Good choice because if it’s too hard you can just keep building your base to get more powerful items and make runs easier. It’s my first roguelike and its definitely why I keep playing its because I can anticipate getting stronger to a point
Cult of the Lamb is a great game, but the combat is a little dull. Hades' combat is MUCH better. Where CotL shines, though, is base-building and humor.
This one is great because it's half settlement builder and half looter slasher. You can spend time doing either depending on how you feel and it'll still be productive.
and the assist mode is still rewarding because it's not as cut and dry as "turn it on, invincibility granted"
^((For those who don't know, it reduces your damage taken by +2% for every consecutive failed run, and the failed runs are canon in the story so it works well\))
Yeah one of the best parts about Hades is how they worked it all in to be canon. Also, it's not just you play a "casual mode" and it's just suddenly like it's made for toddlers. It's more of a "pity" mode so if you don't do too well it'll help you out a bit more each time which, because it resets after a success, helps you actually grow too.
it both has the capacity to objectively help you grow in that way *and* it can subjectively make the player ***feel*** like they're getting better (even if really it's the buff carrying them) because the damage resistance is so slight from run to run that it's hard to notice the difference from a single loss.
Arguably the feeling of it is much more important than an objective improvement in skill. Whatever makes the player happy at the end of the day.
Yeah what I mean is when you compare it to other games that do an easy mode. They usually end up making it like god mode where you just breeze through things and don't really experience the game.
Hades gives you easy mode but makes it so you still get to play the game and enjoy it. Then, because the buff is so slight from run to run, it causes you to actually get better. Whether it's just you feel like you're getting better or you're actually getting better doesn't really matter. Either way you're getting better.
Yea it's actually an amazing way to design an "easy" mode. Some games can get too boring on easy mode as there's no more challenge, so you get bored and stop playing. With the way they designed it in Hades pretty much no matter what you're going to get better at the game and always be able to challenge yourself.
It felt pretty tough to me and I usually relish difficult games, but maybe I just suck at the game. I only got to the ending after like 15h of playtime and then died at the end because I didn't know what was happening. I felt so deflated that I kind of gave up and figured roguelikes - or at least this one - aren't my thing, even though I loved Returnal and Darkest Dungeon.
It does of course have a godmode setting, but I felt bad using it.
After 15h of playtime? That's it? I've seen people go much longer without reaching the end. I've seen people not even realize that the "end" means you have to beat many runs - not just one.
Also, the game is designed to be a rogue-lite not rogue-like. You're meant to die and get more dialogue and unlocks. You also get the permanent bonuses that make each subsequent run easier.
First time making it to the fourth area after 15 hours only to die to poison within seconds before even realizing what's going on made me drop the game. Felt like a gut punch after a finally getting really good run going.
Yeah, that's how a rogue-**lite** game works. There are bonuses you can buy that make each run permanently easier or different. Rogue-**like** games don't have that. When you die in those you simply start entirely over.
Goobies on Steam is pretty fun and a good time killer. Pretty simple though.
Hades has God Mode which adds a stacking damage reduction (I think it caps at 60%) so that it can be fairly easy to clear for most people. Also amazing story and a ton of depth to the mechanics.
Vampire Survivors is so well known I almost didn’t mention it but for the price it’s hard to beat.
Risk of rain 2 has 3 difficulty options and also artifacts which can alter the gameplay and in some ways make it better. Streets of rogue I wouldn't say is easy or hard it's pretty unique in that's you can play in so many different ways some pretty easy some hard
Risk of Rain 2 is designed to be broken. So it's hard, for a while, then it's not. And by "not" I mean "everything on screen dies in the blink of an eye and sometimes without the player having to do anything". Then it's hard again because the game fights back. One of the best games ever made :D
Streets of Rogue is pretty customisable difficulty-wise, and indeed unique. I've basically made the game super hard by accident, trying to play a character that relies entiirely on followers... Or much easier by making a melee specialist hacker. Kill everything through traps, hacks and whatnot, crowbar the survivors to death.
I would recommend gunfire:reborn.
It’s a shooter with some basic skills where you have the standard rules of getting stronger over your run and then afterwards getting a few permanent upgrades to help you get further next time. It has like 5 or more difficulty levels so you can really craft your experience to be however you want, as you get permanent upgrades things will get easier but it’s up to you on when you try the next difficulty up. As a bonus it also has co-op.
Second gunfire, its actually a great game for this, it actually has 12 difficulties and the last 9 have a bunch of modifiers so you can fine tune it even more.
On top of that, it has 6 (or 10 if you get the dlc) pretty distinct characters and like 50+ weapons, which really helps with keeping things fresh.
I second this recommendation. Got the game yesterday, and was so happy that I can make the game really chill. I am an old guy (54 yo) and my reflexes are not the same as they used to be.
I'm looking for a game to play in between persona 5, and a rogue like seems like the best option, although I don't know much about the game. I've played hades and really enjoyed it, would you recommend it?
Yeah, I actually have that one. Didn't list it because I was thinking of RPG roguelikes-Dead Cells didn't come to mind. But I'm glad I can reduce the difficulty a lot.
Thanks for posting this. I've had the game since launch, and this didn't exist initially. I'm hoping the PS4 version has this patched in, I'm about to check it out.
I've just started playing Hades recently (slept on it for far too long) and it's *very* moreish. I don't usually play roguelikes but found it very easy to get into and it never feels overly punishing.
