Typed Genealogical Trees
Genre stops being an arbitrary marketing folder and becomes an evolutionary tree with arguments. Every lineage edge is typed and supported by developer testimony, patent citations, or timestamped rule diffs.
Roguelike & Roguelite Evolution
The evolutionary transition from turn-based ASCII grid dungeon crawls to real-time action platformers and deck-building roguelites.
Verifiable Directed Relationships (7)
Primary Evidence: Jay Fenlason expanded Rogue's C code with weapon shops and pets.
Primary Evidence: The DevTeam formed in 1987 to merge Hack variants into canonical NetHack.
Primary Evidence: David Brevik's original 1994 Diablo design pitch cited ASCII Rogue as direct inspiration, initially intended as turn-based.
Primary Evidence: Derek Yu explicitly credited NetHack's emergent item physics with creating Spelunky's procedural action platforming.
Primary Evidence: Edmund McMillen cited Spelunky's run structure combined with Zelda 1 dungeon generation.
Primary Evidence: Cellar Door Games introduced persistent cross-run gold inheritance, codifying the 'roguelite' meta-progression formula.
Primary Evidence: Supergiant Games combined room-clearing boon drafting with iterative narrative progression across death loops.