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Jordan7hm
Feb 17, 2011




Lipstick Apathy


The last roguelike thread was several years old, and a lot has happened in the genre in that time, so it's time for a new OP!

First things first, defining the drat word.

The first roguelike ever was a 1980 game called Rogue, hence the name of the genre. Roguelikes are games that share a philosophy of game design cribbed from Rogue. Defining the borders of a genre can be very tricky, but a lot of time has been spent by a lot of people trying to do just that. The most well known such effort is the Berlin Interpretation. During the 2008 IRDC (International Roguelike Development Conference) in Berlin, participants came up with a list of "high value" and "low value" factors that roguelike games would share. If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of defining a genre, that's probably where you should start.

Let's not get into the details though. For the purposes of this thread, it's always seemed like a game having the following characteristics is roguelike enough for us to talk about it:

Random / procedurally generated levels: Every time you play a roguelike, it's going to be different; the monsters, the loot, and the dungeon levels (or their equivalents) are randomly generated for every game. The gameplay mechanics do not change between games, but the individual situations that your character faces change in every new game. This is a huge part of why roguelikes have such replayability. While some roguelikes do have elements (story, level portions, quests) that are not randomly generated, the random nature of an individual game is fundamental to roguelikes. Like Ashenai from the previous OP, this is probably the most important criterion for a game being a roguelike, and the only one where I don't really think there's a counterexample.

Complex, emergent gameplay: Roguelikes are generally designed to have enough complexity to allow several solutions to common goals. For most roguelikes, there are a large number of strategic and tactical options for every situation, and experienced players can often pull some hilariously off-the-wall stunt to escape even the most hopeless situations.

Permadeath: Most roguelikes feature a system where if you die, then that's it, your character is dead and gone, and you have to start all over again. Because the games are balanced around this fact, and because of the random environment, permadeath is intended to offer tough but not unfair difficulty, and a real sense of accomplishment to players who manage to beat the game. Permadeath remains a staple roguelike feature, but some roguelikes, especially the more action oriented ones, allow for persistent character or world development between games.

Traditionally, roguelikes were also turn-based single character CRPGs, with either lovely or ASCII graphics, revolving entirely around hack'n'slash / dungeon crawling gameplay. That is not necessarily the case any more, as we shall see.

All that being said, if you're unsure of whether or not to talk about a game, please follow this advice from DalaranJ: If you are asking "Is it okay to talk about this game in this thread?" the answer is always YES. If there is any possibility that a game could be considered a roguelike than you can talk about it in this thread because this is the roguelike megathread.

Now let's get to the games.

A list of many RL style games is over at this here link. Thanks to FlaxAxis for creating and maintaining it.

:siren:The Big Four:siren:
These four roguelikes were for a long time the games that defined the roguelike genre. Angband, ADOM (Ancient Domains of Mystery), Nethack, and Dungeon Crawl. They are all traditional roguelikes - turn based RPGs with huge worlds to explore, hundreds of monsters to kill, tons of loot to acquire, and dozens of character builds to experiment with. The youngest of them, Dungeon Crawl, is still almost 20 years old. An important thing to remember is that these games were all free, and with the exception of ADOM, open source. If you played a roguelike in the 90s, it was almost certainly one of these games, and if you're playing a roguelike now, then that game is going to owe a huge debt to one of these games. More than Rogue, these four games defined the parameters of the genre. They have changed over the years, and in some cases have waned in popularity, but they are still the linchpins of the genre, and at least testing the waters in these games is highly recommended.

Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup (v 0.13 thread)
Cost: FREE



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: Tile-based sprites or ASCII
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Android, Browser-Based
Let's Plays: Forks:
Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is an open source roguelike that has been branched off of Linley's Dungeon Crawl. It is under active development and is in fact one of the more popular roguelikes being developed today. It aims for balanced systems that do not require spoiling of the players. It is combat and magic heavy with little in the way of quests, NPCs, story, etc. It's a great roguelike for beginners with an extensive tutorial system and approachable graphics, and is my personal favorite.

Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is also available to be played online through your browser. The great thing about this feature is that other people can spectate your game and you can chat with them as you play. Twice a year there are also online tournaments in which players group up into teams and attempt to beat the game (and complete other goals). It's a great blast, and I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys Crawl and also talking to people.


Nethack (thread)
Cost: FREE



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: Tile-based sprites or ASCII
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Android, iOS
Let's Plays: Forks:
Nethack is an offshoot of an earlier game Hack, which dates back to the mid 1980s. It seemingly was designed with the philosophy that more means better, and so the game is a mishmash of folklore, pop culture references, and fantasy tropes. When we speak of complex, emergent gameplay, we're certainly talking about the kitchen sink approach of Nethack, where pretty much every single item can interact with every other item in ways you probably would never have thought of. It's really the anti-thesis to Dungeon Crawl. Having the mechanics spoiled for you is almost a requirement for winning at Nethack. Only in Nethack can you "polymorph yourself into a cockatrice, then (if you're female) lay eggs, polymorph back, and use your own eggs as a thrown weapon that turns enemies to stone (wearing gloves, of course!)".

For better or worse Nethack has established most of the parameters that the roguelike genre operates under, and ascending in Nethack is one of those bucket list items that roguelike players have. Nethack isn't for everyone, but if you're at all interested in roguelikes, it's a must play.

EvilMike's comment on starting with Nethack: You should also mention nethack curses, which is a massive interface upgrade to the original nethack. The download there contains everything, and the base game itself is unmodified. The screenshots page there will show you what it looks like. Overall I think there's no point playing nethack with the vanilla interface, these days.

Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM)
Cost: $40 Closed Beta or FREE



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: ASCII or some graphical support
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS x
Let's Plays: Forks: not a fork, but ADOM 2 (Jade) is under development

ADOM was developed by Thomas Biskup, and as mentioned is the sole "Big 4" roguelike to be closed source. It features a massive overworld complete with towns and quests. A real attraction to ADOM is that not everything is known about the mechanics of the game. For a long time people didn't know what was a bug, or what was intended, and ADOM is really the only big traditional roguelike to still have a small sense of mystery about it. I actually haven't played it very much. I missed out on it back in the day, and I just can't be bothered to get really into it (I have become a graphics whore, I need sprites at a minimum). That being said, it's worth a try. There are a whole lot of people who absolutely love this game.

It should be noted that Thomas Biskup is a bit of a dink, but also that he crowd-sourced funding to continue development on ADOM back in 2012, and there have been updates since then. Of note, graphics are now partially integrated into the latest pre-release. ADOM 2 is also in development. We'll probably see it completed in 2025. The write up for that can wait, but the link to download it is above.

Angband
Cost: FREE



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: Tile based sprites or ASCII
Platform: Windows, Mac OS x, Linux (kinda sometimes?)
Let's Plays: Forks:
Angband is an offshoot of Moria, a contemporary of Hack. Moria was a Tolkien-esque take on Rogue, and Angband continues that legacy. In Angband you must explore a 100 level dungeon in order to eventually defeat Morgoth. Angband, and Angband variants, are fairly unique in that levels are generated each time you load them, rather than once per game. That means that Angband is a much more "gameable" roguelike than Nethack, DCSS, or ADOM. The emphasis is on combat, equipment management, and loot (Diablo is also considered to be a Moria / Angband offshoot). Because of the ability to generate an infinite number of dungeon levels, games of Angband can take weeks to complete. If this appeals to you, definitely give it a shot.

Also of note is the sheer number of Angband variants. Unlike DCSS and Nethack, Angband has been latched on to by developers interested in building their own games, and holy crap there are a lot of them. I've listed a couple in the forks section, but really only scratched the surface. There are zombie variants, multiplayer variants, Cthulhu variants, and even :stonk: anime variants. Rock Paper Shotgun's Kieron Gillen wrote a great article about ZangbandTK (download here), a grapical version of one of the more zany Angband variants. EvilMike suggests that people start with NPPAngband: NPP stands for "no pet peeves" and NPPAngband is basically about removing annoying stuff and adding cool stuff.


:siren:The New Traditional Roguelikes:siren:

The big 4 roguelikes should all be experienced by people interested in the genre, but roguelikes have come a long way since Rogue was developed in the early 80s. This list of games includes roguelikes that adhere to the turn based CRPG model, but you'll find that most of them have more of an emphasis on graphics / sounds / animation and the UI, as well as (in general) a more inclusive approach to the genre. A number of these games are commercial titles.