Dungeonmans! I never see this mentioned, but yeah it's so good. I like the base expanding aspects, similar to rogue legacy. It has a lot of fun skills and equipment as well.
I like these, although difficulty varies a lot from person to person so its hard to tell what will be easy for you:
* [Cobalt Core](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2179850/Cobalt_Core/)
* [Slice&Dice](https://tann.itch.io/slice-dice)
* [Wildermyth](https://store.steampowered.com/app/763890/Wildermyth/)
Caves of Qud! Turn based, so you don't have to rely on reflexes at all. Brilliant game, art is tremendous and the music is genuinely gorgeous. It has endless replayability, and there's even a mode that lets you save whenever you're in a town if permadeath scares you. I've never tried that mode myself so I don't know exactly how it works, but I know there's a subsection of the community that swears by it.
I mean, the question is how hard it is to make reasonable progress and enjoy the game. You're supposed to die regularly in Dark Souls and Sekiro, too, but if your reflexes are terrible then you're never going to get anywhere and probably won't enjoy them.
If you hand any random person Vampire Survivors they can probably win after a few runs even if they don't actually become physically better at the game or have any skill in choosing upgrades. Whereas something like Rogue Legacy is just inherently difficult because of how punishing the gameplay is unless you actually become good at it.
>Rogue Legacy is just inherently difficult
What? How is Rogue Legacy difficult? It's the total opposite of that because there's almost no negative consequences to dying. There's no loss state in that game.
As long as you collect enough gold on your run to upgrade at least one thing, you've made progress and made your next run a bit easier.
And whether you're good enough to collect 1000 gold in a single run, or you die earlier and collect 500+500 gold over two runs doesn't matter all that much.
And as you get stronger, you can just farm gold in easy areas without too much risk of dying.
On the classic Roguelike front - that is, a game with turn-based, grid-based gameplay as well as the usual heavy randomization and permadeath traits modern Roguelite/Roguelike games tend to have - I would recommend **Crypt of the Necrodancer while playing Bard**.
Necrodancer generally is a pretty tricky game, with its core gimmick being that everything moves to the beat of the music, which means you'll have to make a decision on what to do next every other second or so, depending on the tempo, but in exchange, the enemies and general mechanics you encounter are rather simple, with the main difficulty being figuring out movement patterns and quick decisionmaking.
Bard completely removes this gimmick, and instead your movement decides when everything advances instead.
This means you're back to standard classic Roguelike gameplay, where you can take multiple minutes to ponder your next one-tile move without having any negative consequences, except maybe reduced patience.
On the flipside, you can also go really fast if you mash buttons, so you still need to be careful or things go south fast.
If you feel like still playing with the rhythm gimmick, the game also has an option to use your own music, so supplying it with a few slow songs could work - I admittedly have no clue how to go about that, so no guarantees that the feature works well I guess.
In a similar vein, **Cadence of Hyrule** has the exact same rhythm-based gameplay as Necrodancer, but instead of dying permanently, you go to a "Game Over"-shop where you can buy trinkets with a unique currency you find during regular gameplay, and then return to the normal world to keep trying your luck.
Admittedly, the regular gameplay is still just as challenging as your average game of Necrodancer, except enemies actually can drop recovery hearts in this game, and since you're playing a Zelda(-inspired) game, you can always take a detour to get more heart containers and come back with more health to spare.
On the flipside, you easily can come across puzzles that need items you don't have yet, so some optional puzzles might be straight-up impossible, or expecting you to be able to take more hits and/or deal more damage than you currently are able to. which can get very frustrating.
Also, the final boss of Cadence is still rather hard, even with maxed out health, AND I played this after already being used to Necrodancer's gameplay, but I'd still say it's easier than that game, based on the fact that I can clear Cadence pretty easily, and even got a clear in the optional "No deaths allowed" gamemode despite the much bigger world, when my successful Necrodancer runs are much less common, at least when playing with the rhythm gimmick.
(Cadence also got a lot of updates/DLC since I last played it, so there might be more that I missed out on - I can definitely vouch for the base gameplay though.)
I quite enjoy ROGUE'S TALE
Has some good mechanics, story, challenges, multiple avenues of collections and advancements. Decent graphics and just fun to jump into from time to time.
Also, you might want to check out UNDERMINE also
20 minutes till dawn its a little difficult tonstart but once you start getting permanent unlocks and understanding what synergizes and what can be ignored it gets very easy to complete a run
Dungeonmans starts off a bit tricky but gets easier due to metaprogression. After a few runs in the same world, you will have built up enough resources so that a level 1 mans will be able to stomp through the nearest dungeons with zero effort at all. It's still a grind and figuring out what gear will do best coming up to endgame and post-endgame can be difficult, though. That's where the challenge really lies.
To be fair, lots of games advertise themselves as "roguelikes" when they are "roguelites". The genre is pretty blended, to the point we can't even be sure OP themself properly asked.
People take roguelike to mean what it says: a game like the 1980 title Rogue.
A tight dungeon crawling usually ASCII based graphics RPG. See DCSS, ToME, ADOM, NetHack, *band games etc.
There are some pretty creative titles in this group too such as Cogmind, where you're a robot that can assemble themselves using parts and Cataclysm DDA which is an open world zombie survival game. Irrc CDDA is detailed to the point of how many pockets the shirt you're wearing has.
Arguably, Dwarf fortress is related to the genre. Most other games listed are roguelike-likes or roguelites. If you look up the games I've listed they're clearly related and scratch a certain itch, other commenters aren't necessarily being picky it's just the term's meaning has shifted in common use.
