Roguelikes-An Interesting Genre

[Death Knight]

I couldnt get into Roguelikes at first but now I am enjoying them immensely.

 

I found a roguelike named TOME, Tales of Maj'Eyal that is really a cool game. Its very much like a lot of roguelikes-Complicated but many choices to choose for class. Im currently playing as a Bulwark, that is a shield using warrior that is defensive based. Its got a great following which is really good as it makes things better for people like me-that is the currently inexperienced noob

 

I happen to think that turnbased roguelikes that do certain things right, can be very very good. Has anyone on these forums been a deadly roguelike master? Im still a noob and have already died and lost my 1st character, but im getting better and it is after all just one char to control.

[Khoth]

I love Dungeon Crawl. Nethack and ADOM are also worth a look, but rather outdated now.

 

I've not played ToME since back when it was an Angband variant. I'll need to take another look. (IMO the food shop on the surface ruins the Angbands)

[BJ Back From the Beyond]

I've been playing Angband as ever since I was a kid. I wouldn't say that I'm a master, but I have played a number of variants and have gotten very good. I'm particularly fond of SAngband. It has a classless system similar to Exile/Avernum, where you spend your experience on skills rather than accumulate it for levels. Right now I've been getting into EyAngband, another good variant that puts its own twists on the game.

 

I have to say, though, that even with all my experience, I feel like I've only scratched the surface of rogue-likes. It's probably one of the biggest, least-known genres out there.

[Lilith]

I've not played ToME since back when it was an Angband variant. I'll need to take another look. (IMO the food shop on the surface ruins the Angbands)

 

i'm the opposite: angband is the only roguelike i could ever really get into (and actually won a game of once, without cheating) because effectively being on a timer to get stuff done in other games thanks to the lack of guaranteed food sources was too stressful for me

 

and yet i went ahead and made Roots. go figure

[Khoth]

I find that in games where I'm expected to grind for stuff, I don't like it when my effort is, umm, "wasted" due to permadeath.

[Lilith]

again i saw it in basically the opposite way: it made the grinding interesting because i knew i could lose those hours worth of progress in an instant if an out-of-depth monster showed up and i handled it wrong. in general when i play games i prefer having to make lots of small-scale, high-stakes decisions over long-term planning. the interesting part of a roguelike for me isn't working out how to stay fed 1000 turns from now, it's being at critical HP, surrounded by monsters and thinking "okay, what options do i have to keep me alive this turn?" and angband's extreme length means you have to become very good at getting those decisions right every time

[Death Knight]

I agree. However sometimes (when a game is not as long) I find the permadeath to be an inspiration to keep playing. I had a game (Cardinal Quest) that got me playing as a warrior (my always favorite class). It was fun that I lost the game because I realized that maybe I should only try and tank 2 foes at a time instead of 3.

[Acrux]

There's a newer roguelike called Dungeons of Dredmor that has a very casual feel, and lots of levels. It's not as difficult as, say, Dungeon Crawl, but it does have a lot of unique classes, and a humorous feel.

[Alorael at Large]

Like Lilith, almost all of my Roguelike play has been Angband. It's the first game I ever downloaded at home with my first internet connection and I've played on and off for all the many years since. Nethack is a resource game: you have to know an immense amount about everything in the game and how it interacts to succeed, and you have to manage your resources carefully, including time. I much prefer having all the time I want, as long as I'm careful. Angband is an inventory management and tactics game. And time, but the time you manage is real: do you spend more time leveling and getting gear where it's safe or take the risk and dive for faster rewards? Do you play a Dúnedan or High Elf and take the huge experience penalty, making you slow but powerful if you spend the time, or just go with something quick/

 

—Alorael, who has completed Angband twice, once by savescumming and once, very carefully, without. He's tried moving on to ToME (also back when it was Troubles of Middle Earth) but couldn't deal with the extra complexity and moving parts. And he eyes the now glacial UnAngband regularly.

[BMA]

*checks the meaning of roguelike*

 

I tried Nethack once, but it was just too ASCII for me. I played a lot more of Mordor : Depths of Dejenol which is called 'quasi' roguelike.

[adc.]

*Ensures that my intellectual insights on Old-school Roguelikes are correct*

Old school Roguelikes? I haven't played one of those even though I was a young child. But I am pretty sure they would be a lot of fun. Can anyone recommend one of these? Specifically for beginners and free.

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-Nightwatcher

[Alorael at Large]

The old-school ones are almost all free. I'd call Angband a good place to start: it's not too complex to start out with and it really gives an impression of how the genre works. ADOM has slightly more complexity and plot, but I've never gotten into it. Nethack is as much puzzle game as dungeon crawl and involves more management of everything, not just combat, but it has fervent adherents and has immense depth (and easter eggs) if that's what you want.

