Right, roguelikes in a lot of ways are similar to ye old arcade and console games that were short on content but were very challenging; the 'content' was effect

Right, roguelikes in a lot of ways are similar to ye old arcade and console games that were short on content but were very challenging; the 'content' was effectively that you had to die a whole lot and reset back to the beginning of the game, gradually getting further each time as you got better. Contra for the NES would be an excellent example of this. The whole game lasts less than an hour for even a moderately-paced run, but it's quite difficult if you're not used to that specific type of game, so in practice it'll take much longer than that for most people to beat it, as they have to restart multiple times. Same deal for Super Mario Bros 1. Roguelikes are the same kind of loop, but with the improvement that the levels are somewhat different each time. They're still usually similar enough in style/theme/enemies that skills carry over from run to run, but you at least can't just brute force memorize everything. You have to Git Gud or you'll be stuck forever.