Character display

A Character display is an output format that relies in characters to represent information; character display was the main output format for all software in the 80's, where using extended ASCII it was possible to create simple menues and GUIs, even using the mouse.

The character display in roguelikes is however different; instead of representing words or graphical components of a GUI, each character has a meaning on its own.

This is one of the basic characteristics of roguelikes, although it is not a deciding one as the developer may not feel comfortable with it and would instead go with a Graphical Display.

There are some Adventure and RPG games that have a character display similar to the roguelikes, but that on failure in the other most important features don't qualify as roguelikes.