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Title: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 12, 2009, 07:59:11 PM Here's the old definition, from here (http://www.roguetemple.com/roguelike-definition/):
Quote High Value Factors Random Environment Generation The game world and its contents are mostly procedurally generated with each game. Permafailure (including Permadeath) You must pay for your mistakes and choices, sometimes at the cost of life. Restoring games is discouraged and only provided to allow continuing split games. Turn Based Interaction All entities in the game world are queued in an endless loop and get their independant discrete turn to act. Single command set You can access all game commands from any place into the game. There are no artificial restrictions on what actions are available in a given game situation Freedom Your game is not directly enrouted into a linear progression. You get to choose what you want to do, how and when Middle Value Factors Discovery mechanics You must research or find out the nature and usages of the items into the world. Single player You control a lone character Lots of content There are lots of monsters, items, locations. Complex non-trivial world and object interactions Items have non-trivial usages, you can do some things which may not be obvious for the item nature. Low Value Factors High ramped difficulty The game gets hard very quick and you are very unlikely to win until you have acquired enough experience. Monsters are players The nature of the monsters is similar to the player, they can have equipment, player-like stats, artificial intelligence and are subject to the same world rules. Character-based display The player interacts with the world via a user interface based on character symbols that represent UI artifacts and entities into the world. Hack and Slash Gameplay involves around killing things and acquiring treasure And here's the new definition from September 2008 from IRDC (http://www.roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=248.0): Quote =Preamble== This definition of "Roguelike" was created at the International Roguelike Development Conference 2008 and is the product of a discussion between all who attended. The definition at http://www.roguetemple.com/roguelike-definition/ was used as the starting point for the discussions. Most factors are newly phrased, new factors have been added, some factors have been removed. ==General Principles== "Roguelike" refers to a genre, not merely "like-Rogue". The genre is represented by its canon. The canon for Roguelikes is ADOM, Angband, Crawl, Nethack, and Rogue. This list can be used to determine how roguelike a game is. Missing some points does not mean the game is not a roguelike. Likewise, possessing some points does not mean the game is a roguelike. The purpose of the definition is for the roguelike community to better understand what the community is studying. It is not to place constraints on developers or games. ==High value factors== ====Random environment generation==== The game world is randomly generated in a way that increases replayability. Appearance and placement of items is random. Appearance of monsters is fixed, their placement is random. Fixed content (plots or puzzles or vaults) removes randomness. ====Permadeath==== You are not expected to win the game with your first character. You start over from the first level when you die. (It is possible to save games but the savefile is deleted upon loading.) The random environment makes this enjoyable rather than punishing. ====Turn-based==== Each command corresponds to a single action/movement. The game is not sensitive to time, you can take your time to choose your action. ====Grid-based==== The world is represented by a uniform grid of tiles. Monsters (and the player) take up one tile, regardless of size. ====Non-modal==== Movement, battle and other actions take place in the same mode. Every action should be available at any point of the game. Violations to this are ADOM's overworld or Angand's and Crawl's shops. ====Complexity==== The game has enough complexity to allow several solutions to common goals. This is obtained by providing enough item/monster and item/item interactions and is strongly connected to having just one mode. ====Resource management==== You have to manage your limited resources (e.g. food, healing potions) and find uses for the resources you receive. ====Hack'n'slash==== Even though there can be much more to the game, killing lots of monsters is a very important part of a roguelike. The game is player- vs-world: there are no monster/monster relations (like enmities, or diplomacy). ====Exploration and discovery==== The game requires careful exploration of the dungeon levels and discovery of the usage of unidentified items. This has to be done anew every time the player starts a new game. ==Low value factors== ====Single player character==== The player controls a single character. The game is player-centric, the world is viewed through that one character and that character's death is the end of the game. ====Monsters are similar to players==== Rules that apply to the player apply to monsters as well. They have inventories, equipment, use items, cast spells etc. ====Tactical challenge==== You have to learn about the tactics before you can make any significant progress. This process repeats itself, i.e. early game knowledge is not enough to beat the late game. (Due to random environments and permanent death, roguelikes are challenging to new players.) The game's focus is on providing tactical challenges (as opposed to strategically working on the big picture, or solving puzzles). ====ASCII display==== The traditional display for roguelikes is to represent the tiled world by ASCII characters. ====Dungeons==== Roguelikes contain dungeons, such as levels composed of rooms and corridors. ====Numbers==== The numbers used to describe the character (hit points, attributes etc.) are deliberately shown. I agree and disagree with some of these. Particularly things like the ASCII bit, shouldn't even have been included. The majority of meaningful Roguelike development comes out of Japan, and they're all graphical these days. Also, it would seem western development is obsessed with keeping it complex. I have further thoughts, but I'll say that the sweet spot is somewhere in-between Diablo and Rogue. Talk about Roguelikes! Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Cylus on January 12, 2009, 08:19:50 PM If you're looking for one, a friend here at work has been playing Shiren a bunch during lunch and has been recommending it *shrugs*
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 12, 2009, 08:28:49 PM Fushigi no Dungeon (Shiren, Mystery Dungeon) is the big one from Japan, yea. No, I'm not looking for that, i'm looking for a discussion on roguelikes. I know all the current ones available.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: lamaros on January 12, 2009, 08:50:34 PM I would consider my roguelike keys to be:
random permafailure turn based freedom (a part of which is non-modal) player vs world complexity the other things mentioned I think arise out of a combination of these aspects, they don't exist along side them. for example, when you have a player vs world game which is turn based and complex then you're not really building the best platform for a co-op game. nor are you making the best platform for an easy game when it's random, permafailure and complex. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Righ on January 12, 2009, 08:56:00 PM They decided this in Berlin. Probably in a bunker, while wearing jackboots.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 12, 2009, 09:11:48 PM They decided this in Berlin. Probably in a bunker, while wearing jackboots. Yes, I feel roguelikes can be unfair as well. Apparently, just like nazis. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: rattran on January 12, 2009, 09:28:25 PM Rogue-likes should not just HARD but I think UNFAIR is fine too. Having the random factors line up so that you die horribly on level 1 of the dungeon happened in Rogue, Hack, Nethack, Larn and others. And it's still fun.
