Roguelikes and the rogues who like them

[Springblossom]

So let's discuss roguelikes and roguelites.

I've been playing a lot of Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup lately. It's modeled after other dungeon crawler roguelikes, but it's intended to avoid a lot of the cheap bullshit deaths other roguelikes have. It has a really well done interface, unlike some other roguelikes *coughNetHackcough*, a lot of interesting customization options, and a difficulty curve that actually lets you enjoy the game even as a beginner.

I've also been playing a bit of FTL: Faster Than Light, which is awesome and you should totally buy it.

I used to play a lot of NetHack and Ancient Domains of Mystery, but I got kind of burned out on both of them (Nethack for the awkward interface and awful endgame, ADOM for its ridiculously hard endgame and excessive grinding).

So what roguelikes are you fine fellows into?

 

[c-no]

I was into a lot of Elona. Though at some point a wishroom moongate made me become complacent. The stuff I wished for made things too easy in terms of getting gold (just wish for wealth) along with getting selective pieces of gear I wished for such as pope robes. When I played the game more fairly, it was fun though I can admit: I saved-scum a lot so shame on me. The developer ceased making it for reasons known only to him. To sum up Elona (as said by TV Tropes): Twisted, funny, and strangely compelling. Like Dwarf Fortress' Adventure Mode on crack.

One fun thing about it are the randomized Aliases. You get names like Divine Gay. One player got an alias known as The Pimp (his player name is a reference to Idiocracy if I recall correctly).

 

[spaps]

I play The Binding of Isaac occasionally, though nowhere as much as most of my friends do. I also play Rogue Shooter: The FPS Roguelike (yes, that's actually the name). It's okay, but one problem I have with it is that the difficulty seems to randomly vary between levels. The first two levels could be incredibly easy, but then in the third level you could easily spawn in the middle of the map then get (quite literally) gang-raped by a large amount of enemies near the spawn.

 

[EI 873]

I used to play a lot of he Binding of Isaac, but I've kinda gotten tired of it. The game is fun and everything, but you have to play it through in a single sitting and that just takes too long. Everything from the Womb onwards is really just an endurance test.
I tried out A Wizard's Lizard because a friend recommended it. It's kind of a Binding of Isaac ripoff, but it has a very different equipment system and some other things that make it different. Fun but rough around the edges. You can guarantee a drop of the best weapon in the game within thirty seconds of starting a run and seriously what's the point in unlocking additional equipment after you realise that. (Maybe not literally the best weapon, but definitely in the top five.)
Not sure if it qualifies, but the 1997 videogame adaptation of Magic: The Gathering has a very fun adventure mode that essentially works like a roguelike, random encounters and all. I've been re-playing that lately. All the cards are from the early days of MtG and Ante is allowed, so you can end up with some very fun (read: absolutely hideously broken) decks.

 

[The I Scream Man]

Time to make a new character, power spergs, because I finally found one of my favorite threads on these beautiful forums.

One of my favorites that I've been playing a metric fuckton of is Tales of Maj'Eyal, fantastic atmosphere and depth with unrelenting difficulty. I love it to death, it kept me sane all through this last semester and it's gotten more rotation in my recently played lists than many AAA titles. @lonesome commented that Binding of Isaac required too much time to complete, well I'm here to say that ToME can be saved mid fight even, trust me I know all about this. Highly recommended, so y'all should check it out, and you should also tell me what roguelikes you've been playing recently!

 

[Mollybdenum]

My first roguelike was literally the most basic of basics; Castle of the Winds. Good times. Then I went on the the Exile Series. Exile: Escape from the Pit, Exile II: Crystal Souls, Exile III: Ruined World and Blades of Exile... and kinda just stopped there. Some Avernum but it just didn't quite tickle my fancy as much as Exile. Hell I still play the Exiles' on DosBox, every now and then I dabble in scenario creation too just to make a thing for me to play.

 

[The I Scream Man]

My first roguelike was literally the most basic of basics; Castle of the Winds. Good times. Then I went on the the Exile Series. Exile: Escape from the Pit, Exile II: Crystal Souls, Exile III: Ruined World and Blades of Exile... and kinda just stopped there. Some Avernum but it just didn't quite tickle my fancy as much as Exile. Hell I still play the Exiles' on DosBox, every now and then I dabble in scenario creation too just to make a thing for me to play.

I too love the old Exile games, I purchased them all and as the guy who makes them updates them periodically for compatibility with newer versions of Windows sometimes I return to the caves. Man I was just a kid when the first one came out, too, and I didn't have a credit card so I couldn't play past a certain point on the demo versions...hell yeah them feels are for reals.

 

[Mollybdenum]

"Suddenly, the Shareware Demon appears! It says, 'Ahem. To the west is a horrendous chasm, which can only be passed by those who have paid their shareware fee. To find out how to perform this blessed act, select 'Shareware Info' on the title screen.' It waves and disappears in a puff of sulphurous smoke."

