The Codex of Roguelikes

[getter77]

Coming middle of next year: THYSIASTERY

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3140180/THYSIASTERY/

THYSIASTERY is a dungeon crawler RPG featuring traditional roguelike and turn-based gameplay. Command a party of bearers of the Brand, drawn into a vast Labyrinth. Recruit while exploring the Labyrinth in hope of finding a way out, and its secrets will be revealed as you delve deeper.

Play as a group of bearers of the Brand that have been drawn into the vast and enigmatic Labyrinth. Save, ally with, rely on and learn from characters you encounter whilst exploring in hopes of finding a way out. Discover buried forests, underwater cities and other ancient secrets as you delve deeper into the Labyrinth.

The Brand has called you in.
The Labyrinth hungers once more.
Or is it all just a sign of madness?

FEATURES:​

• Turn-based combat in which your choices allow you to capitalize on chance and weakness - or be similarly exploited.
• Classic roguelike features such as permadeath, procedurally generated areas and randomly generated characters that provide a highly replayable game.
• A great number of skills for characters to learn and discover, then teach further to other characters.
• Explore different environments, investigate mysterious objects and artifacts, and meet some of the friendly natives of the Labyrinth.
• A number of difficulty modifiers to amp up or down the difficulty.
• Beautiful retro-inspired art style drawn in limited color palettes.

 

[Serus]

Looks more like a traditional dungeon crawler on screens than RL. It is supposed to be "roguelike" with permadeath and random generation (reads like fully random, i hope it is mixed, those give best results). Still, it is party based and FPP, I wouldn't call it "classic RL". Perhaps those kinds of games should be called rogue-lites or roguelike-likes instead of... everything and its dog.
I'm cautiously interested.

 

[Covenant]

Looks interesting but I can't help but cringe whenever I see people pick titles that are likely to be difficult to search for, or that will cause confusion. It's like they're shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Yeah, notice they're trying to capitalize on that old Epyx box art style. I say trying.

 

[ColossusCimmerian]

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

We'll see after that butterfly TPKs him and all his friends.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I feel kinda bad for this dev. Clearly a passion project, and it looks like a lot of work went into it but... the original rogue is a bad game. Translating it to this form might make it nicer to look at, but the gameplay is still going to be awful.

 

[ColossusCimmerian]

I feel kinda bad for this dev. Clearly a passion project, and it looks like a lot of work went into it but... the original rogue is a bad game. Translating it to this form might make it nicer to look at, but the gameplay is still going to be awful.

Why Rogue is a bad game?

You're more into Angband, Nethack or ToME2? Or maybe ADOM?

 

[Damned Registrations]

All of the above. Nethack is my fave, probably then angband, adom and ToME2 in last place.

Rogue is a bad game because it's too simple. There are actually very few player decisions to make. No shops, so no deciding what to buy or sell. No way to identify stuff except using it, so no decisions there either until you get into the midgame and have multiple copies of stuff. No class or race selection. No weight system, so few decisions about what to carry. No gods to appease or side branches to explore. The only real decisions to make in rogue are when to run away to the next floor (if that's even an option) and how low to let your strength get before using a potion to restore it. It's cool for the novelty for a while if you've never played a roguelike before, but once you get to gameplay, it's at about the same level as a game of solitaire. It was my first roguelike (Hah!) but it was later entries that made me fall in love with the genre.

For comparison, Brogue is also extremely simple by design, not even having levels to gain. It's still an order of magnitude more complex and engaging than Rogue.

 

[ColossusCimmerian]

Yes. That's correct. Rogue (1980) is an incomplete game. The game goal was too short, they removed many D&D game mechanics, and the focus was on the D&D Dungeon Tutorial when a first-time player was learning the basic D&D 1974 gameplay and rules. That is the reason why there is no wilderness (outdoor). I am merely speculating, as this is identical to the original D&D 1974, albeit with a more basic approach. The randomization of the dungeon is a feature of D&D, and it is not considered an innovation from Rogue. Gary Gygax has a tutorial from the 1970s on how to randomize dungeons and how to play solo. Another reason, I believe, is attributed to the limitations of that period and the general lack of experience among programmers in game development.

