Tutorial #1 - I Became a Character in a Roguelike Game

From the Berlin Interpretation: “Roguelike is a genre. It is not merely ‘like Rogue.’ The standard for roguelikes are ADOM, Angband, Crawl, Nethack, and Rogue. The purpose of this definition is to better understand what the roguelike community is studying, not to constrain developers or games.”

I Became a Character in a Roguelike Game.

Have you ever heard the word “roguelike”?

As far as I remember, until about a decade ago it was a manic term that only the initiated knew. Back then the first question anyone asked about a game was whether it was an RPG, an RTS, or an FPS. Roguelike? Who the hell cared about that?

But at some point the word started popping up everywhere. Roguelike style. Roguelike atmosphere. Contains roguelike elements. When I looked into why, it made sense. Indie developers were throwing roguelike mechanics into their games like a secret spice, so the term became famous enough that even ordinary gamers couldn’t ignore it.

What the hell is a roguelike, anyway?

Rogue-like. Literally, a game ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the style of Rogue.

Back when computer games were just beginning to evolve, there was a game called Rogue. From a modern perspective it’s hard to say whether it was even a game or just an extension of programming practice, but it was definitely popular. ASCII graphics, a deliberately unfriendly design with zero convenience features, absurdly simple gameplay, and a playtime of roughly two hours. That game called Rogue was plain, yet revolutionary. A lot of people fell in love with it. Rogue was fun. They wanted to refine its unique flavor and create even better games. So sequels poured out—Nethack, ToME, Dungeon Crawl, Strange Dungeon, and countless indie titles tagged “roguelike.”

Whether they were true successors, spiritual heirs, or outright copies, every single one of them called itself a game similar to Rogue. In other words, a roguelike.

“Hot, hot…”

Hold on. Let me flip the meat. Ah. Right.

That’s why roguelikes focused on inheriting and evolving the original Rogue’s systems: appropriate playtime, varied interactions and playstyles, level design centered on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠exploration and combat, and so on. These days most of the old-school roguelike quirks have been stripped away, leaving only the most distinctive traits, and those are what get marketed as “roguelike games.”

One of those distinctive traits is satiety. In other words, a hunger meter.

“Hoo~ Hoo~ It’s nicely cooked.”

I carefully offered the grilled meat with a few black char flakes still clinging to it. The freshly cooked meat gave off an appetizing aroma. When I took a bite, the distinctive gamey smell of herbivore filled my mouth. It was edible if I forced it down, but plenty of people would probably find it disgusting.

“Go on, eat.”

It’s simple logic. If you don’t eat, you starve. If you keep starving, you die.

This satiety system—born from the extreme hatred of roguelike grinding and a desire for realistic consequences—functions as a kind of timer. Because food appears only in limited quantities inside the dungeon, it restricts how you play. In roguelikes that let you eat corpses it’s merely an annoyance, but…

“...”

I tried to sound cheerful on purpose. It didn’t work.

Noer and Yumi both wore expressions like they were attending a funeral.

The second characteristic of roguelike games.

“If we’re going to set out as soon as the sun rises tomorrow, it’s better to eat something now. We won’t have time to prepare breakfast later.”

“I suppose you’re right…”

Permanent player death. In the original Rogue the proper playtime was only about two hours, so the feature wasn’t burdensome. If you died, you simply started over. But later games that borrowed roguelike elements turned that permanent death into a real hook. They made it a device that piled mental pressure on the player by letting a character you had lovingly raised vanish because of a single mistake.

There are four seats prepared around the campfire, yet only three people. Me. Noer. Yumi. Until just this morning there had been four of us. After leaving the dungeon, only three remained.

How many convenient, cool systems are there? The Hall of Resurrection, priestly revival, player immunity to death penalties… Hell, most games even have some form of death regression. So why… why did it have to be a roguelike?

In this goddamn world, resurrection did not exist.

It’s a fantasy setting, yet even clerical revival is missing. When you die, that’s it. A world where the only thing that increases is the number of meaningless graves.

