About a million years ago, I played (and maybe you did, too) the game from whence all current roguelikes and roguelites were born: Rogue. Apt title, right? Originally a DOS game, Rogue was a procedurally generated dungeon crawler where no two runs were ever alike. Each run began with a blank screen, a single character (a face or a literal keyboard character), and a line of text at the bottom displaying one’s progress: health, XP, gold, inventory, and so on. Using the arrow keys, players then moved their character around to make the walls and doorways appear.  From the doorways, one could then travel to different rooms through corridors.  Text also appeared at the top of the screen to indicate what was going on. Contents of newly discovered room varied. Sometimes, they were empty. Other times, there’d be anything from gold and food, to weapons, armor, and, of course, enemies. After clearing a stage, the screen would blackout again, and the search to uncover the next one began. Upon succumbing to any enemy, the game started over. According to the game’s story, the player’s goal was simply to descend into a multi-leveled dungeon to find the fabled Amulet of Yendor.

Well, I never found that amulet. But I played Rogue a lot, and I remember enjoying it. Admittedly, I didn’t have a vast library of games then vying for my attention, but still, Rogue stuck around, and I stuck with it. Its unpredictable nature was addictive, and I liked that each time I loaded up the game, I had no idea what I would face. There was no way to predict the size of any given level, how many rooms there might be, or what was in them until I had found and entered them. The only thing that remained intact was the gameplay knowledge I had garnered along the way, especially with relation to defeating enemies.

Fast forward a bunch of years, and today, I cannot seem to get into rougelikes/lites to save my life. Believe me, I have tried. Remember Spelunky? A great title from the indie game boom of the late 2000s. It’s a beautiful and challenging platformer at which I tried my hand, but I quickly got tired of having to start over. Dead Cells? Hades? Same thing. Same outward love of visual styles and inward loathing of starting over (and over and over). I bounced off more recent and also very good games with rougelike elements, such as Blue Prince and The Alters, too. Is it me? Yes, it totally is. It’s me having become too comfortable with games that have known quantities, ending I know I can reach, and more appealing, if less thought-provoking progression loops.

Only then…I played Balatro. Well, color me surprised when a switch suddenly flipped and I was into it. Like, honestly engaged and not disappointed with “losing.” On this very site, Hatm0nster praised the game back when it was all the rage, and he was right – it’s brilliant time, an experience that’ll suck you in before you know it. Or, at least it did me. The fact that it’s a card game that’s simply about making choices, rather than a challenging platformer or complex puzzle game or a mashup of four genres in one, may have something do to with my personal turn towards it. Balatro brought back the easy joy I had felt while playing Rogue all those years ago. No pressure, just play. And frankly, maybe I’ve been overthinking newer roguelike/lites way too much.

This brings me up to the game that started this train of thought: Saros. Due out next month, this title latest from Housemarque looks like it’s going to be a real stunner, and my brain likes its setting and story, but it pumps the brakes hard at the inclusion of “roguelike” among its qualifiers. (I avoided Returnal for the same reason.) It’s not a game I’m willing to jump on immediately, at least without seeing more actual gameplay first, and maybe I never will, but Saros does make me consider why I’ve been dismissing roguelikes/lites for their own sake. Part of it is because in them, I feel like I will never succeed. But…isn’t not trying failing from the start?

Lede image take from igdb.com presskit for Saros (© Housemarque).