 

[The I Scream Man]

"Suddenly, the Shareware Demon appears! It says, 'Ahem. To the west is a horrendous chasm, which can only be passed by those who have paid their shareware fee. To find out how to perform this blessed act, select 'Shareware Info' on the title screen.' It waves and disappears in a puff of sulphurous smoke."

Right in the fuckin feels man.

 

[Lucky Wildcard]

I've been playing a lot of Risk of Rain and Spelunky. I haven't done multiplayer in either game, though...

Risk of Rain is a sci-fi platformer roguelike where the difficulty gets higher the longer you go on. I haven't played it lately due to some bugs screwing the game up and I won't touch it until all the kinks are worked out.

 

[littlebiscuits]

I like the title of this thread, that's what I like.....

 

[XYZpdq]

Console pleb mode:
I played a few of the Mysterious Dungeons.
Mostly that Chocobo one that came out in English and I played the hell out of Nightmare of Druaga on overnight shifts at work for a while. These days I'm puttering around with Digimon World 2 for the PS1 on my PSP.

 

[DuskEngine]

Anyone into them? What have you guys been playing? ASCII or sprite art? Of course it's ASCII you peons.

I've been playing Cogmind lately. It was made as part of the 7 day roguelike challenge, and it shows. It's a bit basic, but I like it, there aren't enough sci-fi roguelikes. The creator is remaking it with way more features.

It also has really good ASCII graphics:

What roguelikes do you guys like?

 

[QI 541]

Elona's pretty fun.

 

[c-no]

Elona's pretty fun.

Indeed. Shame the dev stopped making the game but there does at least exist Elona+ which adds more content (and much harder challenges as well). Also, it was getting a Java port but I don't know if that is still going on.

One roguelike I enjoyed was one where you are a dragon that tries to grow up via killing monsters and adventurer's. Pretty fun for what it was worth, even if I ended up getting killed by horde's of warriors, mages, and the like.

*Edit: Forgot this thread already exist:
https://kiwifarms.net/threads/roguelikes-and-the-rogues-who-like-them.4449/
best thing to do is merge.

 

[ES 148]

Sorry for the incredible necropost here, but roguelikes are one of my favourite genres(?) of games ;-;

Recently I've been playing a lot of DoomRL, which is one of the only roguelikes I've ever played that makes me tap keys super fast and get into the action without having to (it's probably why I die so much, but the sound, graphics and simplicity make it feel more like a top-down action game if you're good enough at pressing keys super fast).

Cogmind (as mentioned earlier in the thread) is being developed far past its 7DRL roots, and has an alpha you can pay to access (which is excellent in itself, being the 7DRL but better in almost every way). I don't actually own it yet, but what I have seen is top-notch.

[Obligatory Dwarf Fortress plug here, mention drowning a dragon in molten soap or something similar]

Also been playing some NetHack, Angband and Rogue to help me understand how the more popular roguelikes work - I'm developing my own and I want to capture the 'roguelike feel'.

And as I just mentioned, I'm developing one based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe using python+libtcod. It's playable as-is, but barely out of pre-alpha in terms of features and development of existing features.

Again, sorry for necro. I'd just like to see this thread develop a bit.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

Anyone into them? What have you guys been playing? ASCII or sprite art? Of course it's ASCII you peons.

I've been playing Cogmind lately. It was made as part of the 7 day roguelike challenge, and it shows. It's a bit basic, but I like it, there aren't enough sci-fi roguelikes. The creator is remaking it with way more features.

It also has really good ASCII graphics:

What roguelikes do you guys like?

Basically the same like this. ASCII just has that design simplicity I consider a thing of beauty, unlimited design potential.

 

[Mimic]

I'm more into Mystery Dungeon-style games but definitely love a good roguelike. Tales of Maj'Eyal and Sword of the Stars: The Pit come to mind.

 

[Shroom King]

Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth Plus is out.
Even though some of the additions to make the game harder are questionable, they scaled it way back in a recent patch.
But yeah, if you didn't get Godhead before, you are probably fucked now. I just hit 400 hours total in the game (bought Rebirth + Afterbirth a year ago). I am getting burned out on it, though, and Enter the Gungeon is way too hard for me (can't even unlock the shop after 10 hours in).

 

[Anime is Blood]

Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth Plus is out.
Even though some of the additions to make the game harder are questionable, they scaled it way back in a recent patch.
But yeah, if you didn't get Godhead before, you are probably fucked now. I just hit 400 hours total in the game (bought Rebirth + Afterbirth a year ago). I am getting burned out on it, though, and Enter the Gungeon is way too hard for me (can't even unlock the shop after 10 hours in).

Enter the Gungeon is brutal but there are some tricks that make it easier, I just hesitate to post them since a new update is about to drop with a bunch of new content that will probably change things.

The most important things though are unlocking items and learning the boss patterns. I went from getting my bitch ass handed to me for tens of hours and barely hitting Floor 2 or 3 to getting some of the harder achievements. I still haven't gotten all of them yet though at 400 hours but when you get a few new items you can make some nice combos.