Tales of Maj'Eyal (ToME4) (thread)
Cost: $10 on Desura or FREE / Donation-ware



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: Real 2d graphics and animations! Tile set designed by Shockbolt.
Platform: (On Steam Greenlight) - Windows, Mac OS x, Linux
Let's Plays: Forks: none, but ToME4 does run on the T-Engine, which can be used to develop your own roguelike

Tales of Maj'Eyal is an expanded version of Tales of Middle Earth, which was initially an Angband variant. The developer DarkGod redid his world to remove references to Tolkien, and built an entirely new engine to run the game on. ToME4 has quickly become one of the largest roguelikes around, having now won the RL of the Year poll every year since 2010. ToME4 features an overworld with wandering monsters, a quest system similar to ADOM, tons of character builds, and a combat system designed to provide you with all kinds of options. Even melee characters have lots of cooldown based abilities with which to deal with their foes. The game is, in a word, sprawling. You travel across two continents to fight an evil orcish menace, and you deal with way more world lore than in most other roguelikes. Unlike most other roguelikes you have the option to play in either a permadeath mode or by using limited lives system, and it really does seem like the game is designed around the limited lives system. The game feels very much like a more traditional CRPG if you take advantage of the limited lives system. Note that not everyone sucks at it like I do, and that there are people who win in permadeath mode.

One of the most interesting (and best) features of ToME4 is that similar to Dungeon Crawl, it operates online. By logging into your ToME4 account, you get access to the in-game chat system, and are only a button press away from being able to ask for advice. This is really something that more games would do well to integrate, and I think it's a huge factor in ToME4's popularity.

The final thing to note about ToME4 is that while it is free, there is a premium version that gives you access to an exploration mode as well as a small amount of premium content. The game is already on Desura and attempting to get onto Steam via the Greenlight process.

Dungeons of Dredmor (thread)
Cost: $5 on Steam



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: Real 2d graphics and animations!
Platform: (Available on Steam) - Windows, Mac OS x, Linux
Let's Plays: Forks: No, but there are three DLC expansion packs available for it. Realm of the Diggle Gods, You Have to Name the Expansion Pack, and Conquest of the Wizardlands. All are recommended.

Dungeons of Dredmor was the first roguelike to really hit it big outside the traditional RL community. Unlike the big 4, and unlike ToME 4, DoD is a commercial game. It was developed by Gaslamp Games and came out on Steam in July 2011 to critical acclaim. Dungeons of Dredmor did not attempt to re-invent the roguelike genre. It prettied it up, adding animations and sound effects, and an easily controlled mouse driven UI. It presented a unique skill based character system, rather than relying on classes, and thus character builds could get really wacky. It introduced a lot of humour, from the names of monsters and items to the animations and lore of the game, and it featured an inventive crafting system. What it shares with other roguelikes though? It remains hard as balls. Underneath that pretty little exterior is a bitch of a game that is just waiting for you to turn your back so that it can shank you, or throw you into a spike pit, or spawn a boss monster that reflects all your drat melee damage and one-shots you. :argh:

A must buy if you like roguelikes. Plus the devs are cool.

Doom: The Roguelike (DoomRL) (thread)
Cost: FREE / Donation-ware



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: Tile based sprite or ASCII. Tileset by Derek Yu, and really well done.
Platform: Windows, Mac OS x, Linux
Let's Plays: Forks: No.

Do you like Doom? Do you like roguelikes? Do you want to play Doom but as a roguelike? Then I have the game for you! Doom: The Roguelike. Seriously, this game is Doom presented as a top down, turn based roguelike. All the monsters you expect, all the weapons you expect, all the heart pumping action you expect. DoomRL features probably the best implementation of a ranged combat system you're really likely to see in a roguelike, complete with an intuitive dodging mechanic that will have you moving as though you were playing the game in real time mode. It also features possibly the best use of atmosphere in any roguelike. Everything about this game's design is tight and on point.

Though the game remains free, the developer Kornel Kisielewicz does take donations, and my understanding is that there is a premium content model being used (early access to new builds, though if I'm wrong please correct me).

UnReal World (thread)
Thanks to Bouchacha for this write-up.
Cost: FREE / Donation-ware



Genre: Turn-based survival/crafting RPG
Graphics: Awesome LARP pictures and full tile-sprites.
Platform: Windows, OSX, Linux.
Let's Plays:
Forks: No.

UnReal World been continuously developed since 1992 by some dude living in the Finnish wilderness, which is appropriate because you get to play as some dude living in the Finnish wilderness. What started out as another fantasy roguelike blossomed into a hardcore survival simulation set in the Finnish iron age. There's a dizzying amount of detail and tasks available to you. You can stalk moose, hunt squirrels with rocks, chase deer with hunting dogs, set bear pit traps, skin animals, clean the hair off to make leather, tan hides in a multi-step and multi-day process (culminating in you beating the hide with a club over a log), set fishing nets, smoke meat in a smoke house for long-term preservation, build a cellar for even longer preservation, grow beans, make bean soup, eat random mushrooms, die, steal crops from village fields, chop down trees and float down the logs on a raft, build a baller cabin with a chimney and everything, dress yourself up in dead animal skins and hunt Njerpez raiders in their own home, chop up their corpses and eat their flesh, make cords out of their clothes in order to hang their meat for drying in the winter, put random herbs on your wounds and hope they help, freeze to death in the winter, and of course go skiing! The game also introduced a detailed wounding system before DF made it cool.

The game as you can see is quite detailed and very satisfying in how you're only tasked with surviving. While it's continually in development, it does suffer at the moment from lacking an end goal but in the works are plans to incorporate marriage and village building in the future, as well as dynasty hopping through your children. I credit it for providing me with a great appreciation of the outdoors and the many skills involved. It's a great diversion when you just want to build poo poo instead of kill orcs. If you're going to download it, it is highly recommended that you get this graphic mod!.

Elona/Elona+ (thread)
Thanks for Chakan for this write-up.
Cost: FREE



Genre: Turn-based JRPG
Graphics: Tile based sprite
Platform: Windows (Java port as well)
Let's Plays: Forks: Elona+ is actively developed and generally considered superior. There are download directions in the first post of the SA thread.

Eternal League of Nefia is a wonderful adventure that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. The game is brutally fair; if you've got enough strength you can hug someone to death, but if you try to cast a spell without enough MP, your HP will be drained. In a genre that seeks to remove itself from tedious grinding and needless keystrokes, Elona seems to actively pride itself on obfuscating the proper game behind hours of mind-numbing grinding. That said, the game is incredibly intelligent and robust, it has an interesting world and it's clear a great deal of facets have been thought through. It's worth reading the thread for all the things other people do, even if you don't want to endure it yourself. This game is a JRPG through and through.

It is important to note that Elona+ offers vast improvements over the base game and is very much worth playing over the base game. Note that Elona does not control like most other roguelikes, and playing the tutorial is highly recommended.

Brogue
Cost: FREE



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: the best looking ASCII graphics around (or a variant with tiles)
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OSX
Let's Plays: Forks:
Whereas most roguelikes trace their lineage back to Rogue indirectly, through the lens of games like Nethack or Angband, Brogue goes right to the source for its inspiration, and attempts to answer the question: "What if Rogue had been continuously developed for the last 30 years?". Gone are the complicated class systems that the big 4 brought to the genre. Gone are the overworlds, the dungeon branches, and the shops. Brogue strips the genre back to its core. It, like Rogue before it, is a game about dungeon crawling. Brogue features randomly generated puzzles, a dynamic lighting system, and by far the most beautiful use of ASCII graphics ever used in a roguelike.

Cataclysm (thread)
Cost: FREE / Donation-ware



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: ASCII
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OSX
Let's Plays: Forks:
From the Cataclysm thread here on SA: Cataclysm is a free roguelike post-apocalyptic survival game. You awaken in a evacuation shelter after a biological attack on New England, alone and armed only with a penknife. you leave the shelter and you find unspeakable horrors, irradiated craters, streets lined with wrecked cars and the shambling corpses of the once-living. This is your world, and you must survive. Food intake, sleep deprivation, morale, limb damage, mental health and many other things must be managed constantly, and one wrong move can result in your death. Staying in one spot is near-impossible without starving, so most of the game depends heavily on exploration.

