| Agreed. A roguelike must have: Random procedural map generation. Turn-based gameplay. Items which start unidentified, but can still be used (with some risk of being cursed). Ability to save and exit at any time to resume later, but no ability to save without exiting. Character death deletes the save file and requires starting from the beginning. Combat-based gameplay, with monsters becoming more difficult as the player progresses through the map levels. Character can level up by gaining experience, encouraging them to stay at a given level to gain power. Food must be consumed to avoid dying of starvation. Food is not particularly common, forcing the player to keep progressing to future levels to avoid starvation. If it's missing one or more of those elements it's a roguelite at most. It's not just random maps, or "permadeath", or item identification, or the tension between starvation and experience, it's the combination of all those elements. |