Roguelikes: permadeath, procedural generation and all that

Roguelike games are role-playing games (RPGs) in which randomness has a major role (first and foremost in the creation of the RPG world). They are usually defined by a turn-based gameplay and, quite often, by the permanent death of the character controlled by the player. These factors together greatly raise the game's replayability. Traditional roguelikes are dungeon crawl games in ASCII display. Legendary roguelikes are Rogue, ADOM, Nethack, and Angband.

Most popular roguelike games

Hack

rpgDOS

Castle of the Winds

rpgWindows 3.x

Rogue

rpgWindows XP/98/95, DOS, Linux, Mac

Roguelike games

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AlphaMan

DOS19953.7/5
Amulet of Yendor

DOS19853.6/5 Keypunch Software
Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM) v1.1

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinux1996freeware4/5
Angband

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinux1992freeware4/5
Beneath Apple Manor

DOS1983freeware4.1/5
Castle of the Winds

Windows 3.x1993freeware4.2/5 SaadaSoft

Castle of the Winds (1993, by Saadasoft) is a perfect example of an atypical roguelike (no ASCII, runs in Windows) turned into a liberated game. Surprisingly Castle of the Winds is still very playable to this day, if you can make it run under a recent version of Windows.
DND

DOS19844.1/5
Dungeon Crawl

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinux1997freeware3.9/5

Dungeon Crawl (also known as Linley's Dungeon Crawl from the name of the original programmer: Linley Henzell) is a classic roguelike: an RPG with permadeath, procedural generation and high replayability. Dungeon Crawl was released on 1997 but it's not maintained anymore. The spiritual successr of Crawl is DCCS (Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup).
Evets

DOS1988freeware3.5/5 SAck Enterprizes
Hack

DOS1984freeware3.8/5
Incursion

Windows XP/98/95LinuxMac2007freeware3.8/5
Larn

DOS1986freeware4/5
Moraff's Revenge

DOS19883.8/5 Moraffware
Moria

DOS1992freeware3.9/5
NetHack

DOS1987freeware3.7/5
NetHack - Falcon's Eye

Windows XP/98/952001freeware3.8/5
Omega

DOSLinux1988freeware4.3/5
Oubliette

DOS19833.3/5
Ragnarok

DOS1993freeware4.1/5 Gray Design Associates
Reaping The Dungeon

DOS19934.2/5 Frontline Software
Rogue

Windows XP/98/95DOSLinuxMac19844.3/5 Artificial Intelligence Design

Rogue is one of the first RPGs in the history of video gaming. It's a text-based dungeon crawler in which you have to fight your way in the dungeon to recover the Amulet of Yendor. Rogue became popular around 1980 on mainframes and later ported to various platforms, including DOS in 1984. Rogue is simply the father of all the roguelike games that c...
Slash'Em

Windows XP/98/95Linux1997freeware4.2/5
TomeNET

Windows XP/98/95Linux2003freeware4.3/5
UnReal World v. 3.20

Windows XP/98/95Mac1992freeware4.1/5
Warp Rogue

Windows XP/98/95Linux2004freeware3.9/5
WitchavenRL

Windows XP/98/95Linux20133.8/5