Cataclysm just successfully funded their Kickstarter, and one of the purposes of said Kickstarter was to add graphics. So expect the game to look prettier at some point soon, if that is important to you.

Sil
Thanks to uPen for this write-up.
Cost: FREE



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: ASCII
Platform: Windows and Mac
Let's Plays: Forks: No.

In Sil you play as an Elf (easy,) Dwarf (medium,) or Human (loving hard,) who needs to dive 100 floors down Morgoth's lair and steal one of the three Silmarils on Morgoth's crown. To accomplish this you need to master what is probably the best tactical combat system in any roguelike. Combat in Sil is pretty much the definition of easy to learn & hard to master and there are tons of extremely different ways to play so you can try something different after getting murdered a dozen times in a row. You can be a magic clad blender that dices everything, an archer singing songs of death and destruction while murdering everyone from across the room or a shadow on the wall that gets in and out of the dungeon with nobody the wiser. This game shares almost nothing in common with Anband so don't let its heritage scare you away, it is stripped down, intuitive and very fast to play. I'm having a hard time describing why exactly Sil is so much fun so I'm just gonna crib the paragraph that initially sold me on it.

'There are no wizards or priests, no platemail or magical scrolls. Instead, it is the Norse Saga inspired world that Tolkien imagined, with warriors clad in shining mail, singing songs of rage or sorrow as they slay. The magic of the world is subtle yet powerful: there are songs of fear and of binding, rather than spells of fireball and teleportation.'

Dungeonmans (thread)
I would just like to note that while this game is still in development, it is being developed by madjackmcmad, a regular poster in this thread and on SA, and it is already pretty good. I highly recommend checking it out, and even tossing him some coin for it. Check out the thread for more details.
Cost: $10



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: Tile based sprites and animations
Platform: Windows, planned (?) Mac OS x & Linux support
Let's Plays: Forks: No.

Dungeonmans is a traditional roguelike set in a fantasy world and revolving around dungeon crawling and combat. It features a randomized overworld complete with towns, dungeons, shops, and wandering monsters. Unlike most traditional roguelikes it also uses persistent world development in the form of The Dungeonmans Academy. As you adventure you have the option of using the baubles you find to improve the academy so that future characters will start the game with a leg up on their predecessors. Like Dungeons of Dredmor before it, Dungeonmans places a clear emphasis on humour in both the setting and the writing. The art has a whimsical feeling to it and the entire game doesn't take itself too seriously. But be warned - like in Dungeon of Dredmor, beyond the pretty surface lies a real live roguelike, and it will eat you up and spit you out if you're not paying attention.

Uncle Jam posted:

Dungeonmans is a fun game where you kill scrobolds and think about nothing else other than having fun. Then you die, and you go look at the fresh grave with your next character.

Dungeonmans recently completed a pretty successful Kickstarter campaign where they were able to raise over $40,000. Expect the full game sometime in 2014.

Occult Chronicles
Thanks to Geokinesis for this write-up.
Cost: $20



Genre: Turn-based RPG, Board-game
Graphics: 2D room tiles and nice card and encounter art.
Platform: Windows.
Let's Plays:: Forks: Nope.

Occult Chronicles is an commercial strategy game with roguelike elements and a light Lovecraftian theme currently in Beta. It features perma-death and a randomly generated map. You are an Occult Defense Directorate (O.D.D.) agent on a mission in an old mansion, there are 4 different missions which affect what kind of encounters you'll find. All encounters (battles, spells, lore check, trap avoidance etc) are done via a card game where you have to score a certain number of tricks to succeed, your chances with the cards are affected by your stats which can be improved directly or through edges (read perks) by levelling up. After an encounter you are shown 10 face down cards and given a number to pick, if you won the encounter you'll likely find some good things (health, sanity, bullets) if you lost some bad things (losing sanity/health) amongst blank 'no effect' cards.

Luck does play quite a big part with the cards which is double edged, sometimes you'll lose an encounter due to a bad draw but on the results screen you'll draw only blanks so you end up losing nothing.


Games to be added to this section:
  • Sword of the Stars: The Pit
  • Frozen Depths
  • Prospector

:siren:The Smaller Roguelikes List:siren:

Not all roguelikes are commercial projects or somebody's life's work; in fact most roguelikes are smaller projects that get worked on for a couple years before fading into obscurity. This is a list of those types of roguelikes. These games are feature complete, albeit probably not perfect and bug free. They are turn based, real time, experimental. A lot of these are mobile games (I may separate this out later).

AliensRL
Thanks to Destro85 from the previous thread for this write-up
Cost: FREE



Genre: Turn based RPG
Graphics: All ASCII
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X
Let's Plays: Forks: No.

AliensRL is made by Kornel Kisielewicz, who also created DoomRL. It is a really excellent attempt at blending the roguelike genre with the survival/horror and action genres. It has great music and sounds and has a shitload of atmosphere. It is one of the few roguelikes that has had the ability to make me forget that I was staring at a screen full of hashmarks and percent signs. If you like the break from the standard roguelike fare that DoomRL gives you, definitely give AliensRL a shot. Interesting to note that it was originally created in only 7 days, for the 2007 7DRL competition; it is one of the most successful 7DRL entrants.

These are more small games to be added.
  • Red Rogue
  • Infra Arcana
  • Dwarf Fortress (Adventure Mode)
  • Dungelot
  • Trancendence
  • Meritous
  • Dweller
  • The Wizard's Lair
  • Pixel Dungeon
  • WazHack
  • Voyage to Farland 2
  • Pitman
  • Legends of Yore
  • Cardinal Quest
  • Hydra Slayer
  • Epilogue
  • Rings of Valor
  • 100 Rogues
  • ChessRogue
  • Random Realms
  • Hack Slash Loot
  • Golden Age: Endless Dungeon
  • MageGuild

:siren:The Old Roguelikes List:siren:

A number of roguelikes are no longer being developed, but are complete products that may still be worth exploring. Check out the roguelikes on this list not only for their value as games (and they are mostly pretty solid games), but also for their historical value. Many of these games demonstrated a different path for roguelikes that was not to be developed further, while others show potential that other games would later build on.

Sword of Fargoal
Thanks to Dana Crysalis for this write up.
Cost: Depends on version



Genre: Turn-ish based RPG
Graphics: Tile based sprite
Platform: Commodore 64 (original), iPhone/iPad, PC
Let's Plays: Forks:
Written in 1982, this is one of the earliest roguelikes. It was initially going to be called Sword of Fargaol (gaol meaning jail), but a producer convinced its creator Jeff McCord to change it. It was the first of the microcomputer games to have randomly generated levels, and also, it's friggin hard as hell. You have to find the sword between level 15 and 20 (which I have never done) and as soon as you DO find it you have to make your way back up under a strict time limit of 2000 seconds. The levels are rerolled every time you exit and enter them, so...

Depthwise, there's not a lot to the game. There's a little over 20 monsters, items are very specific (healing potions, light spells, +1 to your weapon strength, some others), there's no skillsets or anything, and found gold is only used to turn it at temples on the map for bonus XP. Your warrior can move freely around the map. Monsters move on a timer that gradually speeds up as you get lower in the dungeon, until they move almost as fast as you do. No idling! The lack of depth does not make it any easier though, it's known as one of the harder C64 games to complete. There was recently a completed kickstarter for a sequel to the game (Sword of Fargoal 2).

More old games to add!
  • Dungeon Hack
  • LambdaRogue
  • Castle of the Winds
  • Alphaman
  • Legerdemain
  • Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space
  • Omega
  • NPPMoria
  • GearHead
  • Decker

A section for games that are not completed but may be worth looking at
  • Towerclimb
  • Risk of Rain
  • Rogue's Souls
  • Legend of Dungeon
  • Incursion
  • Caves of Qud
  • IVAN
  • Berserk
  • PrincessRL
  • Delver
  • Ultima Ratio Regum
  • CastlevaniaRL
  • Wayward
  • X@COM
  • Sword of Fargoal 2
  • Rogue Survivor
  • ZAPM
  • DiabloRL

And finally, a quick look at 7Day RLs that might be worth picking up.
  • Broken Bottle
  • A Sword in Hand
  • Posession
  • Drakefire Chasm

If anyone has games to add, let me know. Particularly interesting smaller / older RLs.
I wanted to get the new OP up today, but it took wayyyy more time than I thought it would. I probably won't actually finish it until next week. If anyone wants to help out with descriptions of the games below, feel free. I'll probably crib descriptions for older games like GearHead from the previous OP.