The only fushigi no dungeon I've played was on the DS, and I wasn't that impressed vs Nethack. Sure, ascii/tiles suck, but few barely animated sprites aren't really better. Rat the Tourist was killed by Mr Asidonhopo for shoplifting on level 16 of the Dungeon Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Zaljerem on January 12, 2009, 11:14:34 PM Rogue-likes should not just HARD but I think UNFAIR is fine too. Having the random factors line up so that you die horribly on level 1 of the dungeon happened in Rogue, Hack, Nethack, Larn and others. And it's still fun. Rat the Tourist was killed by Mr Asidonhopo for shoplifting on level 16 of the Dungeon I still play Rogue. To this day. Probably always will. Dwarf Fortress has been kicking my ass lately. But hey, there's a whole thread about that. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: ezrast on January 12, 2009, 11:50:01 PM I love me some ADoM. Haven't had the chance to sink much time into roguelikes recently though, as I've primarily been computing on my laptop that has no numpad, and trying to play without just isn't the same. Can't wait until my shiny new PC gets here and I can put all that processing horsepower to work displaying ASCII graphics.
Well, right after I'm done with Fallout 3 and Devil May Cry 4... Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Trippy on January 13, 2009, 05:15:48 AM Why is Single player character a low value factor? Was there a Rogue-like game of the same era as Rogue/Hack that was multi-character?
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Sky on January 13, 2009, 07:58:06 AM They decided this in Berlin. Probably in a bunker, while wearing jackboots. You know they make good decisions there.Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 13, 2009, 09:28:31 AM Why is Single player character a low value factor? Was there a Rogue-like game of the same era as Rogue/Hack that was multi-character? That was odd to me also. I can only assume that games like Etrian Odyssey made them want to add more characters, or it's something one of the Rogue "leaders" in the community wanted to be able to fudge for a future revision of their roguelike. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Mrbloodworth on January 13, 2009, 09:38:21 AM I must not have the implied knowledge this topic assumes the reader has. Whats "Roguelikes", and why is it being defined?
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Murgos on January 13, 2009, 09:41:41 AM I must not have the implied knowledge this topic assumes the reader has. Whats "Roguelikes", and why is it being defined? A game that shares a similarity to Rogue is a Roguelike. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(computer_game) The first program I ever typed into a computer was a version of Rogue for the Atari 800 that I got out of a magazine when I was around 12. Edit: Also, Telengard, a Roguelike, was the first game I ever purchased. Diablo (the original) is generally considered a decedent of Rogue if not actually a Roguelike. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ard on January 13, 2009, 09:59:10 AM Why is Single player character a low value factor? Was there a Rogue-like game of the same era as Rogue/Hack that was multi-character? That was odd to me also. I can only assume that games like Etrian Odyssey made them want to add more characters, or it's something one of the Rogue "leaders" in the community wanted to be able to fudge for a future revision of their roguelike. Etrian Odyssey isn't a roguelike though. There's nothing random about it. It's a Wizardy throwback. The more recent Izuna and Pokemon roguelikes (god, why do I know these exist... and worse, why do I own them?) have multiple characters though, and they work fine. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 13, 2009, 10:00:31 AM Why is Single player character a low value factor? Was there a Rogue-like game of the same era as Rogue/Hack that was multi-character? That was odd to me also. I can only assume that games like Etrian Odyssey made them want to add more characters, or it's something one of the Rogue "leaders" in the community wanted to be able to fudge for a future revision of their roguelike. I don't see much difference in controlling a group versus controlling one person. In the case of EO, since it was mentioned, the player controls the entire group as an entity while in the dungeon and I say that is functionally similar to controlling one charater. The main difference would only be that you get four moves per turn instead of one. It's still Entity vs Entity in the end. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 13, 2009, 10:01:34 AM Why is Single player character a low value factor? Was there a Rogue-like game of the same era as Rogue/Hack that was multi-character? That was odd to me also. I can only assume that games like Etrian Odyssey made them want to add more characters, or it's something one of the Rogue "leaders" in the community wanted to be able to fudge for a future revision of their roguelike. Also, I didn't say Etrian Odyssey was a roguelike. I'm saying it's the type of game a neckbeardy rogue developer would play and would in turn be influenced by. Heh. Sorry for the confusion. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 13, 2009, 10:09:04 AM I'd also like to say that I'm somewhat excited by the circumstances that I imagine led to the creation of this thread.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Tebonas on January 13, 2009, 10:14:29 AM Problem with multiple character is that the paradigm would break down. One action per turn and one game mode doesn't allow for multiple characters in the party. You would need a separate combat mode to give them their orders.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Mrbloodworth on January 13, 2009, 10:18:14 AM I must not have the implied knowledge this topic assumes the reader has. Whats "Roguelikes", and why is it being defined? A game that shares a similarity to Rogue is a Roguelike. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(computer_game) The first program I ever typed into a computer was a version of Rogue for the Atari 800 that I got out of a magazine when I was around 12. Edit: Also, Telengard, a Roguelike, was the first game I ever purchased. Diablo (the original) is generally considered a decedent of Rogue if not actually a Roguelike. Thank you. So, why would i play a game bound by this definition, rather than say...something not? I guess i am struggling to see why this is appealing in the modern day. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ard on January 13, 2009, 10:21:33 AM Chunsoft makes a shitload of money off Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. Also, I didn't say Etrian Odyssey was a roguelike. I'm saying it's the type of game a neckbeardy rogue developer would play and would in turn be influenced by. Heh. Sorry for the confusion. Fair enough, I wasn't sure how Etrian Odyssey was even entering the picture there. And as far as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon goes... sigh... it was the only possible way they could have gotten me to buy a pokemon game, and they went and made it. Dammit. That said, I still prefer ADOM as my king of the roguelike pile, personally. It's a really fine line mix of static plus random elements that works better for me than Nethack ever did. Problem with multiple character is that the paradigm would break down. One action per turn and one game mode doesn't allow for multiple characters in the party. You would need a separate combat mode to give them their orders. On this, this is what Pokemon Mystery Dungeon does, or at least the more recent sequel. I thankfully never heard of the series until then. You directly control one character, and the other 3 follow you around and act as a slightly more intelligent AI. It does work, but it's a bit awkward at time. Izuna 2 (possibly also 1, but I haven't played it) also has a second character that follows you around, but you pretty much only use them to swap control to as the main character as needed, as far as I remember. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Tebonas on January 13, 2009, 10:25:05 AM Like the pets in Nethack and Companions in Adom. But directly controlling more characters would be a problem. You can shout commands in Roguelikes as well, it just would be your action for that turn.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: tazelbain on January 13, 2009, 10:26:22 AM Thank you. So, why would i play a game bound by this definition, rather than say...something not? I guess i am struggling to see why this is appealing in the modern day. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Murgos on January 13, 2009, 11:18:47 AM Thank you. So, why would i play a game bound by this definition, rather than say...something not? I guess i am struggling to see why this is appealing in the modern day. Why should you play something that fits the strict definition of 'Roguelike' that these uber-nerds concocted over something else? Metaphysics? I guess you could make an argument that a Roguelike is a game that is 'natural' to a computer, having been one of the first successful attempts. Purity? Lots of people will tell you that there is a depth of play and open-endedness to Roguelikes that comes from from sticking very closely to the definition above. There certainly can be something very addictive about a good Roguelike. There are old nerds around who have been playing NetHack for a very long time. Experience? Like I said, they have been around a long time and they have gone through a lot of iterating and polishing. Lots of modern games have bits and pieces of ideas that come down through the Roguelikes, particularly MMO's. You might be able to even draw a pretty straight line from Rogue and Roguelikes to MUD's to MMOs. It's actually a really short line to go from Roguelikes to the Ultima Series to Ultima Online. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: sidereal on January 13, 2009, 11:52:09 AM My roguelike experience is almost exclusively Angband (and variants, primarily OAnband and Zangband. Plus I wrote partyband, which gives you a part of NPCs that follow you around using the Angband Bot AI code). Plus a little ADOM. I hated Nethack.
