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Tiden Disgusting human being, just awful Level: NaN   Posts: 6331/-6493 EXP: NaN For next: 0 Since: 07-03-07 Pronouns: they/them Since last post: 4.1 years Last activity: 3.6 years 
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| I've been putting this off for far too long, but now is probably a good time to start a roguelikes and roguelike-like thread.
What are roguelikes? Roguelikes are games, typically turn-based with textual graphics, that feature open-ended gameplay, and oodles of procedurally-generated content. But what's the difficulty like? Roguelikes are generally unpredictable, feature permadeath, and may frequently feature bullshit instant-death situations that you will, with repeated play, learn to avoid (probably.) Some of the easier ones, like Brogue or Dungeons of Dredmor, have fewer variables to worry about early on when you're just starting out. Others start out somewhat difficult and don't generally let up as you progress through the dungeon(s). Why are there letters and shit all over my screen?! GIVE ME GRAPHICS BLARUHGUGHGH The original roguelike, Rogue, didn't need graphics at all... largely because it was released in the early 80s. Roguelikes generally stick to using characters and symbols to represent items instead of full color tiles and sprites, which makes adding new content a breeze as new assets don't need to be created for whatever is added. More recent games tend to feature full color graphics (not animated, mind). The controls listing is like some kind of eldritch abomination. My god. Context-sensitive controls would be kind of pointless to have in a game that focuses on being largely turn-based. Most will have some sort of quick reference for commonly-used commands, like opening/closing doors, dropping items, and movement (obviously.) Mouse control tends to vary wildly, as well. You can count on the numpad and vi keys to be used for movement, at the least. A brief, not necessarily comprehensive list of roguelikes. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (playable online, here!) Pretty popular, and it's one of my favorite roguelikes that I've put off playing (and making this thread) until 0.10 is out. Features gobs upon gobs of races/"backgrounds" (classes) to play, and features a tutorial mode. The tutorial doesn't exactly mean it isn't easy. You will die in this just as much as any other roguelike. On the bright side, no having to look up spoilers! Anything you could ever want to know about a monster/item/feature can be discovered by e(x)amining and describing it (v) A good starting combination to use used to be Mountain Dwarf Fighters (MDFi), though with MD being removed, Minotaur Fighters (MiFi) seem to be a good replacement. Brogue A simple roguelike. This game looks great although some things about it put me off, like not being able to move diagonally through doors. Doesn't have any sort of class/race selection, and it really doesn't need it. The site for the game lists plenty of tips for surviving the numerous floors of the dungeon. Angband This one draws a lot of its lore from The Lord of the Rings, and is one of the older roguelikes out there. Still very much maintained, as 3.4 seems to be under active development. It supports modding by modifying the game's data files, called edit files, and the ease of modifying the game's source has led to the creation of many, many variants of the game. I've only described (and linked to) the "vanilla" version of the game. Dungeons of Dredmor Available for $5 from steam (currently on sale, yay winter sale!) Dredmor is a humorous roguelike, with spiffy full color graphics and a greatly simplified control scheme. Its lessened difficulty and optional permadeath compared to other roguelikes should serve as a gentler introduction to roguelikes as a whole. It is very, very buggy, as well. A highlight from recently was that heals could be resisted, and end up with you not getting healed at all, and erratic teleportation whenever you tried to do anything. :stare: The devs have been working on hard on fixing these, at least. Modding also seems to be very broken and/or unfinished. There's also a cheap ($3 at full price) DLC available that adds new monsters, new items, new skills, and a slightly longer dungeon (five additional floors.) |
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I met someone who played Caste of the Winds way back in the day, however.