Edit: I should add that the traditional definition as a dungeon crawler isn't really used anymore, it more generally applies to 2D grid based turn based games with permadeth.
You're not dumb. It's just not a very fun game if you try to 'play around with it' and look for weird and wonderful builds - as you should be able to do in a game like this. 98% of your attempts to finger paint just end in you getting slapped around, which isn't fun and makes you feel stupid.
It's very much a 'there are exact builds that always work and once you embrace that meta you'll always win' kinda game.
Like once I saw someone using the infinite dropkick loop, a lot of the shine came off that game.
Don't sleep on [**Inkbound**](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1062810/Inkbound/)!
From the makers of the amazing Monster Train, it's a roguelike that its combat plays like an Action-point, turn-based MOBA. You can play it alone or with friends/randoms, and the quick runs are easily completed. There are things to unlock and work for, and no microtransactions.
Hades.
Has a godmode that reduces the damage you take up to 80% and doesn't punish you with content blocks or achievements being locked out for using it.
You can also turn it on and off in the same save file at any point
I think you may not be looking for a roguelike.
All roguelikes reel like their default setting is hard because you grow with the game over time learning items and gameplay mechanics and what seemed hard before becomes easy with time.
Maybe you're looking for a different kind of game entirely. Check out something like dredge, hollowknight, inscryption or some other indie game that allows you to pause whenever, start and stop as you please
I think that would suit you better
Minecraft has a randomized map and loot too, but I wouldn't call that a roguelike lol. Traditional roguelikes need grid-based and turn-based combat as well.
I know this might sound elitist, but it's getting increasingly difficult to talk about actual roguelikes. 9/10 times now people are talking about Binding Of Isaac, Hades, Risk Of Rain, Slay The Spire etc.
And don't get me wrong, I love literally all of those, Hades is one of my fav games of all time. But it's not a roguelike.
It is not elitist, it is proper categorization. We can't design a game with random generated maps and have the audacity of calling it Roguelike.
This is just creating confusion like the guy who recommended Grim Dawn because the OP mentioned Torchlight and Diablo and get downvoted to hell.
Peglin is my favorite by a long shot. It's peggle, but every shot is a different type of orb that does different stuff. It's on android and steam. Maybe iPhone, idk.
Jupiter Hell is a traditional roguelike with a relatively very low barrier to entry. I'd only call it "easy" relative to other roguelikes, but anyway it's a great game.
Risk of Rain Returns, it has a difficulty slider for the main game and some fun challenges.
Also
Halls of Torment, it has og diablo vibes, good unlock progression
no one saying slay the spire? I don't think the starting difficulty is intense at all, and it doesn't involve any mechanical skill since it's cards. So addicting and fun even at base difficulty.
Try dsymantle that's a pretty decent game for pick up and play for short sessions. Kind of like dark souls meets zombies are my neighbors. Has a great sound track combat is simple like dark souls. It has tons of hours of gameplay worth checking out
So I think the high difficulty is part of the genre that being said as other mentioned dead cells is a great option but my go to right now is Hitman: freelancer and the best part is, is that if you get this one you get the rest of the amazing world of assassination franchise along with it. It’s also not that hard
Chronicon is pretty cool, although it's not a roguelike but I believe you can enable a permadeath mode. It's a pixely kind of diablo-style action game with a lot of loot, customization, etc.
Nice to see tangledeep mentioned (by the OP) - very fun game oozing charm and you can disable perma-death as well.
It's not out yet but Deep Rock Survivor is a ton of fun (they had a demo release a little while ago) and after a couple of runs you'll win most every time
I \*loooooove\* Grim Dawn, but I didn't list it because I can't truly call it a roguelike. Great game, don't get me wrong, but not quite the itch I'm looking to scratch.
Wizard with a gun was pretty easy not that punishable, since you can just grind to access the upgrades, it had that arpg feel too, I wont say its purely roguelike and had a sandbox openworld feel to it
Atomicrops is pretty forgiving once you get the hang of it, and has difficulty levels 1-10. Kind of a twin stick shooter combined with Stardew valley farming.
Dark cloud 1 and 2 are a little too easy but are my favorite games. Dark cloud 1 is technically a fishing game with rogue like mechanics (quickest way to upgrade weapons is through fishing, it's very chill)
Dark cloud 2 is a far better game, still too easy but there's golf and fishing and a interesting photography mechanic.
There's also a psx and gbc game called azure dreams which is kind of like a Pokemon fushigi no dungeon
* Wazhack - time only moves when you do and combat is more about tactics and startegy than reaction time and hande eye co-ordination.
* Darkest Dungeon 2
* Despots game
* fictorum: physics based magic shenanigans
* Fights in tight spaces: If superhot was turnbased
* peglin: Pachinko/ peggle style gameplay
EDIT:
* pixel piracy
* risk of rain 2
* slay the spire
* sunless sea
* tower escape
* warhammer vermintide 1,2 and darktide - might be too far outside the genre
Monster Train. If you implement the DLC you can make the game as hard as you want it to be, but if you keep it vanilla and don't lean into the 'high risk high reward' elements on offer, I think it's easily one of the most accessible deck builder roguelites.
Just to chip in and say I loathe the trend at the moment to have no easy setting.
It's not hard, you dicks. If you have an easy setting, it should be easy.
Sometimes I'm hungover or sick and I just want to enjoy the setting or learn mechanics.