I think the best part of the experience was the discovery element, especially with Randarts (random artifacts) turned on. You never knew going in what sort of items you'd come up with, and they led to massively different experiences. It wasn't just Diablo's crappy "is it +1 or +5? Does it do Frost damage or lightning damage?" variety. Having telepathy made a huge difference in the gameplay. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 13, 2009, 11:54:49 AM I think the best part of the experience was the discovery element, especially with Randarts (random artifacts) turned on. You never knew going in what sort of items you'd come up with, and they led to massively different experiences. It wasn't just Diablo's crappy "is it +1 or +5? Does it do Frost damage or lightning damage?" variety. Having telepathy made a huge difference in the gameplay. What did random artifacts do exactly? Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: sidereal on January 13, 2009, 11:55:24 AM It randomly generated the artifacts.
Edit, for nondouchey explication! : Angband was a Tolkien-themed roguelike and vanilla Angband used pregenerated Tolkieny artifacts like the Phial of Galadriel, which had certain combinations of something like 50 potential powers plus statistical bonuses. Randart code replaces the vanilla artifacts and just generates artifacts. So you might pick up a dagger and use it constructively for a while, then find out later that it can teleport you, gives you infravision, does triple damage to demons, and lets you cast fireball once every thousand turns. Or you might get a dagger that drops your strength to 3! Who knows? Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 13, 2009, 11:57:11 AM That's not quite what I meant. How random, give ranges, examples, details. Plz.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: sidereal on January 13, 2009, 12:03:31 PM I edited in the more detail above, to break the conversational flow.
Wiki here (http://chaosforge.org/crawl/index.php?title=Randart). The code's actually here (http://wooledge.org/~greg/randart.html) if you want to dig through it. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 14, 2009, 06:52:51 AM Izuna 2 (possibly also 1, but I haven't played it) also has a second character that follows you around, but you pretty much only use them to swap control to as the main character as needed, as far as I remember. Correct, Izuna 2 had two characters at a time in the dungeon, but you swapped them out and could only take one action per turn. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ard on January 14, 2009, 10:15:23 AM Edit: Oh god, this was a big long drunken ramble. Slap me next time I do a stream of conciousness style monologue. The takeaway is that the newer games do not have the emergent gameplay styles of the older ones.
All I really know is, so far, the Japanese and all their graphical roguelikes have a LONG ways to go to have the depth of the ascii ones of yore. The lack of depth kinda makes me sad. Even Azure Dreams, for the PS1, way back, with it's shitty dating sim tacked on, has more depth than any of the mystery dungeon games I've played. The big caveat here is that I haven't played Shiren, but I've played most of the rest, or at least, their sequels, which should be more refined than the originals anyhow. Pokemon sorta has it, in that there are a bajillion of them, and they all have different abilities, but it's pokemon. There's no real item diversity or dungeon diversity though. Even the shops in the dungeons kinda felt tacked on and pointless. Baroque kinda came close, but it gets repetitive, and a bit tedious. Not to mention that dying in that game can really screw you up, since while dying is part of it, it's also part of character progression, and dying with important gear on you can basically fuck you and set you back hours of real time if you're not careful, although it starts getting really hard to die once you get powered up. Nothing really comes down to the game changing shit that you run into randomly in Nethack or ADOM, or most of the other ascii roguelikes. You can't really trip across something that completely changes your gameplay in most of the modern ones. Shit, running into certain pieces of equipment (enchanted whips, adamantine shields, any wish items, most artifacts, etc) in ADOM immediately can bring a halt to my current game plan, because they massively raise your survivability if you find and use one. Diablo 1 had this effect with certain unique weapons. Diablo 2, not so much, because you tended to quickly out-level anything you found's usefulness well before you were done playing. Yes, there are exceptions, some things people used for 'endgame' builds, but they tended to be the targets of the build, versus something you found randomly that changed your gameplay. Anyhow, I guess I'm just trying to say that Japan has a long ways to go to catch up to the older games, and what made them fun, and a different game to play every single time you picked it up. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 14, 2009, 10:27:21 AM I submit that most people desire consistent gameplay, and that is one of the reasons roguelikes remain a niche product. Hell, they aren't even commercially viable. Most people are also not accustomed to the idea that you will just outright die a lot in, say, Nethack and that is part of the fun. Some people don't find that fun. An average person would possibly get to level 2 and starve to death, at which point they will think "Jeez, this game sucks". The modern expectation is of a difficulty ramp-up, with most games containing a tutorial of some sort.
