I have tried examining how 'roguelike' Minecraft is! To do so, I have read up on a few attemp to define roguelike. Stevedog13 suggested , for which I am grateful! I also took a look at [url=http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Berlin_Interpretation]Berlin Interpretation and Screw the Berlin Interpretation, and of course the posts in this thread.

Game mechanics are in focus, not eyecandy
I think Minecraft passes this one. While high-res tilesets exists, almost all Minecraft players uses the standard tileset, where each tile is 16x16 pixels.

Eating and resource management
Minecraft has a hunger system, and there's lots of different food sources: gathering, fishing, hunting and agriculture. The player has a limited inventory.

Each new game should give a fresh experience
Minecraft passes this one too. This feature is primary a result of the procedurally generated environment, but also because:

The lack of eyecandy enables lots of variation in the actual game
Text-based games allows a lot of crazy ideas, like crafting a bladed sniper handgun in Zafehouse Diaries. This is possible because unlike 3D games, text-based games don't need to design, texture and animate every single object in the game.
Minecraft is 3D, which means that each object in the game need to be designed, textured and animated. So Minecraft is less roguelike than ASCII roguelikes in this area. However, the box-based aestetics and the low resolution pixelart textures means that this isn't a large hinderage for creating obscure content such as the Zombie Chicken Jockey.

Dungeon & Dragon inspired hack'n slash dungeoncrawler
There are so many feelings tied to this trope that it is worth a mention, even if its not considered fundamental to the roguelike genre. Minecraft only marginally fits in here.

Slowly creating something from scratch.
I think this is an important element of roguelike, and a reason why Race The Sun and a lot of other games with permadeath and procedural generated levels don't qualifies. The player carefully construct something, under the constant treat of permadeath. He may build a level 43 dwarf necromancer in a turn-based dungeoncrawler, or a farm with a giant tower in Minecraft, but the satisfaction is the same.

A clear overview of the environment
I'm not sure this is in any way important. On the contrary, I believe that unknown parameters like unidentified loot or invisible areas outside the players field of view are fundamental features, not bugs. On the same token, I don't see why lots of numbers makes a game 'more roguelike'.
But okay, let's compare:
Rogue's console screen consisted of 25x80 blocks. In Minecraft, the player is able to see as far as 512 blocks in either direction. So if this is important, then Minecraft is far more roguelike here than Rogue ever was.

Turn-based
Obviously, Minecraft is not turn-based! Then again, I have never understood the importance of this aspect. I have played Zafehouse Diaries (turn-based) and Don't Starve (not turn-based) and I never experienced anything that made me feel that the former were a truer form of roguelike. But:

Abstinence and virtue
I think there is some sort of dogma at play here. This may be the key reason why roguelike is the only genre where a lot of players insist that the label only applies to games which are faithful clones of a single 30 year old game. ASCII characters or simple tilesets to represent the entire gaming world, grid-based movement, turn based play and lots of numbers can all be tied together under the abstinence label. Minecraft fails this one.

Yet Another Stupid Death
The deaths should be fair. Every time you die, You should know exactly what you did wrong, and learn from it. Minecraft passes this one.

Turn based mean every decision you take is not motivated by time ; you can spend as much time as you want in making each decision, then if you fail it's not because you were rushed.

Don't Starve is not roguelike

I think a few of the games that encompass Roguelike the most are Fatal Labyrinth on Sega Genesis (every item but weapons and armor are given a random color from canes to scrolls to potions) and has no save recover. You can "save" the game every 5 floors as long as you don't die. Don't eat too much food, either as it will kill you.

I also like Pixel Dungeon and its derivatives on Android (and iOS..?). That also has randomized item color or id (scrolls and potions) and saves you quite frequently (due to the mobile nature of the game) however there is no save recovery feature upon death. You also burn through food faster with heavier armor on.


Rogue likes have always been what I consider time killers since I've never made it to the end of one and there's no way to truly learn from experience other than very general ideas like how enemies behave or which weapons are best for you if you get lucky enough to find the right one.

I don't like strict definitions, but marking Minecraft a Roguelike stretches that particular definition so much that it would cease to be relevant :-P Now, presuming your post is not just pointless flame baiting, I'll establish this to start off:

Guides broken down to individual points can (and I suppose often are) used as a 'proof' in case someone can't quite decide whether or not a game is or isn't Roguelike - in otherwords, games which are exceptionally close to rogue, but omit some key elements. Rogue was, at its base, an open RPG with important element of permadeath, turn-based combat and overhead perspective. I believe it was hedwards who told me that even a change of perspective changes a lot about a game - and, in retrospect, yeah, he's right. Which brings me to...

Yes, thus being called rogue-likes. Games which are like the original Rogue. They don't need to be a 1:1 copy obviously, but they do need to transfer the key elements of the original game. Roguelike more or less refers to topdown, turn-based, procedurally generated RPG with an important inclusion of permadeath and focus on player choice. As far as I understand it, roguelike is mostly a term for precisely that - and if a game is not like that, well, it can use any other combination of genre definitions to fit in, instead of trying to shape the term 'Roguelike' around itself in spite of the fact that it's nothing like Rogue. So let's see, Minecraft...

