"Roguelike is a self-descriptive classifier -- something like Rogue" Well play Nethack, Sil, DCSS, POWDER, Cogmind, Frozen Depths, DoomRL. Then play Spelunky, B

"Roguelike is a self-descriptive classifier -- something like Rogue" Well play Nethack, Sil, DCSS, POWDER, Cogmind, Frozen Depths, DoomRL. Then play Spelunky, BoI, FTL, Nuclear Throne, Risk of Rain, Ziggurat, Hades. You'll very quickly notice the first group is a lot like.... Rogue. And the second group is a random mishmash of unrelated genres - Platformers, FPS, Twinstick shooters, slasher/looters, and whatever FTL is. If someone liked Nethack, I would happily recommend any game from the first list. If someone liked Ziggurat, I wouldn't recommend any of the games from the second list because they're so different. Anyone doing the experiment in my first paragraph would clearly come to the same conclusion. I think the second group of games is great. And so do a lot of people judging by their popularity. However, I prefer the first set but now searching for games like the first set is much harder. You can't just search for the term that was always used to describe the set. And I've already seen people describe Spelunky as a "classic" or "traditional" roguelike because it's 12 years old now.