Have you played Risk Of Rain 2 yet? It’s a crazy ride in 4-player co-op. There’s some plot about space people landing on a planet – I don’t know since I always skip the intro. This is not a game that needs a story. All you need to know is point there and shoot that. Since everything planetside is ruthlessly hostile to your presence, it’s not hard to figure out your priorities.
Risk Of Rain 2 is a roguelike – when it’s game over, it’s game over, man. You lose everything and have to start from scratch. There is a finite set of levels that change with every playthrough, and you can unlock new character types that change your tactics. The game’s difficulty depends on how fast (or slow) you go through levels and how many power-ups you amass on your run. Every playthrough is a fresh experience.
The genre takes its name from Rogue, a 1980 computer game where when you died you started all over. No saves or any such fancy trappings. That sounds pretty much like every arcade game ever made, where your only salvation was how many coins you could afford to pump into the cabinet.
I suppose a blue-blooded roguelike won’t even stoop to that level, having you pay hard cash for more lives. Still, if you were a broke-ass teenager playing arcade games instead of studying for your exams, you tried to make your game last as long as possible. And the lines really start to blur when you play an arcade version of something designed to be impossible, like a bullet-hell shmup.
But let’s keep things pure. Real pure, as in Risk Of Rain 2 isn’t a roguelike but a roguelite. Among genre aficionados, that’s the difference between the game giving you something between playthroughs or not. In Risk Of Rain 2, you can with great effort unlock extra character classes and game-altering artefacts. So when you die, go to heaven and God asks what you have done with your life, you can say you unlocked the robot chassis.
Other games will give you nothing but a high score and a try again button. Noita, the fantastic pixel physics simulator, is a stunning yet unforgiving game where you never know how things will go. This title takes pixel graphics into a new realm with an engine that simulates liquids, gravity and explosive destruction to levels that most polygon games only dream of.
Noita is apparently Finnish for witch, and you appropriately play a magic wielder that descends into a randomly generated cave system armed with a wand. As you progress, you find new wands and power-ups that make you increasingly more destructive. Tear through the game stages with a wand that behaves like an industrialised lightsaber from hell. But just as you get cocky, you trigger some exploding barrel, causing a chain reaction that takes everything – including you – with it.
Then you start again with your original wand, a new set of caves, and no assurances that it will be any easier. It’s possible to mod Noita to save or give you more lives. But that ends up spoiling the experience. If Noita taught me anything, it’s not to mess with roguelike game mechanics. Also, don’t set fire to a pool of acid next to crates of explosives. It doesn’t end well.
Roguelikes and roguelites are enjoying a golden age. I’m not that into them – especially if they only have single-player modes. But I’ve seen a number of them pop up in my gaming circles. Hades is certainly one of the big recent hits. Playing as the titular god of the Mycenaean underworld, you have to fight your way out of hell. It’s intense and viscerally beautiful.
Currently doing the rounds, though I haven’t tried it, is Vampire Survivor. You fight growing waves of enemies, unlocking power-ups as you progress. It seems to be very addictive: I’ve noticed how people one-up each other, posting higher score screenshots to brag. Since the gameplay sessions are not long – the longest sessions seem to reach around 30 minutes – it’s quick and intense.
People posting their results reminds me of the first roguelike I can remember playing: Spyhunter. In this top-down game, you drive a car along an infinite highway, avoiding obstacles and blowing up enemies. Die and you start all over. We used to spend hours trying to beat each other’s times.
It’s ironic that I’m not a big follower of the genre. I find the intensity a bit too much. But every now and then a roguelike/roguelite catches my attention, reminding me that in some games the house always wins.