Dungeons of Dredmor (edit: and nethack) is the only Roguelike in this list.

Rogue is not a Roguelike, because it is what Roguelikes are based upon.

Perma-death does not a Roguelike make.

@canteu: WHAT ABOUT NETHACK CANTEU?

I consider Roguelike to mean "has a lot of qualities found in the game Rogue", which Rogue unquestionably does.

Rogue is what Roguelike's are based on. Apart from Nethack all these games have roguelike elements but are not roguelikes themselves.

It's cliché to say but the term Roguelike is touted about waaaaay to much and has lost a lot of its meaning.

Only true roguelikes in the list are nethack, dungeons of dreadmor and Dwarf Fortress (adventure mode), Rogue is not rogue"like" it's just Rogue :P

Also Receiver, oregon trail and spelunky? those couldn't be farther from being a roguelike, it really sorta pisses me off when people call a game roguelike just because there is permadeath and some randomization involved..

clearly you never played nethack nor dwarf fortress

@rubzo: But it's not like Rogue, since it IS Rogue. It's like saying "that monkey is pretty monkeylike". Just don't make no damn sense!

@samstrife: I actually didn't see that in the list. Nethack counts too.

Dredmor, NetHack, and I guess Dwarf Fortress in dungeon mode or whatever it's called are rougelikes.

The rest have elements of rougelikes it different ways, but that's it, they arn't 'like' Rogue any more at that point, just sharing some design ideas.

and of course Rogue itself doesn't count.

@onarum: Dwarf Fortress is so weird because whilst it has all the qualities of a Roguelike (at least in adventure mode) it's hard to call it one. It feels almost like it's transcended that moniker.

Would you describe the Sun as, "like the Sun because it has a lot of sun like qualities?" Of course you wouldn't because that's silly.

@onarum: All I've seen of dwarf fortress is the town building stuff. Didn't seem very Roguelike to me, but if there's another mode then I shall defer of course! And yeah, I didn't see Nethack.

@samstrife: Bad example Sam! You could totally compare another sun to our sun, due to it sharing our suns qualities, such as being yellow. Silly hedgehog!

Absolutely. This stems from having a mathematical/formal logic education, you get to say a lot of really silly and obvious - yet true - things.

@canteu: Doesn't being the first of a genre include it in that genre?

On topic, the definition of Roguelike seems to be "a game characterized by random dungeons and permanent death", so a lot of those are Roguelikes. Saying that only games exactly like Rogue can be Roguelikes is like saying that the only FPS games are those like Wolfenstein - there's a lot that can be done with the idea.

@rubzo: That just seems needlessly tedious and whilst technically true, it's not something someone would every say because it's so dumb.

@canteu: I HATE YOU!

Welcome to my life. :'(

Stop splitting hairs and PLAY THE GAME

@believer258: You have to consider though, they must share enough similarities such as the layout and generally the design style to be considered Roguelike, at least that's how I feel.

Frankly comparing Spelunky to Rogue is like comparing Gears of War to Halo. Yes they both have guns and you shoot guys (read perma-death and random dungeons), but one is first person and the other is third person, thus seperating them by genre.

@samstrife I love you Sam!

@believer258: you make a good point

@samstrife: well, I guess you could say that, it doesn't really has the single obligatory multilevel dungeon from which you have to retrieve an item or kill a monster, also the insane combat systems is in a league of its own, still I consider it a roguelike.

@canteu: you should most definitely try it, it's freaking awesome

I don't think I should've voted by reading your comments...I guess I don't really understand what a roguelike is and isn't...

wow... spelunky had the most votes(by the time I wrote this), wtf?

yeah people really have no idea what a roguelike really is, calling spelunky a roguelike is the same as calling COD an RPG(because of leveling up)

Genre distinction discussions aren't that interesting anyway. If one wants to discuss if a particular game's Rogue-Like qualities then go for it but I don't see the compelling reason to build up a list of "is/is not".