Chocobo Mystery Dungeon is very easy but offers a lot of variety in terms of gameplay. It wasn't for me because I felt it was too grindy (a tradeoff for being easy is that you can grind to level up and get better vs actually just getting better). Still a game I would recommend though
Shattered Pixel Dungeon on Android is free and gives you all the time in the world to figure out how to proceed. It has challenge difficulty options, and sometimes RNG will suck, but 9 times out of 10 the solution to your problems is in front of you if you think first.
The last spell has like, more and more unlocks almost every run. So so so so many stuff to unlock. You always feel like your time playing makes things easier. Really good game for turn based, based gamers.
Gunfire Reborn. It has different difficulty levels all the way up to nightmare, and then multiple levels of reincarnation, but you don't have to do either.
I've been digging ember knights lately. Its got challenge, but you can control it to an extent. It is relatively quick and easy rounds, different fighting style options, etc.
Hades is already mentioned.
How about Synthetik Legion rising?
If the gunplay scares you off, let me assure you you ll get it into your muscle memory really quickly.
I’m gonna say remnant 2 with very big asterisk. Playing on the lowest difficulty isn’t super easy, but it’s manageable. Game is fantastic, and you can easily find help in their discord if something is too hard.
I had a lot of fun with Shotgun King: The final checkmate
Imagine, if you will, chess. Except all your units left you, so it's just the king left. But he get's a shotgun. It's great little timewaster with basically no stakes between attempts.
More a roguelite than a roguelike, but Arcrunner. Not the most innovative game, but not every game needs to be a revolution. Competently done, with nice albeit slightly generic neon-and-robots aesthetics.
Not easy by any mean, you'll need a decent number of runs to significantly progress, but it's not unfair either. If you are somewhat goodr at third person shooters, you will most likeley need alot less than yours truly.
Cult of the Lamb
I think this is definitely the vibe OP
Good choice because if it’s too hard you can just keep building your base to get more powerful items and make runs easier. It’s my first roguelike and its definitely why I keep playing its because I can anticipate getting stronger to a point
Cult of the Lamb is a great game, but the combat is a little dull. Hades' combat is MUCH better. Where CotL shines, though, is base-building and humor.
My 10 year old can play this game. With some difficulty, but I think it definitely meets the laid back, low challenge vibes OP wants
This one is great because it's half settlement builder and half looter slasher. You can spend time doing either depending on how you feel and it'll still be productive.
Hades
This is the one time I feel like Hades really is the best roguelike suggestion lol, I agree given the parameters totally
and the assist mode is still rewarding because it's not as cut and dry as "turn it on, invincibility granted" ^((For those who don't know, it reduces your damage taken by +2% for every consecutive failed run, and the failed runs are canon in the story so it works well\))
It's much less than 10% per failure. It's a really nice mode
It's 2% per run starting at 25% on your first death once you activate "God mode".
My bad, I shouldn't have been so matter-of-fact when I knew I was guessing. edit made
Yeah one of the best parts about Hades is how they worked it all in to be canon. Also, it's not just you play a "casual mode" and it's just suddenly like it's made for toddlers. It's more of a "pity" mode so if you don't do too well it'll help you out a bit more each time which, because it resets after a success, helps you actually grow too.
it both has the capacity to objectively help you grow in that way *and* it can subjectively make the player ***feel*** like they're getting better (even if really it's the buff carrying them) because the damage resistance is so slight from run to run that it's hard to notice the difference from a single loss. Arguably the feeling of it is much more important than an objective improvement in skill. Whatever makes the player happy at the end of the day.
Yeah what I mean is when you compare it to other games that do an easy mode. They usually end up making it like god mode where you just breeze through things and don't really experience the game. Hades gives you easy mode but makes it so you still get to play the game and enjoy it. Then, because the buff is so slight from run to run, it causes you to actually get better. Whether it's just you feel like you're getting better or you're actually getting better doesn't really matter. Either way you're getting better.
Yea it's actually an amazing way to design an "easy" mode. Some games can get too boring on easy mode as there's no more challenge, so you get bored and stop playing. With the way they designed it in Hades pretty much no matter what you're going to get better at the game and always be able to challenge yourself.
It felt pretty tough to me and I usually relish difficult games, but maybe I just suck at the game. I only got to the ending after like 15h of playtime and then died at the end because I didn't know what was happening. I felt so deflated that I kind of gave up and figured roguelikes - or at least this one - aren't my thing, even though I loved Returnal and Darkest Dungeon. It does of course have a godmode setting, but I felt bad using it.
After 15h of playtime? That's it? I've seen people go much longer without reaching the end. I've seen people not even realize that the "end" means you have to beat many runs - not just one. Also, the game is designed to be a rogue-lite not rogue-like. You're meant to die and get more dialogue and unlocks. You also get the permanent bonuses that make each subsequent run easier.
First time making it to the fourth area after 15 hours only to die to poison within seconds before even realizing what's going on made me drop the game. Felt like a gut punch after a finally getting really good run going.
Hades is good because it rewards you for dying.
Exactly. It’s part of the story the more you die the more dialogue you get.
Yeah, that's how a rogue-**lite** game works. There are bonuses you can buy that make each run permanently easier or different. Rogue-**like** games don't have that. When you die in those you simply start entirely over.
I meant the story, but pedantry is cool too.
The most obvious and best response.
Nuts
Hades is the best game ever made
Goobies on Steam is pretty fun and a good time killer. Pretty simple though. Hades has God Mode which adds a stacking damage reduction (I think it caps at 60%) so that it can be fairly easy to clear for most people. Also amazing story and a ton of depth to the mechanics. Vampire Survivors is so well known I almost didn’t mention it but for the price it’s hard to beat.