Jordan7hm fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Dec 24, 2014

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Jordan7hm
Feb 17, 2011




Lipstick Apathy
:siren:Hybrid Roguelikes (Roguelike-likes) (Roguelites):siren:

These games are heavy on rogue elements, but defy the strict conventions of the genre. The common thread is permadeath and random level generation.

Desktop Dungeons
Thanks to andrew smash for this write-up.
Cost: Free! Alpha, 15$ for Full Version



Genre: Light Fantasy Puzzle Hybrid
Graphics: Tiles
Platform: PC/Mac Steam version; also plays in your browser with Unity plugin

Let's Plays:
Forks: None, but there are two versions of the game, the older of which is completely free!

Desktop Dungeons is a "coffee break" puzzle/roguelike hybrid developed by QFC Design, very reminiscent of the old Lucasarts Yoda Stories game if anybody aside from me ever played that. Individual dungeons only take about ten minutes to finish and always start with a new character, but any given dungeon only represents a tiny slice of the game. As you progressively crawl through dungeons, you unlock more and more of the slew of races, classes, spells, items, areas, and challenges you can take on leaving you ultimately with a shitload of content for the price of the game. The puzzle aspect comes from the fact that enemies don't move at all and don't attack until you hit them first. That being said if you just smash your face into enemies you'll die really fast, even with the traditionally face-smashing classes. Timing and positioning of your attacks are critical to clear the tougher dungeons. In addition to the normal dungeons there is also a puzzle mode within the game. Puzzle mode consists of pre-generated scenarios, smaller than normal dungeons, and generally have a "perfect" solution designed to teach you how to use a given game mechanic. They're pretty good as an instructional tool, plus you can use them to unlock other stuff just like regular dungeon runs.

The original version of the game is completely free and a great introduction to the game. It's well worth playing as a demo if you're on the fence about this game. The full version is basically the alpha x100.

FTL: Faster Than Light (thread)
Thanks to quiggy stardust for this write-up.
Cost: 10$



Genre: Real-time-with-pause spaceship simulator
Graphics: Simplistic but very nice lo-fi pixel art
Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux. DRM-Free or on Steam.
Let's Play:
Forks: None, some small mods are available and an expansion is inbound.

FTL is a hybrid roguelike / strategy game that features surprising strategic depth, punishing difficulty, and permadeath. You play the captain of a spaceship with sensitive documents vital to the survival of the Galactic Federation on the run from an approaching Rebel fleet. At the start of the game you select one of a number of unlockable spaceships with different layouts and subsystems and must survive to the end of the game and defeat the Rebel mothership to win. The game puts a large emphasis on balancing the energy usage of different subsystems, so if you've ever wanted a game where you can say "divert power from the weapons to the engines!" you can do just that in FTL. In addition to blowing up the enemy ship with lasers, you can also attack them with drones, board them with your own crew members, set fire to their ship, disable their own subsystems or flee deeper into space.

The game is notable for having many ways out of a bad situation. For example, many players prioritize improving the doors on their ship to delay boarding parties from reaching critical subsystems. In that time other doors and airlocks can be opened to expose the boarding enemies to the void of space, killing them without having to endanger your own crew members. All crew are randomly generated, develop skills and experience as they perform tasks around the ship, and are lost permanently when they die. The game does occasionally offer new members, but a team of veterans is always preferred to a team of rookies.

It is worth noting that the game has received some criticism for being overly random. While very, very good players can usually mitigate the randomness and win a good percentage of the time, expect many times to be screwed over entirely by the RNG before getting a handle on the game's many complex features. This is especially notable when it comes to unlocking ships, which often rely on very rare events that are difficult to execute properly. That said this is an excellent game, well worth the cost of entry to experience a unique twist on the standard roguelike formula.

Meritous
Thanks to madjackmcmad for this write-up.
Cost: Free download



Genre: Monochrome Exploration Bullet Hell Adventure
Graphics: yes!
Music: Synthy 16-bit era chip
Platform: PC

Let's Plays:
Forks: None

On the outer fringe of the Roguelike ecosystem, Meritous has a massive (seriously look at that map) procedural dungeon with lots of baddies and limited continues. You have one interaction with the world: hold space bar to charge up a circular blast, let go to fire. Holding it longer increases the range, damage, and recharge time. That's it. Run around this bigass dungeon collecting crystals, upgrading your weapon and a reflective shield, finding teleport markers and compasses that lead you to the next boss or critical piece of plot loot, and dodge tremendous clouds of bullets, lasers, and bouncy stars.

Fast paced and simple, with a cool visual and audio style that does a better job setting the mood than you'd think. Enemies are very creative and get tougher as you progress, world pickups evolve your character slightly with such abilities as being able to see how many baddies are in the next room. You have a set number of lives, when they're out it's game over. You can reload your save, but you have the same number of lives as when you saved so if you get down to 1 left and have made no real progress, you're probably better off starting over.

Meritous is a palette cleanser, a great little game that can get you thinking about just how much room for variety and creativity there is in the genre.

The Binding Isaac (thread)
Thanks to drink_bleach for this write-up.
Cost: $4.99 (but it goes on sale often for much less, wait for a sale)



Genre: Twin Stick Shooter
Graphics: Yes
Music: Danny Baranowsky!
Platform: PC

Let's Plays:
Forks: None, but there is an expansion (Wrath of the Lamb)

Without any facts to back this up I'm going to say this is the most successful action roguelike. It has a dedicated community of twitch players, as well as the BOILeR (Binding of Isaac League Racing). In addition to being popular, this game is fantastic. It plays like a mix of Zelda, traditional roguelikes, and Smash TV. You play as a young boy navigating a dungeon with the eventual goal of killing your crazy-rear end mom, and eventually making your way to heaven or hell. The game features a very interesting religious theme and a whole lot of poop jokes. The sheer number of items and modifiers is insane; there are hundreds of items, a handful of different characters and even the monsters can have different modifiers to mix up the gameplay. Every modification you pick up visually changes your character and can drastically change the way you play.

If you liked Link to the Past but wished Link could somehow become a Lovecraft-ian abomination full of growth tumors and excrement you'll love The Binding of Issac!

Rogue Legacy (thread)
Thanks to andrew smash for this write-up.
Cost: $14.99 on steam



Genre: Fantasy, "genealogical rogue-lite" platformer
Graphics: Sprites
Platform: PC/Mac/Linux

Let's Plays:
Forks: None

Rogue Legacy is a platformer with minor roguelike elements; namely, permadeath and random dungeon generation. Character progression takes place between runs and carries over to each new character that you make; classes, items, and stat upgrades are all permanent once purchased. The flow of the game essentially is to make as much progress into the dungeon as you can and ultimately die so that your offspring (subsequent characters) can benefit from your haul of cash. Bosses represent milestones within the castle you're exploring and they stay dead once you kill them.

An interesting addition to the game is the rune system; once you've discovered them in the castle and subsequently paid an NPC to be able to use them, runes can be attached to your equipment and add a number of different enhancements, the most interesting of which change your platforming abilities (double jump, triple jump, timed flight, dashes, faster movement etc). In one of the above screenshots you can see that dash, double jump, flight, and two kinds of resource leech are equipped.

Bionic Dues
Thanks to MrBims for this write-up



Genre: Turnbased Tactical RPG
Graphics: Tile-based sprites only
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

Let's Plays:
Forks: No.

Bionic Dues is similar to the XCOM style of combining a tactical 'battlescape' with inventory management, soldier progression and an overall campaign against an enemy that is gathering its own forces at a similar or faster rate than you are. You play as a pilot of robotic exosuits, of which you select 4 of any combination from six types and can switch between those 4 during missions as you need. Skynet is coming to play in your home base in 50 days, so you have that long to salvage all the parts you need and make inroads into the robots' forces in preparation for that final battle.

