the Moon are always 100% consistent, but the items that litter the stages and enemies that spawn are all random (usually choosing from a set pool). Balancing randomness to make every run fresh but fair is hard, but rewarding.
3Rewarding Runs
Dicey Dungeons' Rewards Never Stop Coming
Speaking of rewarding, having runs end and giving the player nothing isn’t usually a great feeling. While a roguelike would become arogueliteif you rewarded the player with upgrades for finishing runs, having unlockable characters, items, and more can lead to a better experience.
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Dicey Dungeons is easily one of the biggest examples of this, as every run you win unlocks something until you’ve got nothing left to unlock. Namely, you unlock more characters by playing the game, and then every run you win with those characters gives a new variant of that playstyle, which feels great.
2Engaging Gameplay Loop
Slay The Spire Always Feels Great To Play
Maybe obvious, but having the game be engaging and remain engaging throughout its entire runtime is pretty important if you want people to play for hours upon hours. While each run in a roguelike might be different, it doesn’t matter if the game doesn’t always feel great to play.
A good example of this is Slay the Spire,the quintessential Roguelike Deckbuilder. It always feels good to be on a run in this game, even if you get bad items and your deck isn’t too good, it still feels great to strategize and try your best. Making a game that feels good, no matter what, is one of the biggest priorities.
1Content Variety
Noita Has Thousands Of Unique Pieces Of Content
On the topic of reasons to keep playing a roguelike, content variety is perhaps the most important factor. That’s why people keep playing roguelikes when they feel like there’s always something new to discover, a new weapon to find, a new item to collect, or a new achievement to hit.
Noita is an awesome example of this, as no matter how long you play, the way every wand can combine two of a ton of different materials means you’ll probably never see everything the game has to offer. You don’t have to do something that wild, but having a ton of content to dig through is what makes a roguelike worth playing.
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