 

 

It's possible that some of the newer ones are more beginner-friendly, but "friendliness" isn't really a hallmark of the genre. Expect to die early and die often. This will become less true as you master a particular game, but I still have a lot of deaths at, oh, levels 1-5 in Angband. (Many due to incaution; I'm willing to take risks I'd never chance with a mature character because restarting at that point is not really a problem..)

 

 

—Alorael, who thinks Angband, and to an extent ADOM, are the direct forebears of Diablo. In fact, playing hardcore Diablo with permadeath is just a real-time roguelike, although the series has gotten less roguish with more plot and less randomization of maps and enemies. Speaking of which, you could go all the way back to the source and play Rogue itself (no homepage, but Google is helpful!). It's definitely dated, simple, and random, but you get the idea that launched a thousand dungeon crawls!

[Death Knight]

*Ensures that my intellectual insights on Old-school Roguelikes are correct*

Old school Roguelikes? I haven't played one of those even though I was a young child. But I am pretty sure they would be a lot of fun. Can anyone recommend one of these? Specifically for beginners and free.

--------

-Nightwatcher

*Ensures that my intellectual insights on Old-school Roguelikes are correct*

Old school Roguelikes? I haven't played one of those even though I was a young child. But I am pretty sure they would be a lot of fun. Can anyone recommend one of these? Specifically for beginners and free.

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-Nightwatcher

 

Dungeons of Dredmor isnt free, but $5.00 can barely be called expensive. Most people would agree that DOD is the most beginner friendly of the roguelikes. Its also alot of fun and if you are into that dark/ side of humor, it can make you laugh alot in the process. Its cool because its easy to figure out yet you have to learn how to plan your character.

 

I like it because you make alot of your big decisions with your character early on as you powerup fast in the beginning. Big decisions are still made throughout the game.

 

If you want something more serious but very much in the similar vein, try-tales of maj'eyal or TOME for short. TOME is very much more complicated like the rest of the roguelikes are. TOME is free too.

 

Edit-Almost forgot this one. Cardinal Quest is $5 and has no drm. Its a good game and the only real difficulty is finding which class works for you. My favorite is the fighter class but after I beat it (or if i beat it) I will try out the rogue class. Since everything is turnbased, I can see why it would be thrilling to play the rogue class as it is a pick off 1 enemy type. I would never try the mage/wizard class though as they are pretty frail.

[Ouroboros]

Correct me if I'm wrong but Cardinal Quest is free at least in Kongregate ( http://www.kongregate.com/games/idoyehi/cardinal-quest?acomplete=cardinal )

[Prince of Kitties]

Hey, I'm a roguelike developer! Well, sort of. I happen to like the genre.

 

IMO the cardinal rule for Angband is "Don't play to win, play to have fun." Most roguelikes follow the old-school tradition of winning being *hard*; it takes a lot of time, a lot of skill, and a good amount of luck, so focusing on winning straight away is not advisable if you want to enjoy the game.

[Student of Trinity]

The problem with hard games, for me, is that my job involves hard puzzles. If I'm going to peer at strange symbols and try to figure out what to do for a few hundred hours, I might as well have a paper to show for it afterwards. So I like puzzles, but only if they're a lot easier than work. Roguelikes have never sounded as though they met that criterion.

[Alorael at Large]

I have a similar opinion of puzzle gameplay, but that's really not what roguelikes are about. The closest to puzzles in Angband is gameplay/tactical challenges: given the enemies you know are ahead of you, the architecture you've found in the level, your inventory, and possibly your spells, what do you do? Do you have a good strategy, do you risk it, or do you run? It's hard gameplay with high cost of error, but not puzzles.

 

 

Not enjoying that kind of high-stakes gameplay is also fine, but I find Angband to be one of the best stress-relief games. It's quite simple and it's easy to get into a meditative zone of monster killing and loot acquisition.

 

—Alorael, who thinks the difference may be in puzzling versus challenging. Roguelikes are hard, but mostly because many things can kill you if you aren't very conservative and very careful and sometimes very lucky. Puzzles are hard because you don't know what to do next. That's a rare problem in roguelikes, Nethack maybe excepted (you're rarely stymied outright, but you can ruin your run by not understanding what it is that the items you've found do or how to use them together or on something else). At worst in Angband you give up and go to another random level, and death happens when you can't manage that escape because you've (usually) miscalculated or (sometimes) had a string of rotten luck.

