Two $100,000 winners this week and a few other projects close to the finish line. While I was compiling the column this week, I realised I was keeping track of the number of projects that apparently ‘contained roguelike elements’. It’s about 90%, although to be fair I stopped keeping track almost as soon as I’d started so that figure is entirely made up. Perhaps my memory fails me, but I don’t recall the term being anything like as popular 12 months ago. Of course, some would argue that the meaning has been lost and that anything with procedural generation or a modicum of difficulty is now wearing the roguelike hat, but that in itself surely tells us something. Games want to be like rogue, which is far more agreeable than the days when every other one wanted to be like a soldier or a space marine.

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