The battlescape is done in traditional roguelike form, with corridor-crawling to find randomized loot, evade traps and find the exit, though that exit may involve destroying all or some specific enemies based on the mission chosen. You have four 'lives' with your four exosuits, but each one you lose nets you one less piece of loot at the end of the mission and makes the mission harder. Losing a mission isn't the end of the world by itself, but you only get to lose a few.

New parts for your exosuits are placed into slots and modify stats, like +500 shields or +100% attack power. You can't add new weapons, but you can change how you might use a weapon, like prioritizing between range, AOE, ammo and damage. Exosuits can be given the ability to move invisible, lay mines, place sentry turrets, hack doors to find loot and ammo caches, infect robots with a virus to turn them to your side, etc.

More Hybrid Roguelikes include:
  • Rogue Legacy
  • Spelunky
  • Teleglitch
  • Faster Than Light
  • Binding of Isaac
  • Triangle Wizard
  • Desktop Dungeons
  • Flatspace 2

:siren:Console Roguelikes:siren:

While roguelikes have mostly been the domain of computer users, some have made their way over to consoles. Similar to how Wizardry found a new home in Japan, Nethack style roguelikes mixed in with JRPG sensibilities have existed in Japan since the days of the Super Famicom. If you've got an urging to play roguelikes on a console, then these are the ones you should check out:

Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
Thanks to quiggy for this write-up



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: SNES-era JRPG style pixel art
Platform: SNES (Japan only, with fan translation), DS

Let's Plays:
Forks: No forks, but Shiren is part of an extensive series of games that has appeared on most post-SNES Nintendo hardware. The SNES / DS games are considered the best of the bunch.

Shiren the Wanderer is a Japanese roguelike by Chunsoft, best known in the states as the makers of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series. It's heavily inspired by Nethack in terms of dungeon layouts, shop layouts, item types, and so on, but has a lot of unique elements too. The main quest spans 30 "floors" which represent a quest from a starting village to the top of Table Mountain. Unlike most traditional roguelikes, permadeath does not mean the loss of all progress: quests completed remain completed and items stored either in warehouses or in storing jars will remain. However, you will regress to level 1 and return to the starting village with each death. In addition to the main quest are small side quests to be completed, bonus dungeons after completing the main dungeon, and the Puzzle Dungeons, small one-floor dungeons each designed with a specific trick necessary to beat it.

The Nintendo DS version is the only version of the original game to make it out of Japan. It's notable for its rescue system, in which good runs can be saved by other people doing rescue runs via a password system. Do note that a given incarnation of Shiren can only be revived once, however. The DS version is also easily the best roguelike on the system and, in my opinion, the best portable roguelike period. It's got the difficulty and strategic depth of a classic roguelike, the progression of a JRPG, and some of the best art, music, and sound of any roguelike ever.

Seriously, go track down this game and play it. You can also read John Harris' thoughts on the game or listen to the guys from RL Radio talk about it.

More Console Roguelikes to be added
  • Izuna Ninja Warrior
  • Toe Jam and Early
  • Pokeman Mystery Dungeon series

:siren:Mobile Roguelikes:siren:

The roguelike genre seems designed for mobile gaming. Roguelikes are quick enough to pick up and play while on the go, while deep enough to maintain your interest for a long time. The greatest mobile roguelikes are available on PC as well, but as we get a lot of requests for mobile roguelike suggestions, I thought they deserved their own category. Games here are primarily designed for mobile devices, including the iPhone, Android devices, and the GBA / DS / PSP.

Powder
Cost: FREE



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: Tiles
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, PSP, GBA, Nintendo DS, Android, iOS, pretty much every platform known to man
Let's Plays: Forks: No.

To understand Powder, you need to know the platform the game was intially developed for: the Gameboy Advance. Powder was designed to be a roguelike that you could play without an entire keyboard at your disposal. It's got cute graphics, a very intuitive interface, and a wonderful tutorial system. In terms of gameplay, Powder probably owes more to Nethack than any other roguelike. It doesn't have the scope of Nethack, of course, but if you go into the game expecting it to be a "mini-Nethack" you probably won't be dissapointed.

It is possible to kill the dragons in the tutorial.

Liberal Crime Squad
Thanks to Bouchacha for this write-up.
Cost: FREE



Genre: Squad-based guerilla simulator.
Graphics: Menu and text driven, with ASCII "cutscenes"
Platform: Windows, Linux source available, Android
Let's Plays: Forks: No.

Before Toady got the internet's lifelong admiration with Dwarf Fortress, he made a game called Liberal Crime Squad and gave the source over to another dude in 2004. This is exactly The Baader Meinhof Complex: The Game. You're living in a USA that's heavily dominated by conservative thought, and you're tasked with shifting public opinion (and eventually, government) through various antics. There's many ways you can go about doing this and that's the beauty of the game. You can rob banks, kidnap a CEO and try to convert him to a sleeper agent, raid army bases for guns, take over cable news broadcast, commit industrial sabotage, release prisoners en masse, tamper with juries, steal CIA secrets, even assassinate the president, or just quietly sit back and write articles for your newspaper. The learning curve is very steep but the interface is nowhere near as bad as Dwarf Fortress. It's a silly game that pokes fun at both sides of the political aisle (such as with gun-wielding liberal terrorists advocating for greater gun control) so anyone can play it. I confess I avoided it before because I thought it had an agenda, it's now one of my favorite games ever.

Make sure to get the latest beta version (as of Aug 2013: 4.07.3a) as it includes a recruiting screen that eliminates a large portion of the 'grind' found previously in the game. Brush up on your skills at the LCS Wiki.

Pixel Dungeon (developer blog)
Thanks to Corridor for this write-up.
Cost: FREE



Genre: Turn-based RPG
Graphics: Pixel art with 3D effects
Platform: Android Only

Let's Play's:
Forks: No

Pixel Dungeon is an adorable, but brutal, game by developer Watabou. It started out heavily based on Brogue, balanced around enchantment scrolls, potions of strength, and a hunger mechanic, but has quickly gained a direction all its own. It currently features four classes (with branching class changes) with their own unique equipment and perks. The dungeon itself features puzzle rooms, bosses, alchemy, and quest NPCs. You can also find the bodies of your previous adventurer and fight its ghost for a random item you had when you died. And because the developer is doing it solely for fun, the game is entirely free, with no IAP or ads.

Pixel Dungeon uses intuitive touchscreen controls and a few menu buttons to control the action. In the best roguelike tradition, if features all kinds of ways to die, and they are always usually your own fault. Threw a fire potion at an enemy while standing in a grass field? Dead. Tried to rob a grave without charges in your wands? Dead. Ate meat without cooking it and got paralyzed while a lone rat slowly chomped away at you as you looked on helplessly? Dead. Of course, you can also fall victim to the ever-present roguelike randomization, and if you don't find decent equipment early on, you are also very dead.




A section will be added here dealing with roguelike mechanics such as the identification sub-game, food systems, etc. Soon.

Want to learn more about roguelikes?

John Harris' Column: @Play
Over the course of 2 years JH wrote a series of articles examining the roguelike genre. He touches on all the major roguelikes, tons of minor ones, and really gets in-depth with the game mechanics. This column is probably the best resource on the web in terms of disussing roguelike game mechanics. Basically, these are must-reads.

Roguelike Radio
Up to episode # 76, RL Radio is a fairly regularly updated podcast covering the roguelike scene. Like John Harris'(who appears on the podcast) columns, RL Radio covers not only the bigger roguelikes, but also the smaller ones and really gets in depth with game mechanics. Most of the time the hosts and guests are developers, so there is a real developer bent to the podcast, but again, a must-listen to people really interested in knowing more about roguelikes.

7DRL Challenge
Every year the roguelike community hosts a 7 day challenge, during which developers declare their intention to build a roguelike from scratch, and then hopefully follow through. Some of the more interesting experiments in roguelike design have emerged from the 7DRL challenge, like Broken Bottle and The Aurora Wager. This past year there were 154 entrants to the 7DRL challenge, and you can actually watch video LPs for pretty much every one of them here.

