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What games make good use of rogue-like elements? Which games try but fail?
Rogue like elements are used by lots of games. I'm interested to know which ones you think work, which ones you think don't work, and why.
Feel free to interpret rogue-like however you want. In my mind I have procedural generation, perma-death option, and some kind of turn-based strategy.
I'm more of a rouge-lite than like fan, that said:
EverSpace is just fantastic, the combination of persistent upgrades between runs & learning all the mechanics gives a really strong feeling of getting much better quickly. I also really dig the storyline and how it explains the mechanics.
Risk of Rain I like because of the vast breadth of upgrades (it feels a bit like they've taken every mechanic in Dota and re-implemented it) the wild difference between different characters & the totally different and viable strategies, I also enjoy the art style & ambiguous story.
Flamebreak is ok, the randomly assigned skills and unlocks requiring multiple clears in a row just left me feeling like it was a crapshoot to get anywhere though. Perhaps I just need to get much closer to perfect in evasion but that isn't so interesting to me. Especially once it becomes clear that more unlocks increases the hero-pool so you end up with needing to handle more play styles.
EverSpace looks great! Thanks for the recommendation.
Enter the Gungeon will be one of the forerunners for that genre, along with FTL: Faster Than Light oh and Legend of Grimrock (it’s basically cheating to include a D&D game).
Personally, I find video game adaptations of Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books as good “rogue-likes” as far as perma-death is concerned.
Oh and Guild of Dungeoneering is a pretty solid rogue-like dungeon crawler too.
Legend of grimrock have random generation of the dungeon? As far as I remember there are maps and walkthrough for it. I'd say that a random generation of the levels is the basic requirement for being considered a rogue-like/lite/whatever.
I'm waiting for Dead Cells to come out (tomorrow) as the visual/audio/gameplay is wonderful and it incorporate roguelike / castlevania perfectly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02G3GUt6Nzo
Off the top of my head, I’m pretty sure it’s one map only but at least there’s perma-death and it’s a dungeon crawler so... I’d say it’s 2/3 of a typical rogue-like?
You can save whenever you want so not really a permadeath. You can just reload before dying.
Just to clarify, it's a very good game and I enjoyed playing it but it's definitely not a roguelike :)
LoG only tick one of the requisite (dungeon crawl) and it is in fact a "3d dungeon crawl" game as it takes inspiration from games like Dungeon Master :)
Sorry If i sound kinda blunt, I've had a rough night sleep and i'm struggling to wait for my time to check out from work today as I've already done all I had to :-/
Binding of Isaac and Rogue Legacy are both good, though they are fast paced and decidedly not turn based. Both have permadeath, with some sort of persistence mechanism. Isaac has you unlock items, characters, and additional zones in between runs, while in Legacy, you pick your next adventurer from the children of your previous one.
I like both of these, Isaac because it's the easiest to go another round in, and can snowball the craziest, but Rogue Legacy is also a very good platfomer with a devolped upgrade tree so that you can control your progression a little more than a good gun at a good time.
It's not my favorite in the genre, but one I've been enjoying since its Switch release is Neurovoider. The enemies, environments, and sound design are all pretty competent, but I've gotten quite a bit of enjoyment out of the different builds you can pursue. In particular, I appreciate the way it gives the player the opportunity to sort of define the run you'll have -- chance is a big factor, but there'll always be a build that makes it easier, or more challenging. While I ultimately prefer something like Gungeon, it's nice to have a little more control over the way the session goes.
I know this is not exactly an answer to the question you posed, but IMHO a great rogue-like for newbies to the genre is Dungeons of Dredmor. It holds your hand and leads you straight into a trap, patting you as you die and happily resurrect. It features all the elements of Rogue, but with a modern UI, animated sprites, and a great deal of humour as it does not take itself seriously.
A more traditional, yet still modernised (colours, ASCII animations, mouse support) rogue-like is Brogue and I can very warmly recommend it.