The Codex of Roguelikes

[getter77]

Back to ADOM, the latest version v1.2 pre-release 18 has been made public outright as the time to them taking a crack at Greenlight and such approaches and having only a much earlier update public edition out of the mass of backer-only ones since then would be all kinds of foolish:

http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2013/11/adom-120-prerelease-18-is-available-for.html

 

[Gord]

Rogue Survivor seems abandoned, unfortunately, but there's some guy trying to recreate it.
If he manages to do it, I guess we might expect something playable in a year or two.

 

[Stabwound]

Desktop Dungeons is out and looks interesting, but no way am I paying $15 + $5 (day 1 DLC) and most likely multiple extra DLCs in the future for a game like this. This DLC shit just discourages me from buying games because of feeling like I'm missing out on shit. Even Dredmor wasn't worth $3.50 or whatever it was I paid for it.

 

[stony3k]

The best roguelikes are free (or almost)

Spoiler

 

[Damned Registrations]

15$ is definitely over the top. It'll be on sale for 80% off or whatever sooner or later though, grab it then, it's a cool game. I don't regret dropping the 8$ or whatever it was when I got it pre-release. Ate up many hours, and plays quite differently from other roguelikes. And it has good polish now, and shittons of content.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Anyone take a look at Risk of Rain on Steam? Looks to kind of be in a similar vein as Binding of Isaac or Spelunky (action/item based). I'm a little tempted just for the coop options.

 

[Stabwound]

I played it and I don't like it at all. It barely qualifies as a roguelike, but what I don't like is that it's very time-restricted and the actual action of the game is boring as shit. You have to be as quick as possible, because the longer the timer goes on, the more random things get spawned on you until you're overwhelmed. I know a lot of people seem to like it, but it's not my thing at all.

If they added equipment instead of random powerups it would have been more fun.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I tried it out. Managed to beat it the first time earlier today, Acrid is a fucking beast. It's pretty fun, but I don't foresee spending as much time on it as I would the other two games you mentioned, let alone the time I fritter away on real roguelikes. The problem I have with it is that there isn't enough thinking involved. You occasionally get to choose between a selection of 3 items, but not often enough to make any sort of focused build the way you might in other games. At bst it's a few no brainer choices that suit the majority of your items you got randomly. You can also choose where to spend your gold, but certain options are clearly superior, and whether to hang around looking for items or find the exit on each level is a no brainer every time.

I found the actual action pretty decent, provided you're using an interesting character. There's a nice variety among them, shouldn't be hard to find one you like once you've unlocked a few. But action games are old hat, I like some number crunching in my games these days or I don't have enough fun to stay interested for the long haul. Either that or an exploration aspect, and there's really none to be had here. Nothing to find by exploring except the same shit you've already found elsewhere en route to the boss. A few secrets scattered around, but they're one time unlockable deals, and there's not enough of them. It's not even close to the thrill you get when playing a roguelike and finding an artifact you've never seen before.

 

[Stabwound]

I'm waiting for a sidescroller roguelike that has the depth of something like Nethack/ADOM/Angband etc. The problem is that platforming games rely heavily on good level design, and I haven't seen any examples of good randomized platforming yet, including A Valley Without Wind, Rogue Legacy, Risk of Rain, etc. What would be cool is a "metroidvania" style roguelike with a similar but randomized equipment system to Symphony of the Night, themed dungeons/areas, etc. That's way harder to pull off than a typical roguelike, though. A Valley Without Wind is pretty close to that but it ends up being really bland. It's not easy to randomly generate fun platforming levels.

 

[JudasIscariot]

Speaking of games that have roguelike elements, anyone else tried out Tower of Guns? I've been having a lot of fun with it

 

[Damned Registrations]

Spelunky probably had to most solid gameplay so far. The only things it really lacks are being random enough (the special levels need to be less structured so you don't feel like you're going through a checklist) and the ability to backtrack/be non-linear. I think it would add huge depth to the game if you could work your way back to a previous dungeon and screw around with some ledge or door or whatever you couldn't deal with before due to lack of items you've since obtained, or take an alternate route/visit a different dungeon if you get stuck. Stuff like that is a big part of what makes roguelikes fun, and one of the things SotN did so well.

Spelunky could also do with more item variety. The items it does have are quite varied, but it'd be nice if there were just more things, even if it's mostly fluff, like Terraria has 20 types of armor even though you'll only ever use like 3-4 full suits. Ditto for enemies. Even if they're just palette swaps with slight stat changes or minor abilities it's nice to have variety.

 

[Stabwound]

That's something a lot of newer roguelikes miss out on: backtracking and tackling new areas, then coming back to old areas and advancing. It's not quite the SoTN thing, but it works similarly in games like Crawl and ADOM. Finding new shit that lets you tackle areas you couldn't get through before is one of the most satisfying parts of roguelike games.