Rogue Temple
The central hub for roguelikes around the web. About as active as an all encompassing roguelike community gets (except for here on SA), and most of the important RL news such as 7DRL results ends up being posted here.

Ascii Dreams
Andrew Doull's blog. One of the more prominent roguelike developers, host of RL Radio, and a goon. The Ascii Dreams website is mentioned here not because of that, however, but because every year in December it hosts the Roguelike of the Year poll. Last year's winner, despite some fun controversy, was TOME.

RogueBasin Wiki
A wiki for all things roguelike. It also includes a sidebar on the front page that links to new RL releases, as well as a ton of articles that explain some of the RL development fundamentals. Just a great resource.

If people have more links for me to add, let me know.

Jordan7hm fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Dec 8, 2013

Ernie.
Aug 31, 2012

Jordan7hm posted:

It should be noted that Thomas Biskup is a bit of a dink, but also that he crowdsourced funding to continue development on ADOM back in 2012, and there have been updates since then. Of note, graphics are coming.

Graphics are already integrated, just not the entire set. The latest pre-release has them.

Jordan7hm posted:

If anyone has games to add, let me know. Particularly interesting smaller / older RLs.

Legends of Yore (Android/iOS), Sword of Fargoal (kickstarted sequel) (PC/iOS) for smaller/mobile ones.

Alphaman as an older RL.

Harminoff
Oct 24, 2005

👽
I recommend roguesurvivor which I'm sad hasn't been updated in forever nor seems like it ever will be.

There is also Claustrophobia which I've had fun with. http://claustrophobiagame.tumblr.com/

Harminoff fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Aug 6, 2013

Bouchacha
Feb 7, 2006

Excellent OP! I recommend moving the "Want to learn more?" section to the bottom though. It makes more sense to list the games then show people where they can find out more info.

Jordan7hm
Feb 17, 2011




Lipstick Apathy

Ernutetnoiraud posted:

Graphics are already integrated, just not the entire set. The latest pre-release has them.

Didn't know that. Edited the post to reflect that. Also added the games mentioned to the list for future efforts (including Rogue Survivor) as well as fixed some of my spelling mistakes.

e: ^ done.

Johnny Joestar
Oct 21, 2010

Don't shoot him?

...
...



Oh, new thread. Let's hope Swamp spawns this time instead of Shoals.

DalaranJ
Apr 15, 2008

Yosuke will now die for you.
Reviewing my posts from the last thread I suddenly remembered about Desktop Dungeons. Turns out it's still in beta. What the hell? I bought the game like two years ago.

Edit: On a more urgent topic I'll work up something for Brogue unless Lilli or DoctorFrog beat me to it, I suppose. The only reason I haven't made a Brogue thread is because I'm so lazy.

Jordan7hm
Feb 17, 2011




Lipstick Apathy

DalaranJ posted:

Reviewing my posts from the last thread I suddenly remembered about Desktop Dungeons. Turns out it's still in beta. What the hell? I bought the game like two years ago.

I played it a bunch during their free week earlier in the year, and I had a blast. It's not feature complete, but it's pretty drat playable. They're a pretty bad example of developers getting lost during the development process though. They had a lot of buzz back in the day, but given how long this has taken them, they just weren't able to capitalize on it. I think they may have missed their chance to really succeed as a commercial game.

DalaranJ
Apr 15, 2008

Yosuke will now die for you.
I stopped playing for 6 months and came back and a bunch of stuff was completely different (in an awesome but confusing way) and I vowed not to play again until it was feature complete. That was 9 months ago, I think.

Dross
Sep 26, 2006

Every night he puts his hot dogs in the trees so the pigeons can't get them.

I can't find any sort of explanation of what all the different pickups in the Skulltag Arena mod for DoomRL do.

coolskull
Nov 11, 2007

Since I see Meritous mentioned in the OP: anything else that plays similar to that game? I'm thinking more about the upgrading while also tracking down tons of monsters to slaughter. (And the whole no-thought playstyle.)

fart simpson
Jul 2, 2005

DEATH TO AMERICA
:xickos:

Does anyone play Sil? That quickly became my favorite roguelike a few months ago.

dont be mean to me
May 2, 2007

I'm interplanetary, bitch
Let's go to Mars


To Add:

Hoplite (Android/7DRL); you've probably already heard of it.
Zettai Hero Project (PSP/Vita); a Shirenlike by the people who brought you Disgaea, which implies pretty much everything you think it does.

Also there's no compelling reason to play basic Elona over ElonaPlus anymore.

Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

Speaking of Elona+, here's the current thread! (even has a new version post on the last page to go with it) - http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3547131

Doom Goon
Sep 18, 2008


Triangle Wizard is still in the OP, wow. Fair enough; heck, I've beaten it (and more! Although it was ages ago...), and it is still in development at least. The dev seems nice from the little I've interacted with him.

Edit: I think the Dungeonmans section should be filled out soonish because there's a thread. Maybe by madjackmcmad if he wants.

Doom Goon fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Aug 6, 2013

Crimbo Hardstyle
Apr 23, 2006

HISS
Another possibility for the OP is Risk of Rain, which is a platformer roguelike-like based around surviving on an alien planet while everything tries to kill you.

The central idea of the game is that time equals difficulty, and so the longer you survive, the harder it gets, so you have to balance between rushing to the next level or sticking around to try to find items while more and more monsters pop up to try to murder and eat you. It's got a sufficiently merciless normal difficulty, as well as a hardcore mode that can be pretty brutal, and of course the usual permadeath.

Besides that, it's a class-based game where each class (six so far out of a planned ten) has four abilities. You level up, but that's just automatic stat increases, and your real boosts in power are from the huge number of items (many of the items and classes will need to be unlocked in the final release, but in the beta it's mostly just available so it can be tested immediately) that you buy from chests or gamble on from shrines or get from bosses when you kill them. One of the best decisions the devs made, in my opinion, was to make every item have a very clear and distinct effect, usually with a visual indicator to go along with it, so that you're not finding something and going "oh it's just a little damage boost", it's "aw yeah my shots all explode for extra damage now" or "I leave a trail of fire everywhere I go" et cetera.

The game had a pretty successful kickstarter campaign, and currently it's still in beta (which is paid, and more expensive than just preordering with no beta access), getting updates every couple of weeks, usually with a bugfix a day or two after each content update, and the devs have been very open about everything on the forums as they work on it. It was originally slated for release in August, but that got pushed back when the devs decided to include online multiplayer as well as the already planned local co-op, which basically involved redoing a lot of the code from the ground up. More features are still in the works, and the actual ending of the game isn't in yet, so you just loop through the levels for as long as you can survive currently, but the game already plays very well even in its current state.

Crimbo Hardstyle fucked around with this message at 10:00 on Aug 6, 2013

EvilMike
Dec 6, 2004

Thanks for making a new thread. I have a couple of suggestions to improve the OP.

First thing is your list of nethack forks could be a bit better, the two you linked to are both unmaintained. The best ones out there right now are probably nethack 4 and unnethack. Both have online servers, unfortunately this is the only way to play nethack 4 if you're a windows user, which sucks because there's a lot of nice stuff in it.

Nethack 4 is a conservative fork, which focuses on interface and usability improvements. There are changes to gameplay but they seem to be balance oriented for the most part. Aside from bugs and the lack of an offline windows version, it seems to be a straight improvement over base Nethack. Unnethack is more gameplay focused. It has a lot of interface and usability improvements too, but it's not as conservative and isn't afraid to change things if it seems like an interesting idea. Overall it still feels like nethack though. It reminds me a bit of slash'em in terms of how it adds a lot of stuff, but it's better designed and still developed.

You should also mention nethack curses, which is a massive interface upgrade to the original nethack. The download there contains everything, and the base game itself is unmodified. The screenshots page there will show you what it looks like. Overall I think there's no point playing nethack with the vanilla interface, these days.

For angband, you should mention NPPAngband which is one of the best variants out there, and is still developed. As far as I can tell it's more popular than most of the *bands you listed, so it's worth mentioning if only for that. As a bonus, the next version will also lets you play NPPMoria, which is probably the only reasonable way to play Moria these days. In terms of gameplay, NPP stands for "no pet peeves" and NPPAngband is basically about removing annoying stuff and adding cool stuff. Overall it's still Angband, but more solidly designed imo. NPPMoria on the other hand is very conservative - basically it's just the original Moria ported to the NPPAngband engine, which is good because there's no way you're getting the original game to run on modern systems.

