Today's installment is a big one, and one of my all time favorites. Read on to find out why!

For previous entries in the series, go here

Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate

Time Spent: over 170 hours

Completion: Finished main quest and just over half of the post-game dungeons

Platform: Switch

My first Shiren game was Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer on the DS. I bought it on the strength of its box art and its unique take on the Rogue formula. I ended up with over 300 hours played, completing not only the main quest but nearly every post game dungeon including Fay's final puzzle. It remains my favorite DS game and turned me into a devoted fan of the Shiren series. I even like the Wii title, even though i'll freely admit its flaws.

When this was announced for the Switch, I instantly preordered it. I put over 100 hours into it before finally moving on to something else, but I always meant to go back to it.

Thankfully, I've been able to do just that over the last month, finishing up a few more of the postgame dungeons and filling out more of the item and monster book. I remain as enchanted by it now as I did when I first booted it up. It's truly special.

Shiren is both very much like Rogue and very much its own experience. It's a turn-based dungeon crawl with permadeath, unidentified items that can be beneficial or harmful, and dangerous enemies that can end your run in an instant.

It also has several ways to make things easier for you. You can tag weapons or shields so that they'll show up in a "lost and found" rather than being lost forever. You can meld swords and shields together in order to combine their attributes, and further upgrade equipment and store it away for a future run. It's even possible to abandon your run and escape with all your items through the use of escape scrolls or Undo grass, giving you a huge head start on your next run. You can store items in various warehouses along the way, so that you can use them the next time you get that far.

Powerful equipment alone won't guarantee your success unless you're clever and careful. There are enemies in the later game that can kill you in one blow no matter how strong your shield, knock your gear away, seal its special abilities, or even turn it into riceballs. You need to use every trick at your disposal to survive, and even that might not be enough.

How well does it reward experimentation and improvisation?

There is a phenomenal amount of depth to the systems in Shiren games. I've played this one for over 170 hours and I'm still finding out new ways to use items and deal with enemies. Some of them I found through logical deduction, others through reading the lore in the bestiary or item book, and still others through blind luck. The monsters follow basically the same rules as Shiren, and that's the key to understanding how to find and exploit secrets.

With one or two exceptions, every item in the game is useful. Items that give benefits to your enemies can be used to your advantage under the right circumstances, and items that harm you can be turned on your enemies. I won't eat poison grass, but I'll throw it at a dangerous enemy to slow them down enough to give me time to flee.

Some things that heal you can be deadly to certain enemies. An Antidote will restore your strength if you're poisoned, but it will instantly kill some enemies that poison you. Monsters that turn your items into rice balls will choke on one if it's thrown at them.

Seemingly useless items can turn out to be incredibly useful in the right circumstances. There's a bracelet that's cursed to make you miss every time you throw an item. This is not great! However, it allows you to do some things that are ordinarily impossible. Monsters can't trigger traps, but an item that's dropped on the trap square will trigger it. Items that miss will drop on the square under the target. Lure a monster onto a trap tile, throw something that misses them, and you'll trigger the trap! I found this out completely by accident, and it saved me from a potentially lethal situation.

There are so many things to learn, and ways to use items in combination to get out of seemingly impossible situations. It's remarkable how much complexity the developers created out of seemingly simple systems.

How well does it teach you from your failures?

Shiren is a textbook example of a game that is "tough but fair." Every death is a learning experience. In almost every case, you'll notice something you could have done differently to survive. Perhaps you should have used a different item, or prioritized different monsters, or even run away. Maybe you learned that a particular status effect doesn't work on that monster, or you discovered that its special ability was more dangerous than you thought. You file that away for next time, and hopefully remember it the next time you encounter a similar situation.

Not every failure is fatal. The first time a Swordsman knocks your sword away into another enemy, destroying the sword and leaving you with only your fists, you learn to fight them with your back to the wall. When a Gazer hypnotizes you into throwing your equipment away, you learn to neutralize them quickly. Once a confused monster defeats another one and levels up into a more lethal form, you learn what a double-edged sword a confusion scroll can be.

The more you play, the more you learn. And there is a LOT to learn.

What's the risk/reward calculus?

Everything carries some sort of risk/reward choice. Fight or flee? Use a limited-use item to ensure victory, or take a chance with melee combat? Explore each floor fully in order to get everything you can, risking more and more dangerous battles, or rush towards the exit?