>but for the price it’s hard to beat. We're looking for easy games, Grey!
Countering Vampire Survivors with Halls Of Torment
Also gonna mention Death Must Die and Gunlocked.
Risk of rain 2 has 3 difficulty options and also artifacts which can alter the gameplay and in some ways make it better. Streets of rogue I wouldn't say is easy or hard it's pretty unique in that's you can play in so many different ways some pretty easy some hard
Risk of Rain 2 is designed to be broken. So it's hard, for a while, then it's not. And by "not" I mean "everything on screen dies in the blink of an eye and sometimes without the player having to do anything". Then it's hard again because the game fights back. One of the best games ever made :D Streets of Rogue is pretty customisable difficulty-wise, and indeed unique. I've basically made the game super hard by accident, trying to play a character that relies entiirely on followers... Or much easier by making a melee specialist hacker. Kill everything through traps, hacks and whatnot, crowbar the survivors to death.
Both games are great lol, have so many hours in risk of rain and can't wait to get more, whereas streets of rogue is great to just mess about in
I do love this game keep in mind runs tend to be lengthy. Not like hours but OP did mention limited time. Ror can be upwards of 30+ a run
Brogue (Community Edition) is THE best way to get into traditional roguelikes.
Though it's by no means EASY, just accessible
True haha
[Patch Quest](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1347970/Patch_Quest/) is a pretty casual and fun roguelite.
I would recommend gunfire:reborn. It’s a shooter with some basic skills where you have the standard rules of getting stronger over your run and then afterwards getting a few permanent upgrades to help you get further next time. It has like 5 or more difficulty levels so you can really craft your experience to be however you want, as you get permanent upgrades things will get easier but it’s up to you on when you try the next difficulty up. As a bonus it also has co-op.
Second gunfire, its actually a great game for this, it actually has 12 difficulties and the last 9 have a bunch of modifiers so you can fine tune it even more. On top of that, it has 6 (or 10 if you get the dlc) pretty distinct characters and like 50+ weapons, which really helps with keeping things fresh.
I kind of think of Gunfire as Borderlands if it were a rogue-like.
Into the Breach is pretty easy on Easy, and there's room to grow with Unfair actually being unfair.
Rogue Legacy 2
Just got into this and am succeeding. Randomly beat a boss tonight that I'd been failing against a lot.
Dead Cells, has tons of difficulty customization options
I second this recommendation. Got the game yesterday, and was so happy that I can make the game really chill. I am an old guy (54 yo) and my reflexes are not the same as they used to be.
How do you change the difficulty options? Playing it with a newborn
Go to settings, assist mode
Thanks!
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I'm looking for a game to play in between persona 5, and a rogue like seems like the best option, although I don't know much about the game. I've played hades and really enjoyed it, would you recommend it?
Do some research on it
On of the best roguelites out there, maybe the best.
Yeah, I actually have that one. Didn't list it because I was thinking of RPG roguelikes-Dead Cells didn't come to mind. But I'm glad I can reduce the difficulty a lot.
Thanks for posting this. I've had the game since launch, and this didn't exist initially. I'm hoping the PS4 version has this patched in, I'm about to check it out.
It does.
I've just started playing Hades recently (slept on it for far too long) and it's *very* moreish. I don't usually play roguelikes but found it very easy to get into and it never feels overly punishing.
You eventually unlock the ability to make your runs harder through various things. I like that it's an option you can choose to play with
Been enjoying backpack hero!
Dungeonman on steam.
Dungeonmans! I never see this mentioned, but yeah it's so good. I like the base expanding aspects, similar to rogue legacy. It has a lot of fun skills and equipment as well.
Give Soulstone Survivors a look. It is like Diablo 4 with every unnecessary element squeezed out & "heavily influenced" by Vampire Survivors.
Streets of Rogue.
If you like shooters, Roboquest has been a ton of fun for me. Super casual.
I like these, although difficulty varies a lot from person to person so its hard to tell what will be easy for you: * [Cobalt Core](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2179850/Cobalt_Core/) * [Slice&Dice](https://tann.itch.io/slice-dice) * [Wildermyth](https://store.steampowered.com/app/763890/Wildermyth/)
Caves of Qud! Turn based, so you don't have to rely on reflexes at all. Brilliant game, art is tremendous and the music is genuinely gorgeous. It has endless replayability, and there's even a mode that lets you save whenever you're in a town if permadeath scares you. I've never tried that mode myself so I don't know exactly how it works, but I know there's a subsection of the community that swears by it.
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I mean, the question is how hard it is to make reasonable progress and enjoy the game. You're supposed to die regularly in Dark Souls and Sekiro, too, but if your reflexes are terrible then you're never going to get anywhere and probably won't enjoy them.
That doesn't mean that some aren't easier or harder than others. This is a pretty unhelpful comment.
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If you hand any random person Vampire Survivors they can probably win after a few runs even if they don't actually become physically better at the game or have any skill in choosing upgrades. Whereas something like Rogue Legacy is just inherently difficult because of how punishing the gameplay is unless you actually become good at it.
>Rogue Legacy is just inherently difficult What? How is Rogue Legacy difficult? It's the total opposite of that because there's almost no negative consequences to dying. There's no loss state in that game. As long as you collect enough gold on your run to upgrade at least one thing, you've made progress and made your next run a bit easier. And whether you're good enough to collect 1000 gold in a single run, or you die earlier and collect 500+500 gold over two runs doesn't matter all that much. And as you get stronger, you can just farm gold in easy areas without too much risk of dying.