I think it would be worth mentioning Sil on its own. This game is ridiculously well designed, and doesn't play at all like Angband (it shares a lot of code and the name of the dungeon, but the gameplay is totally different down to the very core). I think it's different enough that it's less of a variant and more of a game in its own right. I've played a lot of roguelikes and Sil is one of the best I've seen. Especially if you like the tactical, anti-grinding focus of Crawl, you owe it to yourself to try this game.

Lastly, you really should add a section for Brogue, but I see that's already planned.

lordfrikk
Mar 11, 2010

Oh, say it ain't fuckin' so,
you stupid fuck!

EvilMike posted:

I think it would be worth mentioning Sil on its own.

I wholeheartedly agree. I don't like Angband but I liked Sil from the get-go.

Kyfow
Aug 5, 2013
I'd like to help out with a basic description of Dwarf Fortress's adventurer mode.

The key points of DF's roguelike mode is that the world is randomly generated, with separate regions, factions, monsters and fortresses for each new world. The game acts as a survival simulator in a (potentially) hostile world, and has you eat, drink and sleep in order to survive. It's also an open world roguelike, having no real goal aside from gaining a reputation, taking on the biggest enemies, getting stronger and getting better gear.

The game has a seamless "travel mode" and "exploration mode", the former allowing you to move relatively fast across the world, and the latter letting you explore the specific surrounding. The game also has a pretty expansive (and brutal) combat system, allowing you to tear apart your enemies, break their bones, disembowel them, gouge their eyes out and much, much more. As always for DF, however, losing is fun, so don't expect to survive very long.

I LOVE the concept behind Dwarf Fortress's adventurer mode. I just wish that it wasn't as broken as it is (the Goblin Child kicked you in the head, shattering the skull and tearing apart the brain!). I wish they'd expand upon the game mode, give it more quests, more spells, ways to craft weapons, and so on.

Anyone else play it? Have you figured out reliable (non cheating) ways to not die within the first 5 quests?

Also gently caress bogeymen.

Kyfow fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Aug 6, 2013

Sexpansion
Mar 22, 2003

DELETED
I had no idea X@COM existed. I need to try it this second.

EvilMike
Dec 6, 2004

I've tried adventure mode but it's really half baked compared to fortress mode. You sort of just wander around without any real goal except to explore. Character development is mostly limited to stat growth, you won't find great loot unless you raid an old fortress, so there's not much of a progression feel. It's a low magic setting, so no spells - but there's not much to make up for this. There's a fairly elaborate melee system, but in general you don't need all those options. Just pick whichever attack move is likely to get an instakill, and ignore the other ones. Etc.

What makes adventure mode very interesting is that you can explore old fortresses, and the idea behind that is very cool. Even though the gameplay is lacking, being able to explore the ruins of stuff you once created and get a sense of how it fits in the world justifies adventure mode. But as an actual roguelike, it's a bad one. Without fortress mode (which is a city builder game), it's just not able to stand on its own for very long.

Kyfow
Aug 5, 2013

EvilMike posted:

I've tried adventure mode but it's really half baked compared to fortress mode. You sort of just wander around without any real goal except to explore. Character development is mostly limited to stat growth, you won't find great loot unless you raid an old fortress, so there's not much of a progression feel. It's a low magic setting, so no spells - but there's not much to make up for this. There's a fairly elaborate melee system, but in general you don't need all those options. Just pick whichever attack move is likely to get an instakill, and ignore the other ones. Etc.

What makes adventure mode very interesting is that you can explore old fortresses, and the idea behind that is very cool. Even though the gameplay is lacking, being able to explore the ruins of stuff you once created and get a sense of how it fits in the world justifies adventure mode. But as an actual roguelike, it's a bad one. Without fortress mode (which is a city builder game), it's just not able to stand on its own for very long.

Some new stuff was introduced in the latest patch that made it more interesting. You can get magic in the form of becoming a necromancer, exploration of cities and their dungeons was really expanded upon and there's usually a lot more to do in the world. It's a pretty good game to dick around in, but generally speaking if you're looking for that tight progression feeling, then it's not the game for you. I agree with most of what you said, but I don't think it faults the game to a severe degree.

Also, protip, nothing is quite as cool in the game as mining some adamantine in fortress mode, creating some masterwork adamantine sword or whatever, and unleashing that hell into the fortress, and then exploring that fortress in adventurer mode. It really gives you a sense of purpose, and it serves as a sort of endgame goal. Because once you acquire said weapon, the game pretty much breaks, you can kill almost anything in a few hits.

Kyfow fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Aug 6, 2013

o.m. 94
Nov 23, 2009

Good OP, I would just like to echo that I'd like to see information about Brogue and Sil because they're both comparatively newbie-friendly, but also polished and complete roguelike experiences.

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous

Kyfow posted:

Anyone else play it? Have you figured out reliable (non cheating) ways to not die within the first 5 quests?

Also gently caress bogeymen.

First: Stay out of the open at night.

The following is really exploity, grindy and boring, but works (although you'll never-ever want to play adventure mode again):

- Craft sharp rocks and throw them at the ground below you until you are a legendary knapper and thrower.
- Sneak and swim at the same time in a safe pond/river until you reach a decent level at both skills and gain more strength/agility/toughness. (Speed is critical, and so is the weather - avoid getting encased in ice)
- After that, get a shield of some sorts and as much armor as you can. (there ought to be some in a lair or sewers). Use your sneaking skill to avoid conflict.
- Find a small creature that can't harm you (sneak up on it and grab it with the hand that isn't holding the shield), set your combat settings to wrestling and just let it (try to) attack you until you're tired from blocking/dodging. Kill it, rest, find another creature, repeat.
- Grind weapons skill. I don't think I need to explain to you how to do this.
- At this point, get a few companions if you want to, but not too many, since the size of bandit ambushes depends on your reputation and number of followers.

Slowly work your way up, gaining more skill and loot. Avoid human enemies, since a single lucky crossbow bolt from behind can kill even the most seasoned adventurer.

Kyfow
Aug 5, 2013

my dad posted:

First: Stay out of the open at night.

The following is really exploity, grindy and boring, but works (although you'll never-ever want to play adventure mode again):

- Craft sharp rocks and throw them at the ground below you until you are a legendary knapper and thrower.
- Sneak and swim at the same time in a safe pond/river until you reach a decent level at both skills and gain more strength/agility/toughness. (Speed is critical, and so is the weather - avoid getting encased in ice)
- After that, get a shield of some sorts and as much armor as you can. (there ought to be some in a lair or sewers). Use your sneaking skill to avoid conflict.
- Find a small creature that can't harm you (sneak up on it and grab it with the hand that isn't holding the shield), set your combat settings to wrestling and just let it (try to) attack you until you're tired from blocking/dodging. Kill it, rest, find another creature, repeat.
- Grind weapons skill. I don't think I need to explain to you how to do this.
- At this point, get a few companions if you want to, but not too many, since the size of bandit ambushes depends on your reputation and number of followers.

Slowly work your way up, gaining more skill and loot. Avoid human enemies, since a single lucky crossbow bolt from behind can kill even the most seasoned adventurer.

Great tips, also an important thing to remember is that travelling in groups is usually a good thing. There's a reason why villagers tell you to not go out at night alone. The bogeymen (who are these swearing, incredibly annoying demon things that come out to pester you at night and DON'T FEEL PAIN, making bludgeoning weapons completely useless, short of bashing their brains in) only bother you when you travel alone, so before you go to any long distance quest, find the nearest fortress and ask the soldiers to join you. You're still unsafe at night, but at least you won't be harassed by those god damned bogeymen.

Kyfow fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Aug 6, 2013

THE PWNER
Sep 7, 2006

by merry exmarx
There should be a * next to every listed game to indicate mouse support or no mouse support for babbies like me. Thanks!!!

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

This seems like a good thread for this link

http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Complete_Roguelike_Tutorial,_using_python%2Blibtcod

It's a tutorial on how to program your very own crappy roguelike in Python, one of the simplest programming languages in existence.

