A Numbers Game

[vitellus]

seeing as almost all games involving combat in an rpg or roguelike can be broken down into basic 'dice' rolls, are there any games that are just numbers thrown on the screen with no graphics? none of those faggy vtm erotica-lite novels either. i'm a fucking weirdo who wants to play a game that has no graphics but heavy on the combat. wizardry without the map making and exploration, or even the graphic window. i want a set of numbers to compare and an opposing set to destroy. i need no narrative other than "kill thy enemy and loot their corpses", and all of this without graphics. it can be current, DOS, Apple II, shit i am even ok with a speccy game or three. no esoteric emulators though.

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

Do you have autism?

 

[just]

there are some rpgs in excel
could switch to the sheet where calculations are done and enjoy

 

[Arbiter]

seeing as almost all games involving combat in an rpg or roguelike can be broken down into basic 'dice' rolls, are there any games that are just numbers thrown on the screen with no graphics? none of those faggy vtm erotica-lite novels either. i'm a fucking weirdo who wants to play a game that has no graphics but heavy on the combat. wizardry without the map making and exploration, or even the graphic window. i want a set of numbers to compare and an opposing set to destroy. i need no narrative other than "kill thy enemy and loot their corpses", and all of this without graphics. it can be current, DOS, Apple II, shit i am even ok with a speccy game or three. no esoteric emulators though.

Windows Minesweeper.

 

[Arbiter]

there are some rpgs in excel

You mean Path of Exile?

 

[Zlaja]

seeing as almost all games involving combat in an rpg or roguelike can be broken down into basic 'dice' rolls, are there any games that are just numbers thrown on the screen with no graphics? none of those faggy vtm erotica-lite novels either. i'm a fucking weirdo who wants to play a game that has no graphics but heavy on the combat. wizardry without the map making and exploration, or even the graphic window. i want a set of numbers to compare and an opposing set to destroy. i need no narrative other than "kill thy enemy and loot their corpses", and all of this without graphics. it can be current, DOS, Apple II, shit i am even ok with a speccy game or three. no esoteric emulators though.

Windows Minesweeper.

I hate Minesweeper. It's too hard.

 

[Gandalf]

Nice thread, I would like to (re)play such text only combat simulators too. Can't help with the names, thanks to covid ma memory mind is nowdays like a swiss cheese, but I will happily see more responeses. There was a pretty recent title, it had what you want, but also ms paint looking like portraits on both of the sides of the screen. Was quite cool. Maybe someone knows the name of it?

 

[vitellus]

there are some rpgs in excel

You mean Path of Exile?

you're thinking of eve online

 

[vitellus]

Do you have autism?

it wouldn't shock me tbh, i do frequent rpgcodex.net

 

[vitellus]

i'll just start posting the shit i find in here

 

[vitellus]

can get it here as well

 

[The Decline]

 

[vitellus]

that game was really fun and the ascii art was pretty good, definitely the direction i'm looking for sure

 

[vitellus]

there are some rpgs in excel
could switch to the sheet where calculations are done and enjoy

http://www.frayn.net/games/ddxl/index.html

 

[vitellus]

i think i found something i never knew i needed to play

 

[vitellus]

always circular as searches will inevitably lead you back to this very site

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/best-spreadsheet-games.138409/

 

[std::namespace]

:dice:

 

[std::namespace]

 

[std::namespace]

:d20:

 

[std::namespace]

what was the command?

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Warsim sorta?

 

[Nutmeg]

seeing as almost all games involving combat in an rpg or roguelike can be broken down into basic 'dice' rolls, are there any games that are just numbers thrown on the screen with no graphics? none of those faggy vtm erotica-lite novels either. i'm a fucking weirdo who wants to play a game that has no graphics but heavy on the combat. wizardry without the map making and exploration, or even the graphic window. i want a set of numbers to compare and an opposing set to destroy. i need no narrative other than "kill thy enemy and loot their corpses", and all of this without graphics. it can be current, DOS, Apple II, shit i am even ok with a speccy game or three. no esoteric emulators though.

Windows Minesweeper.

I hate Minesweeper. It's too hard.

I knew an autistic guy in high school who could click through a game of minesweeper and get the win in under a minute.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I find the games that best scratch this particular itch for me are slay the spire clones. If you get the right one, combat is deterministic, aside from which cards you drew, and animations are non existant. So you're basically just solving the math each turn to determine the optimal play that gives you the best ratio of resources lost/gained on each side.



Card Quest is a good one. No demo but also no bullshit hour long intro/tutorial so give it a try and refund if you don't like it.

If it's really the graphics themselves that bother you... Warsim I guess? Even that is going to have some ASCII graphics though and involves a lot of downtime between combat, and the combat itself isn't that interesting. I know of lots of good roguelikes with no graphics but the all involve exploration and such beyond simple combat.

Alternately, you could go for a text based incremental game. Swarm Simulator and Kittens Games are both extremely minimalistic, just various colours of text in menus. Not really combat based though. There's a popular one that is but I forgot the name. These aren't like cookie clicker; after a short ramp up period, you'll constantly have shit to optimize and decisions to make while playing, and clicking to make a number go up becomes quickly irrelevant. They're very addictive.

 

[vitellus]

If it's really the graphics themselves that bother you

nope, i just know that the lack of focus on visual presentation (can on occasion) produce a crunchy depth in gameplay. there are always shitty games.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I knew an autistic guy in high school who could click through a game of minesweeper and get the win in under a minute.

My mother turns into a tweaking robot when sweepin', it's real funny. She's fast though