An Overview of Roguelike Game Design

​Milind Bharvirkar joined GameCloud Network as the executive vice president of sales and marketing in 2020. In this position, Milind Bharvirkar oversees aspects of game design.

Game design is a complex and diverse field key to making compelling, successful computer and video games. It encompasses virtually every aspect of a game. Game design professionals may function more as writers, artists, programmers, or some combination. Game design decisions influence the overall game flow and experience, including the game's difficulty.

Consider the roguelike, a game genre with several specific design tropes. Unlike many video games, roguelikes do not have standard, familiar levels the player returns to every session. Instead, after a player character wins or loses the game, the game starts over with a completely new, procedurally generated set of rooms and corridors. This means the game experience completely changes each time.

Roguelikes are typically very difficult. Part of this difficulty can be attributed to the design choice of permanent death. In popular games like Mario or Sonic, a player has numerous lives to play with, and if they lose all of them, they typically are sent back to the start of the level. In roguelikes, when the player character loses, the game ends. Regardless of whether the player was in the first room or facing the final boss, they need to start from the very beginning and will need to take an entirely new path to the end.

Roguelikes are named after Rogue, released in 1980. More recent roguelikes include Slay the Spire, Dead Cells, and the first major studio roguelike, Returnal.

Milind Bharvirkar

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