Rogue is a roguelike, because the definition of "rougelike" is not merely "like Rogue," but is a genre that includes Rogue. Anyway, I believe in the Berlin Interpretation. Everything else is just a roguelite or a roguelikelike.

Are people really so uptight about this? Personally I throw the term around when a game has permadeath and some level of randomization going on. Then we can separate the games with the help of more genres. ADOM is an obtrusive, ugly, roguelike RPG game while Spelunky is a roguelike platformer.

Here we go again. Bunch of semantics about words.

@jams: why even have words if we aren't going to use them for their specific purposes. We may as well just grunt and point right? Babies seem to do just fine just crying, maybe we should do that instead.

People get too hung up on categories. They all borrow elements, and so to some degree, are like Rogue. Some much more than others.

This this this this this.

Any kind of genre discussion where people are asked to definitively place something in one category but not another is a recipe for a really boring conversation. Especially with roguelikes, since there's a lot of grognards that are inexplicably super wound-up about that term.

If people want to consider random maps and permanent death definitive rogue like qualities, then so be it. Arguing over technicalities seems pointless when the majority seem to not care. I'm sure in a couple years we won't call games with those features rogue likes anymore anyways. Just like we stopped calling first person shooters, "Doom clones".

Calling a game like Receiver a rogue like seems to be fitting enough even if it doesn't have ASCII graphics. It's not like Rogue has a plethora of features that'd make it harder to discern from other games. It's an ASCII graphics based RPG where the dungeons monsters and loot are randomly generated and death is permanent. Most of those games (save for Diablo) feature most of the Rogue feature set. ASCII graphics where just a product of the time and shouldn't really be considered a staple of Rogue. So how again are those games not rogue likes?

Wait, Spelunky is not a roguelike...?

First line from the game's wiki:

Spelunky is a freeware 2D roguelike platformer ...

I guess someone needs to edit that wiki.

I don't know what Rogue is.

I wanna know what Rogue is. I want you to show me. I wanna feel what Rogue is. I know you can show me.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that, not too long ago, nobody very few people knew what the fuck a roguelilke was. Now that there are a bunch of games borrowing the concepts of permanent death and random levels, the label has spread, and now everybody's throwing it around.

Not that I mind really - I mean, those concepts weren't really widespread until recently. I'm fine with a game that has random levels and permanent death using the term "roguelike," because words change over time. But only if those are core parts of the gameplay, and not part of some sort of "super hardcore" mode (like Diablo, for instance). Also, I'd say the level of randomization needed for a game to be called a roguelike would have to be complete - every level being randomly generated and different from the last, and not just partial randomization. Other than that, I'm okay with the term roguelike being applied to games like Spelunky or Isaac. In fact, I think it's kind of cool that these core concepts of roguelikes are being applied to genres that haven't featured them before.

But that's just my opinion.

The fact that NetHack and Dredmor haven't been picked by every person voting pretty much invalidates this poll.

How the fuck are there more votes for anything than NetHack?

Clearly, you people are uncivilized beasts.

It's impossible to use the word roguelike without a dozen neckbeards getting bent out of shape about it so I've decided to embrace the term roguelite and put every single roguelike in that bucket. Essentially, this means that there is Rogue, no roguelikes, and hundreds or thousands of roguelites.

It is super annoying how anything with perma-death is considered a roguelike. Is every game where you can save and reload a doom-like?

There is a DoomRL, though. Only one I've played.

Roguelikes are tile based turn-ish based (where an action you take is equal to an action your enemy takes and nothing acts unless you do). You die forever. Its randomized and it has 87 keybindings that make no sense (wait reload in the page down key?).

The Binding of Isaac is a dual stick shooter with perma-death.

I guess Skyrim is a 3D roguelike with a set world.

Hell people call Dark Souls a roguelike.

I'm just gonna call everything a roguelike rogue-like everyone else.

Also World of Warcraft is my favorite FPS.

DON'T LABEL ME