You could put these sorts of game-changing items in but I think most people would complain that a wand of wishes "broke the game, made it too easy so I quit, they should have thought about that during QA" and so on. These are real complaints I read in reviews of mainstream games. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ard on January 14, 2009, 10:32:42 AM You could put these sorts of game-changing items in but I think most people would complain that a wand of wishes "broke the game, made it too easy so I quit, they should have thought about that during QA" and so on. These are real complaints I read in reviews of mainstream games. Can't really argue with that at all. I've never personally claimed that roguelikes were anything BUT niche. The bigger issue is that the last wave of them haven't played into the niche, but have instead played towards attracting the mainstream, but in doing so, they watered it down so much that it's a mediocre jrpg instead of a good roguelike. The worse part is, by doing this, they also change the perception of roguelikes, and the inadvertently remove the "oops, died, time to restart and see what I find this time" gameplay of the predecessors, which included all the utterly broken items and utterly overpowered monsters that you have to run away from screaming, that also caused the emergent gameplay style present in them. These games are never going to be mainstream though, and the way they're going is a dead end, because they're mediocre and repetitive, having removed the actual tension and enjoyment. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ingmar on January 14, 2009, 10:42:55 AM Meh, I can't see EO and related JRPGish games as roguelikes. EO is a (hard) Wizardy-like.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Sky on January 14, 2009, 11:31:22 AM The takeaway is that the newer games do not have the emergent gameplay styles of the older ones. Civ4:FfH2 We were just talking about the emergent stuff in that game in the Merry Christmas... thread.Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 14, 2009, 11:36:47 AM Meh, I can't see EO and related JRPGish games as roguelikes. EO is a (hard) Wizardy-like. Sigh. Quote Also, I didn't say Etrian Odyssey was a roguelike. I'm saying it's the type of game a neckbeardy rogue developer would play and would in turn be influenced by. Heh. Sorry for the confusion. Roguelikes include: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Baroque Shiren (Fushigi no Dungeon) Chocobo's Dungeon. Baroque is made by Sting. The other 3 are made by Chunsoft - who pretty much makes every major graphical roguelike. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: raydeen on January 14, 2009, 11:38:08 AM My fav was Dungeon Hack from SSI. Roguelike using the Eye of the Beholder engine.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: UnSub on January 14, 2009, 09:23:12 PM I used to play Moria, a Roguelike on the Amiga.
But yeah, I do think Roguelikes are always going to be niche thanks to permadeath. Some players love that kind of risk, but it certainly isn't for everyone. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ard on January 14, 2009, 09:59:54 PM I used to play Moria, a Roguelike on the Amiga. Moria was multiplatform. I played it on DOS in high school. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moria_(computer_game) Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Tebonas on January 15, 2009, 12:01:01 AM Moria is the predecessor of Angband. The Rogue to Nethack.
I had a time I tried to play Adom with save games (batch files that copied the quitsaves away and restored them). The game lost most of its appeal that way and I soon retuned to playing it the proper way. Permadeath is a balancing factor in these games. Without it they are just too easy! Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: rattran on January 15, 2009, 12:08:49 AM I wasted many, many hours in college working on the vax-vms port of nethack, and then a C++ roguelike (named kludge, written almost entirely in heavily obfuscated code) that never quite got off the ground. Good times, but a millstone for grades.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: UnSub on January 15, 2009, 03:53:52 AM Moria is the predecessor of Angband. The Rogue to Nethack. I had a time I tried to play Adom with save games (batch files that copied the quitsaves away and restored them). The game lost most of its appeal that way and I soon retuned to playing it the proper way. Permadeath is a balancing factor in these games. Without it they are just too easy! Moria wasn't. ... save game kept corrupting. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ard on January 15, 2009, 10:07:05 AM Moria wasn't. ... save game kept corrupting. :oh_i_see: Funny, I never lived long enough in Moria to justify saving... Sadly, the first one of these I ever made any real progress in, other than nethack, was ADOM, which I've beaten a handful of times. edit: removed extraneous details about how I play ADOM that no one really cares about. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: UnSub on January 15, 2009, 05:45:18 PM I'd usually make it up to town once to restock on food and then head back down, only to die, curse the game and go off to play, oh, I don't know, Rick Dangerous.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ingmar on January 16, 2009, 02:57:06 PM Humility is watching the Angband bot program play it far better than you ever could.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: sidereal on January 16, 2009, 03:11:30 PM Humility is watching the Angband bot program play it far better than you ever could. Well, the bot does it by achieving levels of grind that no non-goldfarming human could aspire to. Like it's still on dungeon level 1 at character level 10. It's fun to watch, though. It's been my screensaver for many years. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: UnSub on January 16, 2009, 11:26:08 PM Humility is watching the Angband bot program play it far better than you ever could. Well, the bot does it by achieving levels of grind that no non-goldfarming human could aspire to. Like it's still on dungeon level 1 at character level 10. It's fun to watch, though. It's been my screensaver for many years. This was my experience of Angband too - watching a bot play. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Samwise on January 17, 2009, 09:01:26 PM Humility is watching the Angband bot program play it far better than you ever could. Well, the bot does it by achieving levels of grind that no non-goldfarming human could aspire to. Like it's still on dungeon level 1 at character level 10. It's fun to watch, though. It's been my screensaver for many years. Just googled "Angband screensaver" and found what you're talking about. OMG. I've been looking for a screensaver like this for forever. :drillf: Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 17, 2009, 09:55:32 PM I can not get angband to run in vista64. Do want screensaver.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ratman_tf on January 17, 2009, 11:35:31 PM I put this on my computer, but I can't get the 32x32 tile graphics to work. Any insights?
I've got angband 3.0.6 Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: sidereal on January 18, 2009, 03:06:03 PM I got 309b running on Vista64 with no problems, but the screensaver is incredibly finicky to get going.
You have to put angband in the default location (c:\games\angband301\ or something like that) because the screensaver doesn't honor the angband.ini file in c:\windows (probably a vista security feature for not being able to read files from the windows directory). You also have to prime the pump by starting up the game yourself, setting the cheat_live option (press '=', then 5, then turn on the cheat death option), and creating a character with the name of Saver. Otherwise the bot gets stuck at character creation. Once I got that all setup, it's running fine though. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Nonentity on January 19, 2009, 07:52:21 AM Been farting around with some graphical Roguelikes at work.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net/) - This is an open-source continuation of the Dungeon Crawl roguelike. There is an ascii, as well as a graphical 'tiles' version available. The tiles version is quite good, you can use the mouse for a lot of the interface (left click on items to loot them, left click to move to a square, right-click to inspect an item, etc.) - there's still some functions innately bound to the keyboard, but it's fun nonetheless. I suck terribly at roguelikes, and this is actually quite difficult. Gearhead 2 (http://www.gearheadrpg.com/) - I downloaded this one, but haven't actually played it yet. Supposedly, from the screenshots, it's a mecha Roguelike. Can't go wrong there, right? Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: rattran on January 20, 2009, 11:46:39 AM Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net/) - This is an open-source continuation of the Dungeon Crawl roguelike. There is an ascii, as well as a graphical 'tiles' version available. The tiles version is quite good, you can use the mouse for a lot of the interface (left click on items to loot them, left click to move to a square, right-click to inspect an item, etc.) - there's still some functions innately bound to the keyboard, but it's fun nonetheless. I suck terribly at roguelikes, and this is actually quite difficult. I played this a bit last night, it's quite fun. Seems a bit easier in some ways than the last version of Nethack (3.4.3) but much easier to almost instantly die. ie, drop down a level, surrounded by mobs, boom dead. Or one-hit crit from a mob. And some interesting race/class/skill interplay. Definitely worth a look for any roguelike fan. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: rask on January 20, 2009, 11:59:37 AM I used to play Angband all the time in that fuzzy junior high-high school period before I got into muds. Definitely going to grab it for a screensaver (don't even remember an option for an bot mode).