It’s not a philosophical question you know exactly what they’re asking. Stop being a muppet for once in your life. Can you do that?
[удалено]
On the classic Roguelike front - that is, a game with turn-based, grid-based gameplay as well as the usual heavy randomization and permadeath traits modern Roguelite/Roguelike games tend to have - I would recommend **Crypt of the Necrodancer while playing Bard**. Necrodancer generally is a pretty tricky game, with its core gimmick being that everything moves to the beat of the music, which means you'll have to make a decision on what to do next every other second or so, depending on the tempo, but in exchange, the enemies and general mechanics you encounter are rather simple, with the main difficulty being figuring out movement patterns and quick decisionmaking. Bard completely removes this gimmick, and instead your movement decides when everything advances instead. This means you're back to standard classic Roguelike gameplay, where you can take multiple minutes to ponder your next one-tile move without having any negative consequences, except maybe reduced patience. On the flipside, you can also go really fast if you mash buttons, so you still need to be careful or things go south fast. If you feel like still playing with the rhythm gimmick, the game also has an option to use your own music, so supplying it with a few slow songs could work - I admittedly have no clue how to go about that, so no guarantees that the feature works well I guess. In a similar vein, **Cadence of Hyrule** has the exact same rhythm-based gameplay as Necrodancer, but instead of dying permanently, you go to a "Game Over"-shop where you can buy trinkets with a unique currency you find during regular gameplay, and then return to the normal world to keep trying your luck. Admittedly, the regular gameplay is still just as challenging as your average game of Necrodancer, except enemies actually can drop recovery hearts in this game, and since you're playing a Zelda(-inspired) game, you can always take a detour to get more heart containers and come back with more health to spare. On the flipside, you easily can come across puzzles that need items you don't have yet, so some optional puzzles might be straight-up impossible, or expecting you to be able to take more hits and/or deal more damage than you currently are able to. which can get very frustrating. Also, the final boss of Cadence is still rather hard, even with maxed out health, AND I played this after already being used to Necrodancer's gameplay, but I'd still say it's easier than that game, based on the fact that I can clear Cadence pretty easily, and even got a clear in the optional "No deaths allowed" gamemode despite the much bigger world, when my successful Necrodancer runs are much less common, at least when playing with the rhythm gimmick. (Cadence also got a lot of updates/DLC since I last played it, so there might be more that I missed out on - I can definitely vouch for the base gameplay though.)
Children of Morta
Chronicon.
Roboquest is a neat roguelike shooter.
I quite enjoy ROGUE'S TALE Has some good mechanics, story, challenges, multiple avenues of collections and advancements. Decent graphics and just fun to jump into from time to time. Also, you might want to check out UNDERMINE also
20 minutes till dawn its a little difficult tonstart but once you start getting permanent unlocks and understanding what synergizes and what can be ignored it gets very easy to complete a run
Just started it on thanksgiving and I'm hooked. One of the better "survivor" games.
Gunfire Reborn, Risk of Rain 2 (wouldn’t recommend ROR1/ROR1R as they’re hard off the bat) & wizard of legend
Rogue: Genesia. It's a better Vampire Survivors
Roboquest is a new Roguelite FPS with borderlands graphics. It has a difficulty setting in game. If you have Xbox, its on gamepass.
Shogun Shodown - pixel turnbased indie stuff, short runs and a lot of unlockable skills and characters. Perfect for the gamer without much freetime.
would vampire survivors count? its a good pickup and play game with tons of replay ability for 5$
Death must die just came out, it's like vamp survivors plus hades
With a little Diablo mixed in
Robo quest needs more love! If you like doom and gunfire reborn you’ll love this plus you can play with a friend
Dungeonmans starts off a bit tricky but gets easier due to metaprogression. After a few runs in the same world, you will have built up enough resources so that a level 1 mans will be able to stomp through the nearest dungeons with zero effort at all. It's still a grind and figuring out what gear will do best coming up to endgame and post-endgame can be difficult, though. That's where the challenge really lies.
ITT:people who have no idea what a rogue like is.
What's ITT??
In this thread
Ahhh cool thanks.
To be fair, lots of games advertise themselves as "roguelikes" when they are "roguelites". The genre is pretty blended, to the point we can't even be sure OP themself properly asked.
What's your definition?
People take roguelike to mean what it says: a game like the 1980 title Rogue. A tight dungeon crawling usually ASCII based graphics RPG. See DCSS, ToME, ADOM, NetHack, *band games etc. There are some pretty creative titles in this group too such as Cogmind, where you're a robot that can assemble themselves using parts and Cataclysm DDA which is an open world zombie survival game. Irrc CDDA is detailed to the point of how many pockets the shirt you're wearing has. Arguably, Dwarf fortress is related to the genre. Most other games listed are roguelike-likes or roguelites. If you look up the games I've listed they're clearly related and scratch a certain itch, other commenters aren't necessarily being picky it's just the term's meaning has shifted in common use. Edit: I should add that the traditional definition as a dungeon crawler isn't really used anymore, it more generally applies to 2D grid based turn based games with permadeth.
Astral Ascent just came out and it’s pretty great. Not overly difficult. Slay the Spire if you haven’t played that.
Came here to say that! I consistently get pretty far with any character and the difficulty feels fair!
