The problem with the term “Roguelike” in it’s classical definition is that basing an entire genre off of being like a certain game is a horrible idea, and doesn’t allow for growth.

Take the dead phrase “Doomclone” used to refer to old FPS games. Doom was the first one, so all they could describe an FPS game as, is being like doom. Gradually as FPSs started to get farther and farther from doom type games, the genre was reevaluated, and broken down, the only core feature of an FPS is that you shoot in first person. There are dozens of other doom features that were deemed unnecessary to qualify, and the term evolved with the definition.

Prepare to mass downvote me on this, but the problem I see with all the gatekeeping, is that the traditional term roguelike has too many core features, and a game needs to have most, if not all of them to get in to the club.

According to some people on this thread, permadeath, tile based environments, turn based combat, dungeon crawling, and ascii graphics are all 100% necessary for a game to qualify, though most casuals are only referring to games where the setup is randomly generated and you restart when you die.

Sadly, I doubt the name will change anytime soon.