All Rogues Are Likes - ScottBurger/going_rogue_podcast GitHub Wiki
GROGPOD's Stance on Like-vs-Lite
For the purposes of the GROGPOD Roguelike Podcast, all rogues are "-likes".
Humans like to categorize things and especially like to get overly-specific on things they enjoy. Sometimes we do need verbiage to distinguish between a toaster and a fighter jet, but at a certain point, definitions become hostages of their parent languages.
It's important to note that what defines a "rogue-like" game has evolved over time, and will continue to do so. It's not really the place of the podcast to own that definition or police others' usage of it. It's pretty easy to tell that a game like Halo is not a "rogue-like" game. Dark Souls is likewise very different to Hades, which itself is very different than Cogmind. But Hades and Cogmind are closer games genre-wise than they are to Halo or Dark Souls.
For the podcast, it's "close enough" for Cogmind and Hades to be in the same genre. It's not really worth the effort for us to only focus on "-like" or "-lite" games exclusively, as there's a broad gradient between the two. We aim to be linguistically inclusive, as strict labels and categorization of things can get needlessly territorial. Perhaps someone who is a fan of Dead Cells will stumble upon Infra Arcana and be in love with that type of game? Maybe someone who has only played NetHack for 30 years will play and enjoy Spelunky for the first time? These are hopes and dreams of the podcast, and labels do nothing but keep that dream from happening.