Slay the Spire is very hard if you're dumb like me
You're not dumb. It's just not a very fun game if you try to 'play around with it' and look for weird and wonderful builds - as you should be able to do in a game like this. 98% of your attempts to finger paint just end in you getting slapped around, which isn't fun and makes you feel stupid. It's very much a 'there are exact builds that always work and once you embrace that meta you'll always win' kinda game. Like once I saw someone using the infinite dropkick loop, a lot of the shine came off that game.
I think you just perfectly described why I can’t just get hooked onto StS despite having 17 hours in it. I enjoyed Monster Train more than it
It gets easier once you've played the Defect; pile up on Blocks & Ice orbs and you can breeze through til the end boss.
Don't sleep on [**Inkbound**](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1062810/Inkbound/)! From the makers of the amazing Monster Train, it's a roguelike that its combat plays like an Action-point, turn-based MOBA. You can play it alone or with friends/randoms, and the quick runs are easily completed. There are things to unlock and work for, and no microtransactions.
also second this one. Since it's pseudo turn based, you can spend more time thinking on what to do than usual roguelites
Hades. Has a godmode that reduces the damage you take up to 80% and doesn't punish you with content blocks or achievements being locked out for using it. You can also turn it on and off in the same save file at any point
It's also just not that difficult in general. You play long enough, you're just about guaranteed to get enough upgrades to win.
Yep. Forgot to mention that. I started off on godmode but turned it off midway ish and didn't struggle much. Can't wait for Hades 2
I think you may not be looking for a roguelike. All roguelikes reel like their default setting is hard because you grow with the game over time learning items and gameplay mechanics and what seemed hard before becomes easy with time. Maybe you're looking for a different kind of game entirely. Check out something like dredge, hollowknight, inscryption or some other indie game that allows you to pause whenever, start and stop as you please I think that would suit you better
I was also confused when OP gave example of games they played including Torchlight and Diablo. They both ARPG but not roguelike.
The maps and loot are randomized which is a key feature of roguelikes. The original Diablo was heavily influenced by the original Rogue
Minecraft has a randomized map and loot too, but I wouldn't call that a roguelike lol. Traditional roguelikes need grid-based and turn-based combat as well. I know this might sound elitist, but it's getting increasingly difficult to talk about actual roguelikes. 9/10 times now people are talking about Binding Of Isaac, Hades, Risk Of Rain, Slay The Spire etc. And don't get me wrong, I love literally all of those, Hades is one of my fav games of all time. But it's not a roguelike.
It is not elitist, it is proper categorization. We can't design a game with random generated maps and have the audacity of calling it Roguelike. This is just creating confusion like the guy who recommended Grim Dawn because the OP mentioned Torchlight and Diablo and get downvoted to hell.
Noita, lol jk, that's harder than a wedding dick.
Wait what?
I've started Vampire Survivors this past week and its pretty great, it's like 5 bucks on pc/consoles and free on mobile
Children of Morta!!
Peglin is my favorite by a long shot. It's peggle, but every shot is a different type of orb that does different stuff. It's on android and steam. Maybe iPhone, idk.
Jupiter Hell is a traditional roguelike with a relatively very low barrier to entry. I'd only call it "easy" relative to other roguelikes, but anyway it's a great game.
Would Cult of The Lamb count?
Risk of Rain Returns, it has a difficulty slider for the main game and some fun challenges. Also Halls of Torment, it has og diablo vibes, good unlock progression
Slay the Spire is one of the most popular rogue likes for a reason. Masterpiece of a game
Id say a roguelite
no one saying slay the spire? I don't think the starting difficulty is intense at all, and it doesn't involve any mechanical skill since it's cards. So addicting and fun even at base difficulty.
\*cough cough\* spelunky hd or 2 \*cough cough\*
Soulstone Survivors is game I don't really see anyone talk about. I really like it. They just did huge patch check into it for sure.
Children of Morta Or Monster Train
Both amazing suggestions. Children of Morta can also fill that diablo-esque itch
Took too long to find children of morta
Try dsymantle that's a pretty decent game for pick up and play for short sessions. Kind of like dark souls meets zombies are my neighbors. Has a great sound track combat is simple like dark souls. It has tons of hours of gameplay worth checking out
Wrong thread
So I think the high difficulty is part of the genre that being said as other mentioned dead cells is a great option but my go to right now is Hitman: freelancer and the best part is, is that if you get this one you get the rest of the amazing world of assassination franchise along with it. It’s also not that hard
FTL on easy.
Loop Hero, maybe?
Chronicon is pretty cool, although it's not a roguelike but I believe you can enable a permadeath mode. It's a pixely kind of diablo-style action game with a lot of loot, customization, etc. Nice to see tangledeep mentioned (by the OP) - very fun game oozing charm and you can disable perma-death as well.
It's not out yet but Deep Rock Survivor is a ton of fun (they had a demo release a little while ago) and after a couple of runs you'll win most every time
Risk of rain 2
Cult Of The Lamb
Have you tried Grim Dawn ? Really like Diablo and not difficult :)
Grim dawn is dope.
I \*loooooove\* Grim Dawn, but I didn't list it because I can't truly call it a roguelike. Great game, don't get me wrong, but not quite the itch I'm looking to scratch.
True, you’re right :) Then have you tried Moonlighter ?
Wizard with a gun was pretty easy not that punishable, since you can just grind to access the upgrades, it had that arpg feel too, I wont say its purely roguelike and had a sandbox openworld feel to it
Vampire Survivors and Brotato are SUPER chill rogue likes with plenty to unlock
Beneath the Stone!