- ain't topdown. Important shift in gameplay, regardless of how many tiles can you see (it's about spacial awareness as opposed to field of view, you'll find that games like Sword of the Stars: The Pit actually implements cone of vision feature)

- ain't turnbased. Which completely changes dynamic of the game. In Minecraft, you don't get to think about any arisen situation - you just have to improvise out of it, somehow.

- Procedurally generated - oh yeah, it's got this part down. Of course, the procedural generation focuses on completely different aspects than that of a roguelike would.

- ain't an RPG - it has some minor RPG elements, but calling Minecraft an RPG would be a massive stretch. There's no character development, no choice-based storyline, no world which would react to you, pretty much any of the numerous conflicting definitions of an RPG would not rate Minecraft as one. Yea, it's got an inventory and crafting.

- ain't permadeath - when you die, you respawn. You don't lose your generated world and often enough, you don't even lose your stuff, as long as you manage to retreive it.

- focus on player choice - sure, Minecraft has that in spades. Of course, it's not a choice of how to build your character and how to beat a massive dungeon, but it has player choice.

To be fit for any detailed comparisons, a game would need to get trough the passing comparison first, which Minecraft would fail completely.

Now, due to how restrictive the term is, is there a chance of it dying off completely? Sure, if no more games like Rogue are made. Is that a bad thing? Nah (well, aside from the idea that games like rogue would stop to be made). I would much prefer an outdated term to stop being used than for it to transform into something else entirely, with said something else being utterly non-descriptive.

I have another question: Since we already have genre definitions which can describe pretty much any of the not-quite-roguelike games perfectly, why do some people insist on using the term roguelike? Clearly, those games are nothing like Rogue. I'm not going to call Fallout 3 a Doom clone because you get to shoot guns in it (and indeed, that is the reason why the term died off in the first place).

I don't think Roguelike even is a genre. It's just ... Games which are similar to rogue. A bunch of genres developed from ruguelikes, and into those genres, roguelikes can now be classified.

Try Tome4. Not only is it free minus the expansion pack. You may find it to your liking. But truth be told I think the game mechanics and UI are so non-intuitive I can't play it...yeah, even for free >_>

I should point out, you can buy the expansion pack here on GOG...and technically buy the main free version with a few added items.

Oh, sorry if that was unclear. I meant Minecraft in hardcore mode.

But I think the essense here is that your fraction talks about clones of the game Rogue, while my fraction talks about a wider genre of which Rogue-clones are merely one subgenre out of many.
So if we rename your understanding of roguelike to "Rogue-clones" and we likewise rename my understanding of roguelike to "Mortal Adventure", we have [click on attached image]

Look, your diagram is fine. But only the circle you label "Rogue Clones" are what people call Roguelike. That's it. None of the other ones on your pic are Roguelikes.

I don't care how you feel about the definition. It's a term that is out there and it does mean something. If you tell me to try this new game Don't Strarve, it's a great roguelike, I will be quite cross with you for misleading me.

Sorry, but some people do use the Roguelike label in the way that causes so much grief. This is not an attemp to attack the Rogue-clones, but simply because we currently have no other label to use for this wider genre.

No. There are people who are confused about the definition, but anyone who has played Rogue, Nethack, and the like, are not confused.

Please remove Don't Starve from your GOG mix.
You can also take Spelunky off.

Several of the rest do not look like roguelikes, either, but I haven't played them so can't say for sure.

EDIT: Oh, my gosh. I just realized you are using Steam's tag system to find roguelikes. Don't you realize that those tags are added at will by any user. They are not checked for accuracy. They are not checked even for being reasonable. You cannot use a Steam tag to argue a definition.

I haven't played any of these games, from what I gather from this thread roguelike isn't a genre. A roguelike is a clone of Rogue. Full Stop.

Roguelite might function as a genre in the way that a game with strong RPG elements is usually classed as an RPG even if it's missing other key elements--or if it contains extra elements.

BTW, I actually think it's the exclusiveness makes the term roguelike useless rather than the other way around. Rather, it's little more than an exclusive title for about a dozen games.

I guess the real question is, what genre is a roguelike in?

Yes, this is kind of the problem here - there is no way of quickly defining game like Don't Starve without saying 'roguelike'. The term may be "wrong" but its the closest label I can find. In my gogMix I called that game "realtime roguelike", which at least tell clearly that it isn't turn-based.

I have updated my gogMix - I think the original opening-statement were a bit too agressive against Rogue-clones.

I searched for a Roguelike Minecraft-clone (Roguelike here understood as in "rogue-clone") I found this little thing called Wayward:
http://www.pcgamer.com/wayward-a-fantastic-sandbox-survival-roguelike-set-on-a-hostile-desert-island/
http://www.indiedb.com/games/wayward/images

When searching for this, I saw this article about FTL:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/EricSchwarz/20120921/178116/FTL_Roguelikes__Freedom_vs_Choice.php

I think that all you're doing is taking an existing term "roguelike" and substituting your own creation "rogue clone." I don't think this adds any clarity to the situation.

You're right, (dammit!) the term rogue-clone is confusing. I think the safest bet is to add some adjectives to the word roguelike - most people would know what I'm talking about if I call one game an 'action-roguelike' and another a 'old-school roguelike'.