You can only hold onto 24 items at one time. There are pots that can hold multiple items and expand your carrying capacity, but you can't plan on finding too many of them in any given run. You'll fill up your inventory pretty quickly, and at that point every new item you come across forces you to make a difficult choice. Is this new item going to be more valuable than one you already have? What are you willing to give up to get it? This gets harder and harder the more you play, since you want to be prepared for every eventuality.

What's the "just one more run" factor?

It's extremely high. You want to put your newfound knowledge to use, and see more of what the game has to offer. During the main story you'll run into different characters that need your help or offer to help you. Some of them only show up in specific floors, and they won't always appear . You often need more than one run to complete their tasks, and the rewards for doing so are always worth it. It's a compelling loop that keeps pushing you to try one more time.

After finishing the main story, there are a huge number of dungeons to unlock and explore. Some of them are quite standard, while others change the rules to create a whole new experience. They offer some extremely valuable equipment that can't be found in the story dungeons, giving you a great reason to keep trying.

Where does it rank?

It's one of the best of the genre, and does almost everything right. If you are at all interested in the genre, it's a must-play. It's the new number 1!

The third installment of Ranking of Roguelikes is here, and it's Dicey Dungeons!

Dicey dungeons is roguelike Yahtzee, pitting you against Lady Luck and her dangerous dungeons.

Time Spent: a little over 6 hours

Completion: Finished first two chapters with each character

Platform: Switch

I made a thread about my intense dislike of the art in this game, which turned out to be a controversial opinion. I stand by that, but I won't be rehashing that here. It put me off from purchasing it until it was on a steep (almost 90%) discount, which is a shame because the game is quite fun while it lasts.

I appreciated the tight focus it had. There's very little filler in the game, everything is more or less focused on making an entertaining, challenging, completely bonkers version of Yahtzee. It hit some very specific pleasure centers for me, because my family has always played dice games when we get together. Yahtzee, Liar's Dice, Left Right Center, Bunco...some of my favorite family memories are wrapped in the soft rattles of dice on the table.

Sadly, Dicey Dungeons didn't hold my attention like I thought it would. It's perfectly serviceable, and entertained me for a few hours, but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

How well does it reward experimentation and improvisation?

Each character plays quite differently from all the others, and you have to learn a new way of playing with each one. There's a significant amount of experimentation involved in understanding how best to use the special abilities and unique equipment of each character. The Warrior wants high dice rolls to maximize his damage, while the Rogue does best with smaller numbers; the Witch needs to carefully decide what abilities to bring into the field during each battle, and needs the whole range of numbers to be effective.

In addition, each character has six "episodes" of their story that change the game rules and force you to rethink how you approach everything. Some of the rules changes are quite clever subversions of how you would usually play.

Beyond that, there aren't a lot of surprises. You can check the abilities of your enemies at any time, and strategize accordingly. The special effects of some abilities (freeze, shock, burn, poison, and blind) are straightforward and don't interact with each other in any way.

Some effects are clearly better than others, too. I almost always chose Freeze over anything else, since it changed the highest enemy die to 1. Many abilities do damage based on the number on the die, so this helps you survive longer. Shock was a close second, because it locked a piece of equipment and forced them to sacrifice a die to unlock it. I could rarely get enough Poison or Burn stacked to want to use them over the others.

Your ability to experiment is further hampered by the random dice rolls. You may never get a chance in a battle to use that new piece of equipment because you didn't roll the correct number or combination of numbers. This restricts your choice space, and pushed me to rely on a smaller set of abilities and strategies than I would have liked to.

What's the risk/reward calculus?

It leans far more towards risk than reward. While you can theoretically skip battles to save your health, you won't be as prepared for the final fight of each run if you do. Winning battles is the only way to gain levels, and each level gained gives you one more die to roll on your turn. The more dice you have, the more options you have. The game is tuned so that you'll reach the maximum level after clearing out the first five floors, and the boss fight is on the sixth floor. The bosses are difficult and dangerous, and you need every advantage you can get against them.

The battles themselves have quite a bit more of this. You have a limited number of options each turn, and success or failure very often hinges on what you play and in what order you play it.

You have a limited amount of money you earn during any given run. You can't buy everything, and you can't equip everything even if you did. Spend too much early in the run, and you won't have enough money to buy more powerful equipment later.

How well does it teach you from your failures?

It's quite good here. I could usually see what I needed to do differently, whether it was using equipment in a different order so that I could maximize the effects of my dice rolls or skipping a difficult fight even though it would have left me weaker for the final fight. You also see new enemies and equipment each time, giving you a chance to try things out.

