Development status

A rogue-like can go through a number of development statuses on its way to becoming the next NetHack. These categories are used for the Status summary of a roguelike and also to categorize Roguelikes by.

• Talkie talkie projects: A project that has not yet seen the light of day. There has been enough talk about the project to warrant an entry that discusses it, but no evidence of the project has been released to the world.
• Alpha projects: Alpha projects are roguelike games which, while released, are not yet playable. This means you should not be surprised if there is no win condition, or no monsters, or things generally go bad after the character creation screen.
• Beta projects: Beta projects are roguelike games which, while available to the public, are not yet ready to judged as finished products. Unlike Alpha projects, they have progressed to the point where they are fun and enjoyable games if you can handle a few sharp corners.
• Stable games: Stable games are roguelikes that the authors have believed reached a level of maturity that allows them to be judged as games in themselves. Often, development is still ongoing, as rogue-likes are hardly ever finished. (Except for those that were developed in a definite amount of time, like Dungeon Monkey and the 7DRLs, of course.)
• Defunct projects: the game is no longer under development.