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Nonentity on January 20, 2009, 01:47:03 PM Been playing the crud out of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, even schild was on the bandwagon with it earlier.
My last character, a Demigod Venom Mage (Venom Mages are surprisingly durable, in that you just cast a venom on them from afar, and then kite them away as they die from the DoT) was killed by the ghost of a previous character. Since I'm lazy and I've been naming all my characters Non, I don't know which one it was that killed me. He kicked my ass pretty hard, though. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 20, 2009, 08:43:48 PM Anyone up for a stonesoupathon?
Maybe I make a subforum and we post diaries of our crappy daily exploits? Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Nonentity on January 20, 2009, 10:53:08 PM Stoooone Souuuuup
EDIT: I was playing an older version of it at work. The one I've been linking everyone else to is a much more up to date version. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 21, 2009, 02:12:01 AM (http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/39720/games/crawl/000.png)
Awesome. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Xerapis on January 21, 2009, 02:20:19 AM I'm personally quite amused by...
Nothing quivered. obligatory "that's what she said" Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Nonentity on January 21, 2009, 06:45:53 AM I've found different floors that have totally partitioned spaces, that don't even connect. If you take one stairway down, you'll be in one area, and another stairway to another.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Moaner on January 21, 2009, 08:15:58 AM Stone Soup is all I've played for almost a week now. I can't fucking stop!!
Troll Beserker is all love. I love ripping things to pieces with my bare hands and then eating their guts. Mmmm! That meat tastes delicious! Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 21, 2009, 08:18:05 AM Troll Beserker is all love. I love ripping things to pieces with my bare hands and then eating their guts. Mmmm! That meat tastes delicious! I missed this in the original review. I should download. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Moaner on January 21, 2009, 08:19:43 AM Anyone up for a stonesoupathon? Maybe I make a subforum and we post diaries of our crappy daily exploits? Please! That would be wonderful. I'll be playing this shit for a LONG time. That fucking Orb of Zot will be mine motherfuckers! Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Nonentity on January 21, 2009, 10:26:23 AM (http://www.thenonentity.com/augh.gif)
Terrifying! Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 21, 2009, 10:42:44 AM I loaded up the tiles version of Stone Soup and immediately decided that this is where roguelikes should be going. Meaning, there's no reason a bat should look like a letter b anymore... as far as I know and "pixel art is hard" aside. Matt was saying something about that but I think he was going on about 3D.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Nonentity on January 21, 2009, 10:57:05 AM I like the 'morgue' file for all of your character. This is my best run yet I just had, I died in the Orcish Mines to a horde of orcs and sheep (?).
Code: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.4.5 (crawl-ref) character file. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Moaner on January 21, 2009, 11:13:41 AM My best run so far. I pretty much suck still but god damnit this game rocks my ass.
Quote Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.4.4 (crawl-ref) character file. 960 Horse Fucker the Cudgeler (level 7, -10/59 HPs) Began as a Minotaur Chaos Knight on Jan 18, 2009. Was a Priest of Makhleb. Mangled by an orc warrior ... wielding an orcish war axe (21 damage) ... on Level 6 of the Dungeon. The game lasted 01:20:29 (6010 turns). Horse Fucker the Cudgeler (MiCK) Turns: 6010, Time: 01:20:29 HP -10/59 AC 8 Str 19 Exp: 7/1340 (1), need: 73 MP 5/5 EV 12 Int 8 God: Makhleb *** Gold 22 SH 0 Dex 11 Spells: 0 memorised, 6 levels left Res.Fire : . . . See Invis. : . q - +1,+0 spiked flail (protect) Res.Cold : . . . Warding : . b - +0 leather armour Life Prot.: . . . Conserve : . (no shield) Res.Poison: . Res.Corr. : . (helmet restricted) Res.Elec. : . Clarity : . (no cloak) (no gloves) Sust.Abil.: . Rnd.Telep. : . (no boots) Res.Mut. : . Ctrl.Telep.: . n - amulet of resist slowing Res.Slow : + Levitation : . (no ring) Saprovore : . . . Ctrl.Flight: . (no ring) @: slightly resistant to magic, unstealthy A: horns 2, Int +1 a: Minor Destruction, Lesser Servant of Makhleb, Renounce Religion You were on level 6 of the Dungeon. You worshipped Makhleb. Makhleb was greatly pleased with you. You were not hungry. You visited 1 branch of the dungeon, and saw 6 of its levels. Inventory: Hand weapons a - a +2,+4 mace e - a +2,+1 dagger m - a +0,+0 sling q - a +1,+0 spiked flail of protection (weapon) Missiles d - 48 +0 stones (quivered) Armour b - a +0 leather armour (worn) Magical devices p - a wand of cold (6) Comestibles h - 3 meat rations i - 2 bread rations Scrolls f - a scroll of paper Jewellery c - the ring "Sonuotez" (You found it on level 6 of the Dungeon) [ring of protection from magic] It protects you from negative energy. n - an amulet of resist slowing (around neck) o - an uncursed ring of teleport control s - an uncursed ring of magical power Potions g - a potion of levitation l - a potion of slowing Books j - a book of Hinderance k - a book of Wizardry You had 1 experience left. Skills: + Level 5 Fighting + Level 7 Maces & Flails + Level 1 Throwing + Level 2 Armour + Level 6 Dodging + Level 1 Stealth + Level 1 Unarmed Combat + Level 1 Invocations You had 6 spell levels left. You didn't know any spells. Overview of the Dungeon Branches: Temple: D:5 Shops: D:6: ( Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations You have a pair of horns on your head. Your mind is acute (Int +1). Message History The orc warrior hits you with an orcish war axe! The orc warrior misses you. You hit the orc warrior. You kick the orc warrior, but do no damage. The orc warrior is severely wounded. The orc warrior hits you with an orcish war axe. The orc warrior hits you with an orcish war axe! ###.......# ..........# ..........###. ###............ # #..##......... ###..##......... ...............< ###).##.......... ........@####.o#. ........%o....... ###..#......#..#. .....#......# ####.#......# .............. .....####...... ....## ..... ....# .... . You could see an orc warrior. Vanquished Creatures The ghost of Pig Fucker the Covered, an average HuFi (D:4) 2 ogres (D:5) A centaur (D:6) 3 imps 3 hounds An orc priest (D:6) 2 giant iguanas A scorpion (D:5) Ijyb (D:2) 2 jellies 2 worms 4 gnolls (D:5) 4 snakes A killer bee zombie (D:6) 15 goblins 9 hobgoblins 6 jackals (D:5) 20 orcs 2 quokkas 13 giant bats 3 giant cockroaches 10 giant newts 13 kobolds 2 kobold zombies 6 rats A snake zombie (D:5) 128 creatures vanquished. Vanquished Creatures (others) A goblin (D:6) A rat (D:1) 2 creatures vanquished. Grand Total: 130 creatures vanquished Notes Turn | Place | Note -------------------------------------------------------------- 0 | D:1 | Horse Fucker, the Minotaur Chaos Knight, began the quest for the Orb. 0 | D:1 | Reached XP level 1. HP: 15/15 MP: 1/1 443 | D:1 | Reached skill 4 in Fighting 641 | D:1 | Acquired Makhleb's first power 671 | D:1 | Reached XP level 2. HP: 21/24 MP: 1/1 1149 | D:2 | Noticed Ijyb 1163 | D:2 | Defeated Ijyb 1163 | D:2 | Reached XP level 3. HP: 23/30 MP: 2/2 1249 | D:2 | Gained mutation: Your mind is acute (Int +1). 1860 | D:3 | Acquired Makhleb's second power 1860 | D:3 | Reached XP level 4. HP: 33/38 MP: 2/2 2923 | D:4 | Reached XP level 5. HP: 31/43 MP: 3/3 2932 | D:4 | Defeated Pig Fucker's ghost 2932 | D:4 | Reached XP level 6. HP: 17/49 MP: 4/4 3215 | D:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Dungeon 3263 | D:5 | Reached skill 5 in Maces & Flails 3471 | D:5 | Reached skill 6 in Maces & Flails 3515 | D:5 | Acquired Makhleb's third power 3515 | D:5 | Reached XP level 7. HP: 56/57 MP: 5/5 3659 | D:5 | Reached skill 5 in Fighting 3683 | D:5 | Reached skill 5 in Dodging 4109 | D:5 | Reached skill 7 in Maces & Flails 4368 | D:5 | Reached skill 1 in Unarmed Combat 4374 | D:5 | Reached skill 1 in Throwing 4866 | D:6 | Got a fine marble ring 5109 | D:6 | Reached skill 1 in Stealth 6010 | D:6 | Mangled by an orc warrior Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: rattran on January 21, 2009, 12:21:07 PM I've only made it past level 5 as a Wanderer. Too many arbitrary deaths I think.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 21, 2009, 05:26:33 PM Some guy named Terrence killed me.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: rattran on January 21, 2009, 11:10:29 PM I die mostly to my own ghosts, and the stupid spawn, things like a 6-headed hydra on level 2 of the dungeon. Which it seems is intentional, though the reasoning behind it seems suspect.
And assassins are good, except at around level 10, stealth seems not to work anymore. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ratman_tf on January 22, 2009, 11:34:32 AM I loaded up the tiles version of Stone Soup and immediately decided that this is where roguelikes should be going. Meaning, there's no reason a bat should look like a letter b anymore... as far as I know and "pixel art is hard" aside. Yeah. I'm as much of a rogue nostalgistic as anyone here, but ascii graphics... there's just no excuse anymore. When I threw together a roguelike in VB 6.0, I used tiles ripped from an SNES emulator. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 22, 2009, 07:50:53 PM I would also like to complain about the horrible and deadly spawns that can pop up in Stone Soup. Dying because I took a chance on quaffing an unidentified potion is one thing, but being swarmed by demon ants on D3 is quite another.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: sidereal on January 22, 2009, 08:03:11 PM You're pansies. Everyone should learn to fear a capital letter D. I still cringe a bit when I see one in text. "WTF IS THAT?! A dragon? A demon? Oh wait, I'm just reading. . "
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: FatuousTwat on January 23, 2009, 12:12:21 AM I would also like to complain about the horrible and deadly spawns that can pop up in Stone Soup. Dying because I took a chance on quaffing an unidentified potion is one thing, but being swarmed by demon ants on D3 is quite another. Just got wtfpwned by 3 orcs and an orc mage ambush on level 2. DAMNIT. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: rattran on January 23, 2009, 12:15:09 AM Bah, gave up on my first good run (11 Demonspawn Chaos Knight), got all the way to the elven halls, got some fat lewts, headed back toward dungeon. Except there's no way from the lowest Orc Mine level up without teleport or digging, which I don't have.
The disconnected map bits seem more annoying than worth it. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Wasted on January 23, 2009, 08:04:52 PM I haven't been able to get into any of these types of games since I played shitloads of moria on the Amiga. The Ascii just sucks. Stone soup is the first one I've felt that twinge in again. I miss starting off in the town though, and being able to identify/sell things. When should I start being able to start seeing shops? I haven't gotten past d6 yet so I guess I suck but I really want to start seeing some shops and at least get identify scrolls. I'm just not that sort of gambling man to quaff or read all that unidentified stuff, the game is too evil to risk that shit.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: rattran on January 23, 2009, 10:16:24 PM There's also a tiles set for Nethack 3.4.3 Not as nice as the Stone Soup one, but better than being killed by an &.
Shops are 1 block huts, I've mostly seen them in the Orc Mines, selling about 10 general items, with the occasional named thing. They don't buy, and they don't restock. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on January 24, 2009, 07:32:32 PM Since there's kind of a low-fi gaming kick going on around here...
www.mangband.org Multiplayer Angband. Yes it's ascii, but it takes just minutes to download the client and log in. There seems to be a small friendly dedicated group of players. Reasonable amount of chat going on when I logged in earlier. I'll probably make a kobold warrior or rogue as my main, since I do believe they have poison immunity and I love that. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 24, 2009, 07:34:15 PM Heh. Mangband, Angband for mexicans.
