Roguelike

Roguelike is a subgenre of role-playing video games, characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally-generated game levels, turn-based gameplay, tile-based graphics, and permanent death of the player-character. Most roguelike are based on a high fantasy narrative, reflecting their influence from tabletop role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Though the roguelikes Beneath Apple Manor and Sword of Fargoal predate it, the 1980 game Rogue is considered the forerunner and the namesake of the genre, with derivative games mirroring Rogue's character- or sprite-based graphics. These games were popularized among college students and computer programmers of the 1980s and 1990s, leading to a large number of variants but adhering to these common gameplay elements, often titled the "Berlin Interpretation". Some of the better-known variants include Hack, NetHack, Ancient Domains of Mystery, Moria, Angband, and Tales of Maj'Eyal. The Japanese series of Mystery Dungeon games by Chunsoft, inspired by Rogue, also fall within the concept of roguelike games.