roguelike
/ˈɹoʊɡlaɪk/
roguelike noun: any of a genre of computer role playing games loosely characterized by various characteristics such as randomised environment generation, permadeath, turn-based movement, text-based or primitive tile-based graphics, and hack-and-slash gameplay.
Noun (1)
roguelike (plural roguelikes)
- Any of a genre of computer role playing games loosely characterized by various characteristics such as randomised environment generation, permadeath, turn-based movement, text-based or primitive tile-based graphics, and hack-and-slash gameplay.
- If you haven’t played a ‘roguelike’ before, it’s basically what happens when you take a twitchy hack-and-slash game like Diablo and make it boring, confusing, and frustrating.I “Like-Like” Roguelikes (Because Love Should Never Be So Cruel), 2011
Adjective (1)
roguelike (comparative more roguelike, superlative most roguelike)
- Of, relating to, or characteristic of the roguelike genre.
- And I'm tempted to say that as long as it's got to do with fighting, single or in very small groups, with characters from different classes, different races, different stats, who learn along the way, it's roguelike enough for me. This may also include a lot of adventures, I know.1998 October 11, jwk, “Definition of roguelike”, in rec.games.roguelike.misc (Usenet), archived from the original on 04 Jan 2026
- I just played the remake of Sword of Fargoal to victory. I had to cheat like crazy (backing up saves) but it was fun. Granted, it's roguelike, at best, but it's a ton of fun: […]2003 September 22, p_conrad, “Remakes of "classic" crpgs ? Any one them finished ?”, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (Usenet), archived from the original on 04 Jan 2026
Noun (2) capitalized: Roguelike
Roguelike (plural Roguelikes)
- Alternative letter-case form of roguelike.
- I've been thinking about building a Roguelike recently, and a point came to mind; namely, I've played Daggerfall; I liked the concept, but the system was buggy and holeish. So, how would one go about designing a "clean" classless CRPG? Especially a Roguelike, where YASDs are common, and backing up...1998 April 20, LucFrench, “Clean Character System for a Roguelike”, in rec.games.design (Usenet), archived from the original on 04 Jan 2026
- I have been playing Roguelikes for a little while and have found them pretty fun.2005 November 21, Zen Clark, “What makes Roguelikes fun?”, in rec.games.roguelike.misc (Usenet), archived from the original on 04 Jan 2026
Adjective (2) capitalized: Roguelike
Roguelike (comparative more Roguelike, superlative most Roguelike)
- Alternative letter-case form of roguelike.
- For those people that play Roguelike games, it means a lot more to say that a game is Roguelike than it means to say that it is like Rogue. Its an unfortunate name for people who are not familiar with the genre because it is deceiving.2000 January 11, Brian Robinson, “Diablo *is* an RPG”, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (Usenet), archived from the original on 04 Jan 2026
- ADOM is Roguelike, but with an added ASCII map (good feature of the game, sad it's fixed).2000 April 12, tussock, “Roguelike Game: Definition”, in rec.games.roguelike.misc (Usenet), archived from the original on 04 Jan 2026
Forms of roguelike
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | roguelikes |
| alternative form | Rogue-like |
| alternative form | rogue-like |
| alternative form | Roguelike |
| plural | Roguelikes |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more roguelike |
| superlative | most roguelike |
| comparative | more Roguelike |
| superlative | most Roguelike |
Origin of roguelike
From Rogue (the name of a 1980 computer game which introduced the genre, from rogue) + -like.
Words formed from roguelike
Questions about roguelike
- What does roguelike mean?
- Roguelike means any of a genre of computer role playing games loosely characterized by various characteristics such as randomised environment generation, permadeath, turn-based movement, text-based or primitive tile-based graphics, and hack-and-slash gameplay.
- What part of speech is roguelike?
- Roguelike can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce roguelike?
- Roguelike is pronounced /ˈɹoʊɡlaɪk/ (US).
- What is the plural of roguelike?
- The plural of roguelike is roguelikes.
Words near roguelike in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: roguelike (page history and authors); Roguelike (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-roguelike.wav.
Cite this entry: “roguelike.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/roguelike. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.