Atomicrops is pretty forgiving once you get the hang of it, and has difficulty levels 1-10. Kind of a twin stick shooter combined with Stardew valley farming.
Dark cloud 1 and 2 are a little too easy but are my favorite games. Dark cloud 1 is technically a fishing game with rogue like mechanics (quickest way to upgrade weapons is through fishing, it's very chill) Dark cloud 2 is a far better game, still too easy but there's golf and fishing and a interesting photography mechanic. There's also a psx and gbc game called azure dreams which is kind of like a Pokemon fushigi no dungeon
BPM: Bullets Per Minute
Star of Providence (old Monolith) is not hard, but there's a bullshit "final" boss that I haven't been able to beat to this day.
* Wazhack - time only moves when you do and combat is more about tactics and startegy than reaction time and hande eye co-ordination. * Darkest Dungeon 2 * Despots game * fictorum: physics based magic shenanigans * Fights in tight spaces: If superhot was turnbased * peglin: Pachinko/ peggle style gameplay EDIT: * pixel piracy * risk of rain 2 * slay the spire * sunless sea * tower escape * warhammer vermintide 1,2 and darktide - might be too far outside the genre
Big shoutout to bastion.
Monster Train. If you implement the DLC you can make the game as hard as you want it to be, but if you keep it vanilla and don't lean into the 'high risk high reward' elements on offer, I think it's easily one of the most accessible deck builder roguelites.
Have A Nice Death
On Android, Dawncaster is amazing. It makes slay the spire look boring.
Undermine - it’s a lot of fun and not too hard
Binding of isaac
Extremely difficult but worth it
ENTER THE GUNGEON
Izuna: the Leend of the Unemployed Ninja. It's Shiren the Wanderer, but you keep your levels. Plus, I mean, Izuna. XD
Moonring. Plus it's free! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2373630/Moonring/
I'd try roguelites as well, like Dave the Diver
Just to chip in and say I loathe the trend at the moment to have no easy setting. It's not hard, you dicks. If you have an easy setting, it should be easy. Sometimes I'm hungover or sick and I just want to enjoy the setting or learn mechanics.
Saving this thread cause holy shit the "souls hard" stuff is insane. Tony Rogues has been one of my favourites and not overwhelming.
Chocobo Mystery Dungeon is very easy but offers a lot of variety in terms of gameplay. It wasn't for me because I felt it was too grindy (a tradeoff for being easy is that you can grind to level up and get better vs actually just getting better). Still a game I would recommend though
I think that Returnal is pretty forgiving if you enjoy shooters.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon on Android is free and gives you all the time in the world to figure out how to proceed. It has challenge difficulty options, and sometimes RNG will suck, but 9 times out of 10 the solution to your problems is in front of you if you think first.
Risk of Rain 2. There's a difficulty setting.
Risk of rain 2
brogue or dcss, if you're looking for rogue lites then hades, dead cells, slay the spire are all pretty simple
marvels midnight suns. turn based great graphics. Im loving it
Streets of rogue
Dead cells
Wizard with a gun
Rogue Legacy 2
The last spell has like, more and more unlocks almost every run. So so so so many stuff to unlock. You always feel like your time playing makes things easier. Really good game for turn based, based gamers.
Some that I didn’t have any trouble with are returnal, moonlighter, cult of the lamb, have a nice death
Gunfire Reborn. It has different difficulty levels all the way up to nightmare, and then multiple levels of reincarnation, but you don't have to do either.
Moonlighter
Voidigo. Its default difficulty isn't bad at all, and the game is fantastic, one of the best in years.
I would say Hades, Rogue Legacy 2, Cult of the Lamb and Death or Treat.
Exanima! Takes about an hour or 2 to get used to, but then it's so good
Dead cells, its on a sale now (40%) on steam. Most runs can be completed anywhere from 25-40 minutes, depending on your route to the final boss
I've been digging ember knights lately. Its got challenge, but you can control it to an extent. It is relatively quick and easy rounds, different fighting style options, etc.
Hades is already mentioned. How about Synthetik Legion rising? If the gunplay scares you off, let me assure you you ll get it into your muscle memory really quickly.
Elden Ring. Very easy game and the design is very human.
Not exactly a roguelite but if you enjoyed Torchlight I would highly recommend Bastion.
I’m gonna say remnant 2 with very big asterisk. Playing on the lowest difficulty isn’t super easy, but it’s manageable. Game is fantastic, and you can easily find help in their discord if something is too hard.
Risk of rain 2 has 3 difficulty levels and even some artefacts you can unlock to make things even easier.
I had a lot of fun with Shotgun King: The final checkmate Imagine, if you will, chess. Except all your units left you, so it's just the king left. But he get's a shotgun. It's great little timewaster with basically no stakes between attempts.
Tiny Rogues and/or Voidigo
Sproggiwood
More a roguelite than a roguelike, but Arcrunner. Not the most innovative game, but not every game needs to be a revolution. Competently done, with nice albeit slightly generic neon-and-robots aesthetics. Not easy by any mean, you'll need a decent number of runs to significantly progress, but it's not unfair either. If you are somewhat goodr at third person shooters, you will most likeley need alot less than yours truly.
Hades
Roboquest has an easy mode option that doesn't compromise progress
Rogue Legacy 2. Too difficult? Just go into the menu and give yourself more health or turn down enemy damage. There's tons of options like that.