Enemies follow the same rules as you do, so watching them use their skills helps you understand how to use yours. One painful learning experience I had was about the power of freeze. I lost to a low-level enemy who spammed it constantly and kept me from doing any real damage while she whittled away at my health. It wasn't fun, but it taught me a valuable lesson that I brought with me in all my future runs.

What's the "just one more run" factor?

In the beginning, it's huge. You're unlocking a new character every run, giving you new and different ways to approach the game. You're seeing different enemies, equipment, and map layouts each time. There's something fresh and exciting to experience each time.

Once you've unlocked each class and played with them, a lot of the novelty wears off.

After a few hours, my desire to play another run after a failed one dropped off a cliff. I was left with something that just wasn't all that interesting to me. The randomness of the dice rolls led to too many failures. It didn't feel "tough but fair," it felt unfair. After I finished a run with each character, I didn't see much value in continuing. I know that there must be some sort of "true" ending if you can complete each character's episodes, but I wasn't having the kind of fun that pushed me to do it.

Where does it rank?

I'm going to put it at #2, above Crown Trick but below Has-Been Heroes. It's going to be a controversial decision, but I think there is just too much randomness in Dicey Dungeons. Like Crown Trick, it doesn't let you overcome that randomness with clever or skillful play. It's a good game, just not the best roguelike.

Thanks for reading this far! I've made a list that I'll keep updated here.

As always, I welcome your feedback. How can I make the series better? Let me know in the replies.

For more on this series, check my initial blog here.

After further consideration, I decided to eliminate the "multiple solutions to problems" category, since it's a little too close to the "experimentation and improvisation" one. I replaced it with something that should have been there from the beginning: the "just one more run" factor: how likely are you to jump into another run immediately after success or failure?

As always, I welcome any feedback you have.

Ranking of Roguelikes #2: Has-Been Heroes

Time Spent: Around 15 hours

Cleared main campaign? Not exactly ("completed" 4 runs)

Platform: Switch

Has-Been Heroes is a fascinating experiment, a blend of tower defense and roguelike. You're in control of three washed-up heroes escorting a pair of princesses to school through undead-infested lands. As you travel the map, you come across shopkeepers that sell you spells, chests with better equipment, random events, and battles with the undead.

It has a pretty poor rating on metacritic as of this writing, and it deserves better. It has an extremely steep learning curve. Once you grok the flow of combat you start to make significant progress each run, but I understand why people might have given up before then.

Combat is hectic and unforgiving. You can't just spam attacks and win, you have to be careful and and cleverly manage your cooldowns and attack sequence. Enemies attack in three lanes, each one guarded by one of your heroes. Once a hero attacks, you can switch lanes with another hero to continue the attack or position them for another one. In order to defeat the waves of undead, you have to "break" their stamina. Your heroes have a specific number of attacks they make: the nimble rogue hits three times, the wizard hits two, and the warrior only once. An enemy with three stamina points needs to be hit exactly three times to be stunned, at which point you can hit them for full damage and remove one of their stamina points. If you hit them more times than that, like attacking with the wizard and then the rogue, you'll knock them back slightly and their stamina resets.

Each level ends with a fight against a boss that has some special trick up his sleeve: maybe he constantly summons shades of himself to confuse you and waste your attacks, or sets up totems around the field that you must destroy before you can hurt him. These fights are supreme tests of your skill and cunning, and you'll lose them far more often than you win.

How well does it reward experimentation and improvisation?

The game does the bare minimum to introduce you to its mechanics. There's a brief combat tutorial, and then you're dropped into the thick of it. In this way, it rewards you for experimenting by showing you what works and what doesn't. It teaches you what you need to know by making you engage with its systems.

The heroes' spells offer a lot of opportunity for unique and creative solutions to problems. Spell damage comes in elements of water, fire, ice, and lightning, and those damage types can interact with each other in interesting ways. Get enemies wet and hit them with lightning and it will arc through everyone. Freeze them and hit them with fire, and they'll take extra damage while they burn. I think there are some hints about this on the title screen popups, things like "try different combinations of elemental damage to see what happens."

There are also quite a few combinations of items and spells that can make a huge difference if you use them properly. For example, critical hits bypass enemy armor and do extra damage, and the rogue has a slightly higher chance for them to trigger. Load her up on extra critical chance, and he can take out weaker enemies in one attack! Add an item that gives bonus damage to melee attacks, and she'll become a lethal assassin.