While insects chirped loudly in the grass, we slowly chewed and swallowed the gamey meat. It tasted awful. A luxurious meal consisting solely of meat, yet it was nothing but tiresome.

I am currently a character inside a roguelike game.

Do you see it? This enormous status window. Doesn’t it make you dizzy just looking at it?

“Why does it have to be a roguelike?”

Before I was swept up in the ‘Dimensional Rift,’ I had been playing a roguelike RPG called Dungeon Overseer. The game was plastered with every cursed tag imaginable—strategy, RPG, pixel graphics, roguelike, early access—yet it suited my tastes so perfectly that I kept playing even while people called me a sucker.

There’s a saying that once you fall for pixel art you can never escape. That was me. Early access. Paying full price for an unfinished demo is the pinnacle ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of sucker behavior, because plenty of developers polish the surface, lure players in, then vanish with the money. The update speed was slow, too, so booting the game up every time a patch dropped felt like a chore. Still, I played Dungeon Overseer like a madman.

It was such a new game that there was no wiki and no information sites. I learned it by smashing my face against it with zero prior knowledge. So how could I not recognize it? That this rotten world shared the same setting as Dungeon Overseer.

“Let’s get some sleep and wake at dawn.”

My party members nodded weakly at the suggestion.

In Dungeon Overseer the protagonist isn’t an explorer entering the dungeon. He’s literally an overseer—a middle manager who handles the explorers going into the dungeon and produces results. If you asked me how to clear a dungeon or what party composition to use, I could talk for three straight nights. I really played that much.

But of all things, I ended up as field personnel. I have to enter the dungeon myself, fight monsters, and complete the objective. When I first regained my senses here, I genuinely thought I was going to lose my mind.

There really are monsters. And I have to fight them. People die.

My initial state was so pathetic that even I couldn’t stand to look at it. I’ve grown a tiny bit since then, but growth is growth. At least now I don’t lose my composure when someone collapses dead in front of me.

“Hic… Sob…”

At least these two still lack what it takes to be proper explorers. How can their mentality shatter so easily when they’re both Level 2?

“Sigh.”

Yumi had begun crying quietly. Noer comforted her. I left the two women to their own devices and crawled into my sleeping bag first.

If I don’t sleep now, who’s the one who’ll be tired? You two are the tired ones.

“Yaaawn.”

The first mission we received was collecting relics from the Unclaimed Cemetery. It wasn’t some grand tomb—just a shallow cave stuck in a random hill—but we got unlucky and one person died. Zick? Zack? I can’t even remember the guy’s name properly.

No enemies appeared until we entered the cemetery. Zack giggled and wandered into the graves on his own, then a skeleton that had been lying on the floor pretending to be bones sent him straight to the afterlife with one slash. The skeleton itself wasn’t particularly strong, so the rest of us charged in and cleaned it up, but… it seemed the mental shock was too much for Yumi and Noer.

It hadn’t even been a proper fight. They lost a companion to a trap-like ambush. The two stayed completely silent the entire way back to the city.

“Then let’s part ways here.”

“Aren’t you coming with us, Hajun?”

At the headquarters of the dungeon exploration corps, in front of the main building, the party disbanded.

“I don’t have any business there.”

We’d probably run into each other often if we kept working as explorers, but for the time being I had no desire to see them again. For explorers, the most important thing isn’t skill or experience—it’s mentality.

Her mentality had collapsed. This was only a simple tomb exploration. If it had been an unavoidable ambush or a full-frontal dungeon raid, she would already be dead.

The same went for me. When a companion dies, the party breaks apart. Death? A permanent penalty. There is no resurrection. You simply vanish forever. That’s what roguelikes are like.

“Then…”

“I’m going to look for another quest.”

Since Yumi was the party leader, she had to report the exploration results to the supervisor. I had nothing in particular to do. I’d collect my reward and look for different work.

“Understood. Then would you wait for us at the explorer lounge first? I’ll finish the report and come down right away.”

“Sure. Let’s do that.”

With her shoulders slumped, Yumi trudged into the exploration corps headquarters.