ComposerGuy
Jul 28, 2007

Conspicuous Absinthe
No "Castle of the Winds" in the OP? For shame!

madjackmcmad
May 27, 2008

Look, I'm startin' to believe some of the stuff the cult guy's been saying, it's starting to make a lot of sense.

Doom Goon posted:

Edit: I think the Dungeonmans section should be filled out soonish because there's a thread.

That would be great.

TheMightyCheese posted:

Another possibility for the OP is Risk of Rain, which is a platformer roguelike-like based around surviving on an alien planet while everything tries to kill you.

I second this. Also +1 for Meritous.

ComposerGuy posted:

No "Castle of the Winds" in the OP? For shame!

Indeed.

Jordan7hm posted:

I wanted to get the new OP up today, but it took wayyyy more time than I thought it would. I probably won't actually finish it until next week.

Yeah. I'd really hate to see the smaller games in the old OP get lost behind the glare of the big ones. Don't mean to sound like a jerk, I'm just a grumpy old man when it comes to preserving the quirky, smaller, and unfinished games that make up such a large part of both the current roguelike scene and our history.

BrutalistMcDonalds
Oct 4, 2012


Lipstick Apathy

ComposerGuy posted:

No "Castle of the Winds" in the OP? For shame!
To be honest, I was just browsing this thread and I'm now reminded that CotW is the only rougelike I've ever played. And as a kid, I played the ever-loving poo poo out of that game.

Maybe this will encourage me to give Dungeon Crawl a try.

Bouchacha
Feb 7, 2006

EvilMike posted:

For angband, you should mention NPPAngband which is one of the best variants out there, and is still developed. As far as I can tell it's more popular than most of the *bands you listed, so it's worth mentioning if only for that. As a bonus, the next version will also lets you play NPPMoria, which is probably the only reasonable way to play Moria these days. In terms of gameplay, NPP stands for "no pet peeves" and NPPAngband is basically about removing annoying stuff and adding cool stuff. Overall it's still Angband, but more solidly designed imo. NPPMoria on the other hand is very conservative - basically it's just the original Moria ported to the NPPAngband engine, which is good because there's no way you're getting the original game to run on modern systems.
What's the feature list on this?

Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Dec 22, 2005

GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

THE PWNER posted:

There should be a * next to every listed game to indicate mouse support or no mouse support for babbies like me. Thanks!!!

It is worth it to unplug your mouse for an hour and spend it playing your favorite roguelike. You'll never go back.

madjackmcmad
May 27, 2008

Look, I'm startin' to believe some of the stuff the cult guy's been saying, it's starting to make a lot of sense.

Jeffrey posted:

It is worth it to unplug your mouse for an hour and spend it playing your favorite roguelike. You'll never go back.

I had a few people tell me that they were unable to enjoy or even play Dungeonmans for lack of mouse support, usually due to stuff like arthritis. I too play keyboard exclusively if possible, but I totally get why mice should be included. They'll be in Dungeonmans for sure.

Bouchacha
Feb 7, 2006

Submited for the approval of the Midnight Society....

UnReal World (thread)



Genre: Turn-based survival/crafting RPG
Graphics: Awesome LARP pictures and full tile-sprites. Highly recommended that you get this graphic mod!.
Platform: Windows, OSX, Linux.
Let's Plays: There's a lot, just google it on bing.

This has been continuously developed since 1992 by some dude living in the Finnish wilderness, which is appropriate because you get to play as some dude living in the Finnish wilderness. What started out as another fantasy roguelike blossomed into a hardcore survival simulation set in the Finnish iron age. There's a dizzying amount of detail and tasks available to you. You can stalk moose, hunt squirrels with rocks, chase deer with hunting dogs, set bear pit traps, skin animals, clean the hair off to make leather, tan hides in a multi-step and multi-day process (culminating in you beating the hide with a club over a log), set fishing nets, smoke meat in a smoke house for long-term preservation, build a cellar for even longer preservation, grow beans, make bean soup, eat random mushrooms, die, steal crops from village fields, chop down trees and float down the logs on a raft, build a baller cabin with a chimney and everything, dress yourself up in dead animal skins and hunt Njerpez raiders in their own home, chop up their corpses and eat their flesh, make cords out of their clothes in order to hang their meat for drying in the winter, put random herbs on your wounds and hope they help, freeze to death in the winter, and of course go skiing! The game also introduced a detailed wounding system before DF made it cool.

The game as you can see is quite detailed and very satisfying in how you're only tasked with surviving. While it's continually in development, it does suffer at the moment from lacking an end goal but in the works are plans to incorporate marriage and village building in the future, as well as dynasty hopping through your children.

I credit it for providing me with a great appreciation of the outdoors and the many skills involved. It's a great diversion when you just want to build poo poo instead of kill orcs.

Bouchacha fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Aug 6, 2013

Chakan
Mar 30, 2011
Something like this for Elona

Elona (thread)



Genre: Turn-based JRPG
Graphics: Tile based sprite
Platform: Windows (Java port as well)
Let's Plays:
Exoterius (just a random one I found that's not from 5+years ago)
Forks: Elona+ is actively developed and generally considered superior.There are download directions in the SA thread first post.

Eternal League of Nefia is a wonderful adventure that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. The game is brutally fair, if you've got enough strength you can hug someone to death, but if you try to cast a spell without enough MP, your HP will be drained. In a genre that seeks to remove itself from tedious grinding and needless keystrokes, Elona seems to actively pride itself on obfuscating the proper game behind hours of mind-numbing grinding. That said, the game is incredibly intelligent and robust, it has an interesting world and it's clear a great deal of facets have been thought through. It's worth reading the thread for all the things other people do, even if you don't want to endure it yourself. This game is a JRPG through and through.

It is important to note that Elona+ offers vast improvements over the base game and is very much worth playing over the base game. As one final aside, Elona don't control or feel like other roguelikes, so you don't fumble too much with the controls you should do the tutorial.

e: fixed bolding

EvilMike
Dec 6, 2004

Bouchacha posted:

What's the feature list on this?

I don't think there's a concise list anywhere, but it comes with a complete changelog. The roguebasin page gives a very short summary of what it's about : http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=NPPAngband

Sil was actually forked from an old version of this, and they both have the same AI system I think.

Bouchacha
Feb 7, 2006

And another

Liberal Crime Squad



Genre: I don't know uhh squad-based guerilla simulator?
Graphics: Nope. 90% of the game is menu and text driven, with the exception of locations and certain ASCII "cutscenes"
Platform: Windows only I think, Linux source available.
Let's Plays: Google it on bing

Before Toady go the internet's lifelong admiration with Dwarf Fortress, he made a game called Liberal Crime Squad and gave the source over to another dude in 2004. This is exactly The Baader Meinhof Complex: The Game. You're living in a USA that's heavily dominated by conservative thought, and you're tasked with shifting public opinion (and eventually, government) through various antics. There's many ways you can go about doing this and that's the beauty of the game. You can rob banks, kidnap a CEO and try to convert him to a sleeper agent, raid army bases for guns, take over cable news broadcast, commit industrial sabotage, release prisoners en masse, tamper with juries, steal CIA secrets, even assassinate the president, or just quietly sit back and write articles for your newspaper. The learning curve is very steep but the interface is nowhere near as bad as Dwarf Fortress. It's a silly game that pokes fun at both sides of the political aisle (such as with gun-wielding liberal terrorists advocating for greater gun control) so anyone can play it. I confess I avoided it before because I thought it had an agenda, it's now one of my favorite games ever.

Make sure to get the latest beta version (as of Aug 2013: 4.07.3a) as it includes a recruiting screen that eliminates a large portion of the 'grind' found previously in the game. Brush up on your skills at the Wiki.

Bouchacha fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Aug 6, 2013

Tube
Jun 1, 2000

I'm going off the rails on a CRAZY TRAIN!

Fallen Rib
I'm not sure how Moria of all things gets overlooked in a thread like this, even though Angband did get a mention. Moria's been around since 1983, and still has people working on it, perhaps thanks to the fact that it was the first open-source Roguelike. And it's always been a drat good alternative to Hack/Rogue, though perhaps not as complex (if that's what does it for you) as Nethack.

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my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous

That link is going through Facebook, I assume you wanted to post this:

4.07.3a

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