I've played most popular roguelikes like Balatro, Slay the Spire, Dead Cells, etc. So are there any good Android games that aren't roguelikes?

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[–] 14 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Balatro is rogue like? Maybe I don't understand the genre as much as I thought.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    No, it's rogue-lite. Not -like. Rogue-lite games have randomized runs, permadeath, and (often tons of) meta-progression involving spending stat points, or unlocking new skills or weapons. In many games, the difficulty decreases by unlocking new skills and adding stats. Sometimes the games increase their enemy difficulty as you earn victories in order to balance the difficulty with all the new choices and skills you have. And sometimes entire game mechanics get added to more you play: new zones and new things to do.

    Example rogue-lite games: Binding of Isaac, Undermine, Enter the Gungeon. Even games that have a real sense of story and progression might have tight gameplay loops that can cause people to call them rogue-lites, or say they have "rogue-lite mechanics". Example: Dave the Diver.

    Rogue-likes, on the other hand, are turn-based dungeon crawlers that have very little or no meta progression. They may have training wheels like being forced to start with a simple class and unlocking additional ones doing simple things in-game. They do this to avoid overwhelming new players with character choices, and not to make the game easier as you play. You get better by learning the game, and not by unlocking more things or adding to stats.

    Examples: Shattered Pixel Dungeon, Brogue, Caves of Qud.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    These days when people say roguelike they just mean a game that divides its gameplay into short, disconnected runs instead of one long, continuous save. It unfortunately has nothing to do with whether a game is anything like Rogue.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yes, the term is often misapplied, but Balatro has the other key part of actually being a roguelike which is leveling up your build periodically from a randomly selected set of options. The bosses are also randomly selected. It very much is a roguelike

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago

    leveling up your build periodically from a randomly selected set of options

    The bosses are also randomly selected

    Those are neat and trendy features, but I don't see how they make it anything like Rogue or its ilk.

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