Sup mang. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on January 24, 2009, 10:37:58 PM Someone left a cursed teleport ring in the newbie spawn-in room. I spent like an hour and a half teleporting all over the world, trying to kill stuff and grab gold before porting again, then get to town and into a shop to buy a remove curse before teleporting again.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 24, 2009, 11:02:17 PM Someone left a cursed teleport ring in the newbie spawn-in room. I spent like an hour and a half teleporting all over the world, trying to kill stuff and grab gold before porting again, then get to town and into a shop to buy a remove curse before teleporting again. Bahahahaha. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: tazelbain on January 24, 2009, 11:11:26 PM I still can't figure out how to cast spell in Stone Soup.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 24, 2009, 11:17:30 PM Press Z, press * for a list, press that letter, if there needs to be a target, click on the target.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Moaner on January 25, 2009, 01:24:44 AM I find it odd that after years of ignoring the genre I'm finally playing roguelikes again only to find everyone else is too. I'm confused.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 25, 2009, 01:42:07 AM I find it odd that after years of ignoring the genre I'm finally playing roguelikes again only to find everyone else is too. I'm confused. Loot. Another message board I frequent started a roguelike thread the day after we did. And then another one did a few days later. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Moaner on January 25, 2009, 01:59:14 AM Loot. Another message board I frequent started a roguelike thread the day after we did. And then another one did a few days later. Yea I agree. Me and some buddies were talking about this very issue recently. To make a long story short a few of us came to the conclusion that the variety and randomness found in roguelikes is a huge breath of fresh air after years of playing modern RPGs. I'm sick of games that pace gameplay around storytelling. Plus, I actually prefer the open atmosphere, quick combat, and fear of death. These things are just flat out missing in any of the current “next gen” RPGs. I know A LOT of people really enjoyed Fallout3 but after 10 hours of gameplay I just felt like I was wandering around collecting garbage and advancing a story I really didn't care for. I must be getting old. I apologize for rambling. It's 5am and am currently metabolizing a heroic dose of benzos. Wheeee! Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 25, 2009, 02:06:19 AM Bethsoft had a great opportunity to put all sorts of loot in Fallout 3. They simply didn't deliver on that front.
I was annoyed by that. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: sidereal on January 25, 2009, 11:59:58 AM You just don't like ammo enough.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on January 27, 2009, 09:39:16 AM So I'm playing Stone Soup and it's the usual "Just started a new roguelike, ooh can I kill that?" death fest. The graphics and interface are a dream (for this sorta game) and I'm having a fine time of it. But... uh... where's town? Where do I do all the usual town crap? And if I ever make a non-monstery race character, can I make a fire to cook all this meat?
95% of deaths being "some random thing poisoned you on level 1" is getting old REALLY fast though. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: rattran on January 27, 2009, 10:25:23 AM No town (more nethack than moria/larn) No town crap at all, don't bother picking up things you won't use, there's no one to sell to. No way yo cook meat that I've found, only good if you're starving to death, and rots too quick to carry around.
And, most of my deaths are still either a random thing poisoned you, or 1shot-kills from mage critters. Even playing a Naga I die of poison. Just lost a 15 dwarf pally in all poison/magic resist gear to poison. If the random death thing is going to piss you off, Stone Soup may not be your game. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on January 27, 2009, 10:42:10 AM I've played enough Zangband to be used to random deaths, it's just that there the deaths felt like either I had done something dumb, failed to adequately prepare, or been struck by some particularly cruel twist of fate. Here it's just... okay, any kobold on level 1 can potentially give me certain-death poison, what am I supposed to be doing about it?
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 27, 2009, 10:48:11 AM This is the issue I have with Stone Soup. Who was this Terrence man on level 3 and why did he murder my minotaur in three hits? The progression is nonexistent and not the same as "oh, well, I should not have eaten that hobbit leg". I guess I could have run away from Terrence, but after 2.5 levels of bats and goblins I wasn't prepared. Then again, after Terrence I ran into a literal horde of ants on level 3 that chased me down and killed me like a dog. That is much less fun than "Oh, I guess the silver potions are deadly poison" and I don't learn anything.
I take that back. I learned not to go to level 3. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on January 27, 2009, 11:08:09 AM Stepping on a trap door and landing one level down in the middle of 20 orcs would be a "WTF!" death I could handle, because maybe I should have been more careful for traps, or had a teleport scroll to get away from the orcs. And if the scroll fizzles, or throws me out of the frying pan and into the fire, well then it just wasn't my day and maybe I get a nice "I teleported away from the orcs and landed on a lich!" story out of it. But Jesus, enough with the poison. Kill me with something else.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: grebo on January 27, 2009, 11:23:00 AM Noob advice from a noob: If you can't get far in this game, try playing a spriggan. I got tired of not being able to run away from anything so I started a Spriggan Warper (overkill? I don't think so). Now I can run in circles and throw stuff like a champ, and if I get in real trouble I have teleport magic, working pretty well so far... despite the fact that I'm on level 4 of the dungeon and still haven't found an Identify scroll! Gah!
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: rattran on January 27, 2009, 11:27:56 AM I had good success with a spriggan until ~level 12, where everything started to shrug off spells.
And it seems there's not enough food for non-spriggan spellcasters to really get their spellcasting up to a reasonable level. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 27, 2009, 11:29:31 AM I had a ghoul necromancer, and that guy had lots of food. :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Murgos on January 27, 2009, 11:40:23 AM I had a ghoul necromancer, and that guy had lots of food. :awesome_for_real: I've had my best luck so far with Vampire Death Knights and Ghoul/Troll Monks. The Troll Monk was a beast until I ran into something that smushed me in two hits. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: MrHat on January 27, 2009, 11:51:55 AM This game has monks?
*twitch* And loot? *twitch* Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Soulflame on January 27, 2009, 12:12:39 PM Gaze upon the face of true terror.
h...@...D Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 27, 2009, 12:18:44 PM The loot is mostly wooden clubs and shit that will kill you, but yes.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Nonentity on January 27, 2009, 01:26:10 PM The loot is mostly wooden clubs and shit that will kill you, but yes. The wooden clubs are great! You throw them at people. Just throw everything, over and over, regardless of class. Especially if you have no ranged spells or weapons. Clubs, daggers - whatever. Just throw everything. Also - if you're annoyed at meat rotting, play an orc. They love rotting AND regular meat! Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: grebo on January 27, 2009, 07:55:21 PM It's not dying to a teleport trap and 2 centaurs in a room that I mind (didn't help that the warper spells seem to be much more useless than blink scrolls), it's the damn Jelly eating a bread ration off the floor when I had no food. That bastard!
