Roguelike
The roguelikes are usually superficially two-dimensional dungeon-crawling computer games, most with simple text or ASCII "graphics" and many with "tiles" which replace the rather limited character set with a wider array. The genre is named after the first game of the genre, Rogue (1980).
Traditionally, the hero is represented by an "@" sign, and other characters (usually enemy monsters) are represented by letters of the alphabet. Different capitalization of letters represent different monsters. A dog, for example, may be represented by the letter "d", and a dragon by a "D".
The hero is controlled by short commands of one or a few keypresses rather than using a mouse or typing long sentence-like commands. For example, in NetHack a player would press "r" to read a scroll, "d" to drop an item, and "q" to quaff (drink) a potion.
Roguelike games feature randomly generated dungeon levels, which give them more replay value than games in which the levels are the same every time. Many have static levels as well. Usually these are used as some kind of special, unique level.
The appearance of magicalal items also changes randomly from game to game. Roguelike games typically use a Dungeons & Dragons-like turn-based combat system instead of a real-time system. Diablo is almost unique in its use of real-time. There is a great deal of variance between different games in appearance, commands, plot, and strategy.
Most roguelikes are single-player games. This is mainly due to tradition, but also due to the difficulty of extending a turn-based system to support multiple players. However, some multi-player roguelikes such as TomeNET and Crossfire exist and are playable online. Also, on multi-user systems controlled by appointed administrators and having the required security features, the scoreboards are often "shared" between players playing the same rules, without the opportunity to cheat by changing the game or savefiles. Some also allow traces of former players to appear in others' games in form of ghosts or grave markings.
Traditionally in roguelike games, "death is final". Once a character is dead, the player is expected to start over again at the beginning of the game. A game will usually provide a "save game" feature, but this is only intended to allow splitting a game across multiple sessions, and the save file will be deleted automatically when the character dies. A skilled user will usually be able to bypass this mechanism and restart after a death, but this would be considered dishonourable (or cheating) by many players. The game may provide a "wizard mode" which allows exploring the dungeon without risk of death, but again it is not possible to win honourably using such a mechanism.
There are many communities dedicated to roguelike games, most notably the rec.games.roguelike hierarchy in Usenet.
List of Popular Roguelikes
External links