The Origins of Roguelikes
The roguelike genre traces its roots to the early 1980s, when the game Rogue was created as an experiment for character-based terminals on Unix systems. Its influence was immediate, spawning a lineage of directly inspired titles. The first version of NetHack appeared in 1987, as a heavily modified descendant of Hack, which itself was based on Rogue. The term “roguelike” itself didn’t emerge until the early 1990s, appearing alongside thriving Usenet communities such as rec.games.roguelike. These forums became incubators where players and developers exchanged ideas, variants, and design philosophies, all built upon the foundation that Rogue had laid.
A screenshot from Rogue (courtesy of the Retro Rogue Collection) shows the player character “@” above a food item “%” and a jelly monster “J” — a simple visual language that became iconic for the genre.
Community-Driven Evolution
What truly distinguishes roguelikes is their collaborative, open-source nature. Development often happened across networked systems before most people even had internet access in their homes. NetHack was built this way, and decades later, Angband required a coordinated relicensing effort to become fully open source. In a striking example, Pixel Dungeon was declared “complete” by its original developer — only to be immediately forked by the community into dozens of new and distinct games.
The same spirit drives events like the 7DRL challenge, where developers race to build a complete roguelike in seven days, and the annual Roguelike Celebration, which brings the global community together to share research, experiments, and innovations. These events accelerate iteration and ensure that even small projects can leave a lasting mark on the genre.
A Sample of Enduring Roguelikes
Below we dive into one exemplary title that embodies this open, ever-evolving ethos. Many others — including NetHack, Angband, and Pixel Dungeon — share similar stories of continuous community contribution and growth.
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead drops players into a world where everything has already collapsed. Cities sit abandoned, labs hum with leftover experiments, forests reclaim the edges, and roads lead nowhere good. Players scavenge through the wreckage while hunger, injury, weather, and time press in relentlessly. The world runs continuously, shaped by a massive contributor base that keeps adding systems and interactions. Every building has a story baked into it — most of them end with the player running.
The game began as a fork of the original Cataclysm and never stopped growing. Over time, contributors layered in new systems, interconnecting everything from crafting to vehicle construction to zombie horde AI. Its C++ codebase is publicly available, and the community regularly tests experimental builds. The result is a roguelike that feels alive — constantly refined, debated, and expanded by those who play it.
To explore or contribute, visit the Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead GitHub repository.
A Genre That Refuses to Fade
The roguelike genre remains vibrant because its games are never truly finished. They are living projects, passed from generation to generation of developers. As long as communities continue to gather — online, at celebrations, or during game jams — these games will keep evolving. They may have started small, but none of them stayed that way.