Legerdemain is clearly a rogue-like game; you play a single character ina fantasy world represented by ASCII graphics, with a variety of character classes and a levelling-up system. Yet in many ways, it defeats the expected tropes of the genre.
For one thing, in the original Rogue, all levels were algorithmically generated. While many Rogue-likes throw in a few planned levels at times, they still generate most levels from scratch. This has an upside and a downside; the good thing is that the game never plays the same way twice. The bad is that you can get killed by the luck of the draw -- the dice can roll, as it were, in such a way that a particular level is just an absolute killer for your character class or level, or so that, say, you never encounter some critical items you need. It works out, however; you die constantly in Rogue-likes, but the next time you play, it's different. A very different dynamic from a console RPG, say.
Legerdemain is much closer to the RPG experience; levels are designed, not generated, and the focus is not on levelling up and getting phat loot, but on exploring the world -- and the story.
Yes, story. Oh, most Rogue-likes have a sort of vestigial story, some boss doohickey way in the basement you have to get to and kill, but it doesn't amount to much. Legerdermain's designer, however, has a very definite story to tell -- and it unfolds in a more-or-less traditional way, via conversations with NPCs and quests to fulfill.
Naturally, this also has its good side and its bad side; as in other Rogue-likes, death is permanent, and it's somewhat tedious to go back and explore through the same environments as before (most of Legerdemain is in the wilderness, not the dungeon); thankfully, the game is also much more forgiving than most Rogue-likes (except in rare cases, there's a pretty obvious way to escape from most perilous circumstances). And on the good side? It's also a lot less frustrating than most Rogue-likes, where you can easily churn through a dozen characters in a single evening.
As such, of course, it may well apppeal more to players who find Rogue-likes problematic; and it is, to be sure, an interesting attempt to do something different with the form.