The one problem is that the game dribbles out new unlocks at a slow pace, and that limits your ability to find and exploit combinations until much later in the game. There are a staggering number of spells and items, but it takes quite a while to unlock them and some are locked behind finishing a run. This makes the early game less dynamic, and that's something that might discourage players from continuing.

What's the risk/reward calculus?

Has-Been Heroes does very well in this category.

Each map has multiple routes to get to the boss. You have to weigh the chances of getting more gold and items against the very real possibility that you won't survive a battle. It's the classic rogue conundrum: stay on the current floor and try to get everything you will need for the later levels and risk starvation and death, or rush for the exit and hope you have enough to survive.

Once you find a new item or spell, you'll have to decide who gets it. This is complicated by the fact that the first time you find a new item, you don't know what it does. You're able to make more educated choices in later runs, but the first time it's a real gamble. Some people will hate this, but I don't. Unidentified items are a staple of Rogue and I enjoy the callback to it.

How well does it teach you from your failures?

Has-Been Heroes is a game that will kick you in the teeth, repeatedly and for no other reason than it can. More than one of my runs ended in humiliating failure after the second battle. I got distracted, or I didn't plan properly, and that was that. These runs did teach me one important lesson: play with attention and intention. Every move you make matters.

It's difficult but not completely unfair. I could always see how I could have done something differently, and in the next run I tried not to make the same mistake.

The boss fights are definitely teachable moments. I was rarely able to conquer a new boss the first time I fought them. They're tough puzzles to solve, but never impossible.

What's the "just one more run" factor?

I found it to be pretty high. Runs are relatively short, especially if they end early. It gives you a chance to see more unlocked items and spells and to try different ways of using them. I felt like I understood the game a little better each time, and I was eager to put that understanding to the test.

Where does it rank?

It's far more interesting as a roguelike than many out there, even if it suffers in the reviews because of its difficulty. There are some genuinely interesting ideas, and once you engage in it on its own terms you start to see how clever it is. It's not going to be everyone's favorite game, but it's a great example of the genre and something I think more people should give a chance. It's better than Crown Trick, so for now it ranks #1 on the list. Congratulations, Has-Been Heroes!

GOTY discussions are always weird for me. I rarely play the latest releases, because I don't have the latest systems. I play almost exclusively on Switch and iOS, so most of the big AAA blockbusters aren't going to be here. Some of these weren't released in 2021, but I didn't get to play them until this year.

Unless otherwise noted, I played all of these on the Switch.

Arknights (iOS, Android)

Probably the greatest tower defense game ever made. It's fiendishly clever: what if your towers were individual characters with unique skills? What if we gave it a banging soundtrack, and updated it regularly with new challenges and mechanics? What if it was a gacha, but surprisingly generous to free players? What if it was full of anime animal people?

I've been playing it daily since I got it in February, and I've spent a mildly obscene amount of money on it, and I don't regret either of those decisions. It's fantastic, and everyone should play it.

Star Renegades

I'm a sucker for the aesthetic of Star Renegades: detailed, gorgeous, beautifully animated pixel art. It caught my eye when I first saw it last year on Steam, and it went on my wishlist as soon as it was announced for Switch. Luckily the game lives up to its appeal to me: solid tactical and strategic decisionmaking, real consequences for your choices, and a nemesis system for the enemy leaders that's both fun and unique.

I play a couple of runs every week, and I find new tricks and strategies nearly every time. It's quite difficult, but I know that I can beat it: I get a little bit further almost every time, and eventually I'm going all the way.

Fuga: Melodies of Steel

I'm almost finished with this, and it's never been boring. There are some brilliant bits of writing in it, and some strong characterization in pretty much every character. It's definitely going to require multiple playthroughs: you only have so many opportunities to strengthen the bonds between characters, and you get such good benefits and insight into the characters from maximizing those bonds, that I want to be able to see them all.

The moment to moment gameplay is full of meaningful choices with both short and long term consequences. You have to think about what you're going to do not just in the current turn, but two and three turns down the line. It requires careful planning and using all the tools available to you, and it's so damn satisfying when you succeed.

I don't know how well it sold, but it deserves to sell more.

NEO: The World Ends With You

I'm a huge fan of the original, and I was skeptical that the sequel could live up to it, but it does.

It has tremendous visual and audio style; playing the game is a treat for the senses. The characters are as interesting as the originals, the dialogue is snappy and well-written, the story itself stands well on its own.