Another game that may be of interest to you, if you are not familiar with it yet, is "Beneath of the Apple Manor (1978)". This game offers a unique perspective on D&D during that period.

There are a few reasons why the game is the way it is, and it has its own strategies. I consider Rogue 1980, a game entry level for games "like-Rogue". Even if it is basic, it is far superior and has more features than some copy-paste-sell-nostalgia new games "like Rogue" out there that simplified it a lot. In other words, Rogue is a good game for what it is. I always recommend to everyone to play the original Rogue (1980), it's free, and the gameplay is straightforward.

Another games, that I usually recommend is Torneko 1 (1993) and Shiren 1 (Shiren the Wanderer) (1995)

About Rogue (1980), the game branches into UltraRogue, Advanced Rogue and XRogue. Take a look:

Advanced Rogue

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'd have to look at the history of rogue again. It is funny I always confused Nethack with rogue because I just ignored those games. Instead I played Sword of Fargoal.

 

[ColossusCimmerian]

I'd have to look at the history of rogue again.

Don't use it Wikipedia, it's a disaster, with misinformation, and often they don't know what they're writing. If you try to correct it, they block your user. I firmly believe they have an agenda.

The last time I was correcting a game description, so I use the game as source (you can play it right now), facts and other credible source, I even use other Wikipedia article "as source", and my user was ban. I don't remember the exact ban reason they use, it was something like "unintentional misinformation."

It is funny I always confused Nethack with rogue because I just ignored those games. Instead I played Sword of Fargoal.

HMMMMM. Sword of Fargoal is a simple game, way simpler than Rogue. Tell me again why Rogue is bad? Advance Rogue, you can buy items and has classes as show you in the screenshot.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Good ole SOF on the Vic-20. That tape load speed..... LORDY!!!!

I've played the c64 later but then that free windows version was around that I played to death with the few extras it had (sadly it didn't have vic-20 gfx option).

Later, someone gave up a DL of the online SOF with classes. I heard various things about Jeff McCord's programmer being gone or not wanting others touching code etc. So SOF2 is gone I guess (people lost money).

On ios game-app SOF seems to be available to play but the app requires a monthly fee to play (albeit hundreds of games to choose from so it says not just SOF).

 

[ColossusCimmerian]

 

[ColossusCimmerian]

Rogue Cover

 

[kuniqs]

Tip for Omega: to enter wizard mode, kick the most north-western tile in Rampant's wall. The game will prompt you when you kick the right one.

 

[Fenix]

Errrr
I understand you are more about more obscure roguelikes, but out there is a Caves of Qud that is almost released.
They going to release it this year. Almost....

 

[Serus]

Errrr
I understand you are more about more obscure roguelikes, but out there is a Caves of Qud that is almost released.
They going to release it this year. Almost....

So what?

 

[Fenix]

Game is almost finished, that's what.
No weekly updates, so you can play safely.

 

[Gandalf]

No weekly updates, so you can play safely.

Are you sure about that?

 

[Fenix]

I do.
There will be massive update just to release that, but now game is mostly finished.
I mean, if you wait for release to play - it will come to Christmas.
But those quite annying updates, that tempted with new content and bugfixes are gone for now.

 

[Serus]

Game is almost finished, that's what.
No weekly updates, so you can play safely.

Great. This thread is about, as you called them, "obscure roguelikes". Also about well known roguelikes. About any roguelikes too. I played CoQ once a few years back. By that time it was meh. I was a bit disappointed. Perhaps it got better now.

 

[Fenix]

It matter what exactly you found dissapointed - maybe those points only got worse.

 

[Covenant]

The more experience I had with Qud, the more aggravating the writing style got. The devs seem to think that 'good writing' equates to wanking over a thesaurus, and I couldn't disagree more.