[Celtic Minstrel]

I've tried a bit of Nethack, but was turned off by how brutal it is, in that it's incredibly easy to die for incredibly stupid reasons (plus it has way too many commands to keep straight; also, not really relevant, but I wish it had an actually nice tileset rather than the mismatched ugly things the download came with). It's likely I'll still play it occasionally, but in general I think it's too hard for my liking.

 

I also tried Angband recently and my first impressions weren't great, but I can't quite remember why; likely something interface-related. Maybe I'll try it again sometime, though. Or a variant of it.

 

Then about a week ago I decided to try making one myself. That has certainly been an interesting exercise; I may have gotten a little carried away though. >_>

[Lauren CW]

I played a lot of *bands back in the day, and a little bit of ToME more recently. I enjoyed the DW-rogue and the archer classes immensely, sword and board also worked out well. I rarely play casters in roguelikes, I don't have the patience.

[BJ Back From the Beyond]

I almost always play casters in rogue-likes. I like the versatility they can have, and if there's a class that's a warrior/mage hybrid, they're usually my favorite.

[Sudanna]

I pretty much always play a pure caster in every game. In games without casters, I take the closest thematic analogue.

[NamelessOne]

Someone mentioned Cardinal Quest. Here's something funny. Playing cardinal quest as a fighter and things are real easy, that is up till floor 5. I can't seem to get further in floor as that class. I read number of reviews from other people and every single one of them states that when they couldn't beat the game as a fighter, half of them went to either rogue or wizard. From there everyone beat the game and got past the 12th floor in less than 3 tries.

 

What I learned-Sometimes certain classes mesh better with different people. One person's strength might be another's weakness. I am going to try a rogue and see if that works.

[Ohsky]

As for Roguelikes, i highly reccomend The Binding of Isaac. Fun as hell.

[Juan Carlo]

If anyone ever made a true, large scale, Roguelike MMO I would totally be there. Sure there is "Realm of the MAd God," but that's not quite as elaborate.

 

I want one that has a genetics system so your character can swap DNA with another character to have children, then when your character dies you become your child (whose stats are rolled according to his mother and father's DNA).

 

That would be awesome. Unfortunately, eugenics would probably be unavoidable. As would infanticide. But we could probably think up some rules to combat those things.

[Alorael at Large]

I'd be more interested in seeing what horrific, bleak dystopias emerged.

 

—Alorael, who thinks TomeNET, the multiplayer fork off of ToME, might be what you're looking for. It's not large scale the way MMOs are, but it's multiplayer and it's definitely roguelike.

[Juan Carlo]

I'd be more interested in seeing what horrific, bleak dystopias emerged.

 

True.

 

I never played it for very long (as I found the experience of playing it tedious), but I nonetheless find "Eve Online" to be fascinating and never tire of hearing the stories that emerge from it. It's like its own cut-throat, Randian, dystopia and the politics of the game (and the meta-game) are incredibly complex. I mean, I'm no libertarian in real life, but it's kind of fun to watch how an extreme form of libertarianism plays out in a virtual world over long periods of time (and another name for "Eve online" could more or less just be "Laissez faire capitalism: in space!"). I think the most fascinating thing about MMOs is the "social experiement" element, but most have so many rules that limit player actions in the interest of making the game "fun" that there's very little room for anything truly interesting to happen.

[Alorael at Large]

Along with roguelikes in the non-graphical realm, I've found that the ancient ancestors of MMORPGs, the venerable MUSHes and MUDs and MUCKs and other things started with MU, are often more willing to go bold with strange system and heady freedom. PVP, politics, economies, and other inventive systems abound here—not on average, but in aggregate. There are several reasons for that: the coding is much simpler without graphics, the games are almost all amateur projects that have nothing to lose and no need to be commercially successful, there are so many games that boldness is necessary to distinguish your offering from the morass of generic MUs, and the sheer number of games means more opportunity for someone to try something new and unique. And it's hard to compare because the number of players or far more often in the teens or even lower than the massive numbers of the first M in MMO.

 

Still, there have been exciting options. EVE has the free market in space. The old, defunct game Shadowbane let players build cities and then destroy each others' in sieges. The former is successful; the latter died quietly, probably because of the player black hole that WoW's popularity produced.

 

And then there's Second Life, which is the social experiments without the usual trappings of stats and monsters.

 

—Alorael, who thinks that the lowest common denominator of MMOs is successful because it can get the critical mass of players. People don't want to play in the same more detailed social systems, emergent or designed, so as soon as you start down that road you're already restricting your playerbase. Publishers probably don't like that very much. Bottom lines don't either. It's a tough road to pick, and most designers probably don't have the courage to try it when the expense of failure is so high.