I like just about everything about the way they changed combat. The DS gimmick was incredible and can't be replicated, and to their credit they didn't try. It works thematically and mechanically, and gives you enough choice in each character's pin that you can put together any number of strategies. It's possible to just mash your way through fights, but you can do so much better if you spend the time to learn and practice the tools it gives you.

It may not have met Square's expectations, but it more than met mine.

Dungeon Encounters

One of the best pure game experiences I had this year. It is just what it needs to be, and no more; and what it isis brilliant. I finished the main quest and I'm happily working my way towards getting 100% of each map completed. I'm so happy that Square took a chance on this, and I hope they will take more chances like it in the future. It's not for everyone, but if it is for you it's going to be something special.

Griftlands

I've only done a few runs of Griftlands, but I adore the world they have created and the systems they made to interact with it. Klei is one of the few can't-miss developers: every one of their games is close to perfection. They're masters of atmosphere; their worlds all feel like living, breathing places.

Griftlands is full of the kinds of choices that matter, and while the story itself follows the same beats every time you have many ways that you can change the way it flows. My first time around I sided with the cop that was trying in vain to keep a semblance of justice and order and used negotiation whenever possible; the second time I took the exact opposite route. I experienced a completely different set of choices, characters, and situations each time, and my subsequent runs have all had their own paths through the world.

It's Klei's take on the roguelike deckbuilder. You know if that's something you want to play.

I didn't play that many games this year, but the ones I did play were excellent. Quality over quantity, right?

Thanks for reading!

It's here, the first installment of my hopefully long-running series, the Ranking of (Modern) Roguelikes. I'll be looking at as many as I can, viewing them through the prism of four categories: improvisation and experimentation, risk/reward calculations, multiple solutions to problems, and teaching through failure.

For more information on the what and why, check out the original blog here. Suggestions are welcome!

This is the first time I've done something like this, and I'm still working out the specific format. If you have some specific requests or feedback, I'm happy to hear it.

All that said, let's talk about...

Crown Trick

Time Spent: 7 hours

Cleared main campaign? No

Platform: Switch

Crown trick is an interesting game, a unique take on the top-down, turn based roguelikes of old. It takes a kitchen sink approach to its design: does it work well in another genre? Let's throw it in! Random color-coded loot? Put it in! Permanent upgrades you can purchase with special currency? Put it in! A system for breaking enemy defenses and leaving them vulnerable to extra damage? Put it in! Elemental enemies strengths and weaknesses, and different element effects? Put it in!

A sarcastic and borderline hostile ally that accompanies you on your quest? Put it in! (I wish that developers would retire this tired trope. It's never been clever or fun.)

Crown Trick tells the story of Elle, trapped in a realm of nightmares and forced to clear the different nightmare realms in order to escape. She's aided by the aforementioned sarcastic ally, the titular Crown. It grants her the powers she needs to survive, and guides her through the various nightmare realms.

How well does it reward experimentation and improvisation?

In my experience, it's pretty straightforward. There aren't a lot of unexpected interactions with items, monsters, and the playing field. Fire burns things, electricity shocks, barrels explode, and potions heal. Item descriptions tell you pretty much exactly what they'll do. You do have plenty of weapons and spells to choose from, and there are some interesting combinations that make for more or less powerful builds, but it mostly boils down to damage types and attack ranges. I was never surprised by what I tried.

In addition, enemies have elemental resistances and vulnerabilities. Don't have the damage type they're vulnerable to? You're going to have trouble, and there are few if any ways to get around that.

How about risk/reward calculations?

The game is a lot stronger here. Every weapon has a unique range, damage, and special effect. For example, guns have a long range and are powerful, but must be reloaded manually once they run out of ammunition. Mess up your timing on this, and the enemies will mess you up. The familiars offer some strong risk/reward, too. Each one has a cooldown timer, so picking the right time to use it can mean the difference between success and a grisly death.

The unique thing about Crown Trick is the blink ability, a short range teleport that doesn't count as a turn. This lets you position yourself for attacks or escape from danger. Managing its charges is crucial to surviving the many battles you'll face. Healing items are limited and rare, so avoiding damage is vital. Your blink ability is crucial here, and using its charges wisely means the difference between life and death.

Multiple ways to solve problems?

Sadly, there aren't that many. In order to get through each room, you have to defeat the enemies. To defeat them, you have to "break" their defenses. The only way to do that is through damaging them. You can damage enemies with weapons, familiars, or items. You can use environmental hazards, as well, but it's just another form of damage.

