I very much dislike roguelikes. It always feels patronizing: aww too bad, if you were good enough you actually could have beaten the game, but let’s make it just a little easier. Then it takes so many runs to make an appreciable difference in my abilities or skills that it feels worse than grinding in an RPG (especially because at least with grinding I know I’m going to make progress…I actually might not make any difference with several failed runs).

I also think it’s lazy programming. The game is actually only an hour long or less but you get more time out of it because you need to repeat. Add the fact that roguelikes are almost exclusively procedurally generated and it just feels like a cash grab.

The ONLY roguelike I’ve played any appreciable amount is Hades, and I keep putting it down after a few hours of playtime to pick it up months later. They at least have a lot of interesting dialogue and some element of story but it’s not enough to keep me hooked.

aww, too bad, if you were good enough you could have beaten the game, but let’s make it a little easier

Yeah, that’s pretty awful game design. Most of the ones i’ve played didn’t feel like that, usually you’d unlock new classes or something (I.e. sidegrades) or unlock harder difficulties.

And of course my favorite ones don’t have any meta progression whatsoever, the only progression comes from you learning about the game.

Ok, I’m intrigued. Any recommendations? I’d love to play ones where progression comes from learning about the game.