[Death Knight]

The funny thing about roguelikes is that you can play them for a bunch of times, get destroyed, ragequit, only to be back a few months later as if it didnt happen. I would say that the best feature of them is the time it really takes to complete. The game might be 12-15 hours long (like Cardinal Quest), but because you lost 7 characters in the process-this becomes 30-40 hours time total.

[Eamon]

I have been playing Angband recently and am enjoying it. The permanent death can be annoying though.

 

Just a couple weeks ago I sold my copy of Beneath Apple Manor, a Rouge like game that came out 2 years before Rouge. Anyone here remember it?

[Khoth]

Wow, the new ToME is nothing like the old ToME. It's really good, and has wasted far too much of my time lately.

[Rosalyn]

http://pastebin.com/97R1wCTy This is a decent list of roguelikes, though a fair number of them on said list have already been mentioned here, but there are are quite a few that haven't.

[Prince of Kitties]

Wow, the new ToME is nothing like the old ToME. It's really good, and has wasted far too much of my time lately.

 

Hey, I liked the old ToME thank you very much.

 

(As for the new ToME, it looks highly innovative, but I've yet to get it running decently on any of my hardware.)

[maddz]

I've played various variants over the years - I've won once, in an early version of Angband... That took a lot of hours and savescumming. I would say I'm a casual player - I've play for a few week at a time, then drop it for a couple of months, then pick it up where I left off.

 

I guess my favourite variant is the sadly missed Hengband (I stopped being able to play it when I upgraded to Mountain Lion and despite all my partner tried, he couldn't get it compiled correctly). However, there's a new Hengband fork (at last look it was still only PC) called CHengband, and Hengband 2 is being developed... Otherwise, I mostly played Zangband or Sangband. Steamband is a fun variant - instead of going down, you're going up...

[darint]

I guess my favourite variant is the sadly missed Hengband (I stopped being able to play it when I upgraded to Mountain Lion and despite all my partner tried, he couldn't get it compiled correctly). However, there's a new Hengband fork (at last look it was still only PC) called CHengband, and Hengband 2 is being developed... Otherwise, I mostly played Zangband or Sangband. Steamband is a fun variant - instead of going down, you're going up...

There is a newer fork of Chengband by the same author called PosChengband, which I was able to compile on 10.6.8 with relatively minimal fiddling. One of the bits of fiddling I had to do was remove GCU support, so it needs X11, XQuartz, or similar to run, and one needs to run it from the command line. After compiling and playing it for a bit I remembered why I don't like the Zangband-like variants so much.

 

I guess my favorite at the moment is Sil. No town, no spell casting (instead one sings and forges items), with an emphasis on interesting choices in combat and skills. It has a steep learning curve which I am currently climbing without great success, but it is a lot of fun.

[Death Knight]

Im gonna have to check out Angband some time in the future, heard a lot about it. Im currently playing as my marine on doom rl. Its a lot of fun and I think the guy behind those games (kornel) is awesome.

[maddz]

There is a newer fork of Chengband by the same author called PosChengband, which I was able to compile on 10.6.8 with relatively minimal fiddling. One of the bits of fiddling I had to do was remove GCU support, so it needs X11, XQuartz, or similar to run, and one needs to run it from the command line. After compiling and playing it for a bit I remembered why I don't like the Zangband-like variants so much.

 

It was XCode that the man downloaded - not sure if that is equivalent to X11 or XQuartz? Would you be kind enough to send me a walkthrough of what you did to get it working?

 

I liked Hengband because of the quest system, the wilderness and the multiple dungeons.... Besides, as a casual player, I like playing Amberites.

[Student of Trinity]

What does it mean to play an Amberite? You get a permadeath curse?

[Prince of Kitties]

You can pattern-walk into a slightly different reality. In game terms, that translates into regenerating the level.

 

This is actually very useful. Angband is full of situations where you have to turn tail and run, and instantly moving to a different level (that the monsters can't follow you to) is pretty much the best way to run away .

[Alorael at Large]

That's a very nice ability. Carrying scrolls of teleport level is essential to surviving the nastier lower levels.

 

—Alorael, who has just tried out Sil and died, repeatedly and ignominiously. He doesn't know if that's the roguelike for him, but he gives it all due commendation for making Middle Earth as grim and gritty as it should be.

[maddz]

The other thing about Amberites is that they regenerate... Playing a Warrior-Mage and always making sure you've enough mana for 2 or 3 teleports is also a handy thing when you've got a good level ('you nearly faint as your mind fills with visions of horrible death') and you don't want to shadow shift away from it... Also, shadow shifting restores drained XP & stats - which is incredibly useful as none of the shops ever seem to have the stat restore potion you need when you return to the surface and you can only find it for a ridiculous price at the black market.