Teaching through failure:

You will have a lot of opportunities to meet and lose to different creatures and bosses. The problem I found with it is the power curve of the enemies seems to ramp up very quickly, so you don't have a lot of time to understand how to use what you have before being overwhelmed.

The other thing that keeps you from learning too much in each run is how much randomness is in the game. There's just too much of it: the weapons and items you get are random, and each one of them has a random set of bonuses. The boons and abilities you find are random, and might not synergize well with the weapons you find, or with each other. The vast majority of my runs ended in failure not because I played badly, or didn't understand the enemies' abilities, but because I didn't find a useful combination of things to work with. This is a huge mark against it, and kept me from wanting to try again.

Where does it rank?

This is a mid-tier roguelike with fantastic visual flair and an interesting hook, but it's ultimately not much more than that. I'd have a hard time recommending it over other similar games. There's too many variables to consider, and the excessive randomness makes it difficult to learn from and enjoy multiple runs. It's not the worst, but it's far from the best.

However, since it's the first episode of this series, it's currently number 1 on the list. You can be certain it won't stay there for long. Thanks for reading, and let me know what I can do better next time!

Rogue is one of my favorite games, and the Roguelike is my favorite genre. The past decade or so has been very good to me. Developers large and small have embraced the roguelike design and refined it in creative and unexpected ways.

Inspired by @mento and @imunbeatable80 and their semi-regular series, I want to put together my own "ranking of roguelikes." I'll talk about how the title uses the roguelike formula, how well it works and why, and whether I would recommend it.

I'm not going to deal with the classics of the genre: Rogue, Angband, Nethack, and all their variants. They're fantastic, but they're a hard sell to the modern game player. Instead, I'll focus on their descendants.

I take a fairly expansive view of what a roguelike is: any game that has permadeath that sends you back to the beginning, armed with new knowledge for the next attempt.

What makes a roguelike "work?" A good roguelike rewards experimentation and improvisation; it has meaningful risk/reward calculations; and it allows for multiple solutions to a problem; and it teaches you something through your failures.

1. Rewarding Experimentation and Improvisation

Doing the best you have with the tools you are given is a crucial part of good roguelike design. It's a huge part of the appeal to a player, creating those one of a kind stories that only they experienced. Items and enemies interacting in unexpected ways is a core part of what makes a roguelike enjoyable.

Great roguelikes will let you do unexpected things by using those tools in creative ways. They might be beneficial or detrimental to you, but they make sense within the game world. Ideally, they should leave you saying "holy shit, that worked?!"

2. Meaningful risk/reward calculations

You are never going to have everything you need, and you're going to have to make decisions about what to keep, what to use, and what to abandon. This is true for every game, but it's especially important in a roguelike. Once your run is done, it's done. You don't get to carry items over to the next run; if you don't use it, you lose it.

This means that every one of your decisions has weight. Waiting too long to use that powerful item might mean certain death, but using it too early means you won't have it for the truly dangerous enemies later in the run.

Good roguelikes make these kinds of decisions the core of their game.

3. Multiple solutions to problems

I've seen people refer to "verbs" in games, the actions that you can perform and the ways that you interact with the game world. In a roguelike, there should be many verbs that allow you to deal with the challenges you face: run, fight, set a trap, use an item, sacrifice an ally, hide, and so on. Ideally, each of these verbs should offer a solution to any problem you face.

4. Teaching you through your failures

More than almost any other genre, a roguelike should teach you something important when you fail. You should be able to look back at the moments before failure and see what you could or should have done to succeed. The next time you find yourself in that situation, you'll be able to put that knowledge to use.

I'll try to put together the first entry in the next few days. I hope you all enjoy the journey with me!

The following is the list I've built for the series. I welcome any additions you feel belong.

Caveblazers

Chasm

Children of Morta

Convoy

Crown Trick

Curious Expedition

Dandy Dungeon

Dead Cells

Death Road to Canada

Deep Sky Derelicts

Don't Starve

Dragon Fangz

Enter the Gungeon

Everspace

Galak-Z

Griftlands

Hades

Has-Been Heroes

Into the Breach

Invisible, Inc.

Ironcast

Kingdom: New Lands

Mana Spark

Neon Chrome

Neurovoider

Nowhere Prophet

One Step From Eden

Out There: The Alliance

Rad

Risk of Rain

Risk of Rain 2

Robothorium

Shiren the Wanderer

Slay the Spire

Star Renegades

Sunless Sea

Sunless Skies

The Swindle

Undermine

Wizard of Legend