It would be pretty hard to implement the SoTN-style item lockout in a randomized game but it could probably work with enough testing and some pre-set obstacles and bosses, kind of like a SoTN where shit like mist form is in a randomized location.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It would help too if there were multiple abilities to handle each obstacle. As an example, SotN had double jump, super jump, and bat form, and extended mist form, and wolf form. There are various kinds of ledges, gaps, chasms and so forth that you could get through by having 2 or 3 of these but none of them would work for everything. And good roguelikes already do stuff like this. Using Nethack as an example, there's places you need to cross water (swimming, water walking, levitation, teleportation), reach rooms with no passages (teleporting, pickaxes, wand of digging), the shops (you need gold, or a means of stealing things, like a pet or invis or teleportation or digging or fighting the shopkeepers) altars (sacrificing corpses, converting them, converting yourself, if it has a priest you can pay him or fight him to covert it...) even things we don't associate with the whole 'backtrack to collect stuff' theme like shops really reinforce the feeling of progression. I definitely miss having that kind of stuff when I'm playing DoomRL or Brogue.

 

[moraes]

I'm waiting for a sidescroller roguelike that has the depth of something like Nethack/ADOM/Angband etc.

What about Wazhack? It aims to be a side-scrolling Nethack clone. Last I played there wasnt much to do and see in terms of classes/floors/enemies but it had promise.

 

[getter77]

Wazhack is quality, though I really hope dev pace on it picks up again in earnest as it seemed to get bogged in the mire around the time it landed on Android/Misc Unity wranglings.

For another, far more under the radar option:

http://www.rjbsoftware.co.uk/afterlife3

The dev pace on it is fairly alive.

 

[Stabwound]

I've played a little Desktop Dungeons; it's fun as a little time-waster, but it's really not a roguelike at all. It's really more like a puzzle game, but it's actually a lot harder than I thought it would be. Maybe I just suck at the game, but it seems to be heavily luck-based at times, especially with characters that can't see enemy locations in the fog of war. Having fog of war uncovering as the only way to regen health/mp doesn't really jive with wandering blindly into it looking for things to kill.

I probably just suck at it though. I keep ending up with the boss left and no possibly way to do enough damage, usually because I'm not at a high enough level or I can't regen any health or mp anymore.

But yeah, you can barely call it an RPG let alone a roguelike. It's a puzzle game, really.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It is, but it's definitely themed after a roguelike, with the whole wandering a dungeon, exploring, leveling up and getting items thing. It's like playing a series of mini-roguelikes.

As far as the difficulty, you definitely just suck at the game. It gets far, far harder later on. I went back to the beginning on a fresh file and everything is a cakewalk by comparison. The tutorial puzzles help out a lot, including the ones for the gods. And just playing the game in general, you'll learn all sorts of neat tricks, and the weaknesses of various monster types and how to exploit them. The dungeon to 'beat' the game was incredibly difficult for me, and the post game achievements seem outright impossible in my eyes.

Also, protip: fog of war isn't the only way to recover hp/mp. There spells, potions, items, god rewards, and probably most importantly, levelling up gives a full health and mp restore to you.

 

[Stabwound]

None of that is available at the start as far as I can tell, but I'm going through the puzzle mode which is a pretty good tutorial as well.

As shallow (it's a puzzle game) as the game is, it's still pretty addictive as a short time waster. I would never be able to sit there and play it for an hour, but in short spurts it's pretty fun, and it does the "carrot on a stick" thing with tons of upgrades and unlockables well too. Fun little diversion, but of all commercial games given a roguelike tag lately, this one is by far the least like anything resembling and actual roguelike.

But shit, it's fun. But not worth almost $20 with the dlc.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The dlc thing is definitely a scam, especially considering it's not an addon, but a 'collector's edition' so You can't just pick it up after you've done everything else. The cost difference compared to the content difference between versions is insane. The base game is already huge with content, and the expensive version adds almost nothing. I still haven't gotten around to beating all the content in the base game, or even unlocking all the classes.

I'm also with you on the 'not very roguelike' thing, but god damn did I enjoy playing through the game, and will definitely play more someday. It's a damned good puzzle game, it gets really complex and fun later on, with tons of options and ways to 'solve' all the different dungeons and challenges. Even early on, the difference in playstyles between the fighter, thief, priest and mage is quite interesting. And it's remarkably balanced too, considering those major differences. Obviously some classes have advantages more than others for any given dungeon, but most dungeons have a pretty close race between at least 3 classes for the best way to finish them, which is really cool, and those methods are often wildly different, like the 3 best options will be something like a thief build that one shots the boss, a mage build that relies on venom and fire spells to slowly burn the boss down over a long duration, and a monk build that relies on healing to full in between each attack.

 

[Castanova]

Yeah the game mostly revolves around exploiting the fact that you get fully healed when you level up. Getting a good setup where you can do a lot of damage to the boss and then easily level up several times for free refills without exploring is like 95% of the strategy. Part of that is luck in terms of the level layout and part of it is experience with the game.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Nah, that's just one viable strategy. Assassins are especially good at it, and fighters aren't too shabby either. But there are other things, like stockpiling potions, or abusing the regen mechanics, and all sorts of other shit. You usually want to fit in at least 1 level up during your fight with the boss, because it's a major benefit and not very difficult, but sometimes even that isn't possible.

 

[FuelBlooded]

Any opinions on Risk of Rain?

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Scroll up?

 

[Damned Registrations]

There was some stuff posted in the screenshots thread too.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

It's not easy to randomly generate fun platforming levels.

I don't think it's possible. Unlike a dungeon or a cave from a typical roguelike, a platformer level needs to be carefully crafted.

Maybe if you have a huge (HUGE) amount of preset rooms.