About Roguedex

Roguedex is an independent guide to roguelites and roguelikes. It brings together creator rankings, critic scores, player reviews and sales estimates in one place, so you can find your next run and understand what makes these games tick.

Where the data comes from

• Store and player data: the Steam store and Steam’s public review summaries.
• Sales: estimates from VG Insights. They’re models, not official figures, and each one is labelled as an estimate.
• Critics: Metacritic and OpenCritic, where available.
• Creator rankings: each creator is credited on every page that uses their ranking, with links back to the original video or episode. We show their tier placements and our own short summaries of their views, never their words at length. Current creators: PepperHead (his “Ranking the Best Designed Roguelikes” series and yearly top 10s, compiled unofficially), GROGPOD and RoguePod. More are being added.
• What players say: our summaries of Steam reviews and community discussion.

How the consensus score works

Each ranked game gets a score from 0 to 100:

• Creators, 50%. Each creator’s tier sets a band (S 85–99, A 70–84, B 55–69, C 40–54, D 25–39, F 10–24), and the game’s place within that tier moves it inside the band. Some creators grade harshly and some generously, so half of each creator’s overall lean is removed: a D from a tough grader counts for less than a D from a generous one. Each creator counts once, using their latest all-time list; subgenre lists (bullet heavens, deckbuilders) count half, only for games the all-time list doesn’t cover. Topical lists and tournaments are shown but not counted. A game with only one or two creator mentions is pulled toward what its player reviews predict, so one creator’s outlier is tempered but a game players love, often a new release older lists couldn’t include, stays high. GROGPOD scores games out of 10 rather than publishing tiers, so its tiers are derived from those scores.
• Players, 30%. The lower bound of a 95% confidence interval on Steam’s positive share, so games with few reviews don’t get a free ride.
• Critics, 20%. The average of Metacritic and OpenCritic.

The consensus tier comes from the full blended score, with S covering approximately the top 6% of ranked games, A the next 16%, B the next 33%, C the next 28%, D the next 12%, and F the rest. If a game has no critic score, the other two parts are reweighted. Games no creator has ranked yet show player and critic scores only.

Independence

• Rankings and scores are never for sale.
• This is a fan project. It isn’t affiliated with any creator, developer or publisher.
• The people behind this site also make games. If we ever feature one of our own, it will be clearly labelled and kept out of every ranking and score.

Corrections

Spotted a wrong tier, a missing game or a broken link? Corrections are welcome; a contact address is coming soon.