This game, it makes you want to start over because you don't want to see your character die... but I refuse to save scum. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Moaner on January 27, 2009, 09:34:54 PM The game is hard. It's supposed to be, I think. I've played about 30 times now and have yet to get past dungeon level 11. I don't know why, but the random deaths are not pissing me off yet, just amusing. The crazy hard ass monsters on the upper levels are call Out of the Depths (OOD) monsters and are meant to be ran from, not fought. They are basically mean mother fuckers from the lower levels of the dungeon visiting the entrance and fucking with newbies. Generally you can right click a monster from across the map and the description will give you a good idea as to whether you should mess with it not This doesn't help much when you get sniped from across the screen by a crazy uber centaur, but it does hep regarding survivability.
Also, if you are having trouble with food try a Spriggan as previously mentioned or a troll berserker. The Spriggan doesn't require much food at all and can snipe from a distance while the troll will eat almost EVERYTHING and can tear things to shreds with his bear hands and very little armor. Both classes make learning the game much more enjoyable. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: rattran on January 27, 2009, 09:39:11 PM The game seems very much luck based. If you happen to find a decent (for your class/abilities) weapon or armor early on, you can go for ages.
Getting a nice randart scythe the does bonus damage with the necro skill was good for my Death Knight. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on January 27, 2009, 11:06:15 PM Lack of a town always bothers me in these games. Being a kobold death knight just isn't as fun when you can't roll into town, drop an Orb of Entropy on a crowd of stupid peasants, rummage through some shops, get pickpocketed by a street urchin, and then stalk all over the city looking for that little fucker so you can stab him and get the money back.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Moaner on January 28, 2009, 02:50:11 AM You know, as embarrassed as I am to admit it, Stone Soup is the first real roguelike that I've actually stuck with for more than a few hours(not counting Shiren HAHA). All this talk is leading me to believe Nethack is a more enjoyable game and I think I'm going to have to give it a go. Assuming the official Guidebook is the best source of info on the game I added it to my blackberry so I can read it at work. Any super newbie Nethack hints for someone who is familiar with the genre but not the game itself?
Also, may we add roguelike to the dictionary? Is that even possible anymore? Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Trippy on January 28, 2009, 03:18:26 AM Also, may we add roguelike to the dictionary? Is that even possible anymore? It is but you have to make a request in the stickied dictionary thread in General.Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 28, 2009, 06:30:59 AM Any super newbie Nethack hints for someone who is familiar with the genre but not the game itself? Use the -X option? Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: grebo on January 28, 2009, 06:31:45 AM (http://myweb.wit.edu/harrisa2/sigh.JPG)
I was doing great, had almost 100 arrows/bullets and launchers to match. Bow was +!/+!. Had wand of Disintegration, decent jewelry...Even had plenty of food! then I decided to see how strong an Orc Warrior was. Lesson learned, Kite everything. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: MrHat on January 28, 2009, 06:50:48 AM Now. Someone put this on my iPhone.
:-p Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: sidereal on January 28, 2009, 01:02:23 PM This sounds much, much worse than angband, which has a much more predictable difficulty arc, almost never kills you randomly (98% of the time after you die, you say 'whoops' not 'wtf'), has a town, and doesn't load you down with useless items.
It's amazing how much gameplay you guys will give up so your bats look like a little bat instead of a little letter 'b'. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on January 28, 2009, 02:52:19 PM This sounds much, much worse than angband, which has a much more predictable difficulty arc, almost never kills you randomly (98% of the time after you die, you say 'whoops' not 'wtf'), has a town, and doesn't load you down with useless items. It's amazing how much presentation you'll give up so that bats can be the letter 'b.'It's amazing how much gameplay you guys will give up so your bats look like a little bat instead of a little letter 'b'. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: sidereal on January 28, 2009, 02:56:55 PM Uh, what? That implies that the bats being letter b is a draw. It's not. It's just an acceptable sacrifice for all of the other benefits.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Tarami on January 28, 2009, 03:22:32 PM Uh, what? That implies that the bats being letter b is a draw. It's not. It's just an acceptable sacrifice for all of the other benefits. Think of it as a variant of the usual "you're wrong."Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on January 28, 2009, 04:14:29 PM This sounds much, much worse than angband, which has a much more predictable difficulty arc, almost never kills you randomly (98% of the time after you die, you say 'whoops' not 'wtf'), has a town, and doesn't load you down with useless items. It's amazing how much gameplay you guys will give up so your bats look like a little bat instead of a little letter 'b'. I just play ZangbandTK. It has the town and stuff and looks better anyway. (http://www.reloaded.org/images/games/reviews/46/Review_02.png) Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: UnSub on January 28, 2009, 04:52:50 PM In many ways this thread reminds me of the MUD history thread.
That is all. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on January 28, 2009, 05:08:19 PM Roguelikes are a minority nerd interest that by and large the participants know is a minority nerd interest.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: lamaros on January 28, 2009, 07:14:43 PM In many ways this thread reminds me of the MUD history thread. That is all. With less backseat deving and more enjoyable anecdotes! Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Murgos on January 29, 2009, 06:36:55 AM In many ways this thread reminds me of the MUD history thread. Despite the different forums the two are directly related. The first MUDs were these same games modded for multi-player. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on January 29, 2009, 07:34:52 AM Yet this thread is a mere four pages and relatively civil. Obviously multiplayer is de debbil.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: UnSub on January 29, 2009, 08:13:10 AM Yet this thread is a mere four pages and relatively civil. Obviously multiplayer is de debbil. It's well established that other players are always the problem. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: lamaros on January 29, 2009, 07:13:44 PM Yet this thread is a mere four pages and relatively civil. Obviously multiplayer is de debbil. It's well established that other people are always the problem. Might as well be universal, here. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on January 30, 2009, 01:55:52 AM My 15 year old kid brother has been on a Diablo/Diablo 2 kick and to my surprise wants me to slap ZangbandTK on his computer. (My install is a bit customized with different sound effects and stuff.) Just not "that crappy version where you're an at-symbol" he says. Haw.
I look forward to it breaking his soul. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: grebo on January 30, 2009, 04:23:45 AM Is ZangbandTK still available somewhere? I can only seem to find the Ascii one, anyone have a link?
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on January 30, 2009, 06:00:39 AM http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=3624
This download is where I originally got it. It has some weird choices of sound effects (annoying Simpsons and Ren & Stimpy rips) that are simple enough to alter or remove using the in-game options. There are also a handful of undefined creatures/items that will look like ascii characters when you first see them, easily fixed the same way. There are a TON more sprites included than the game actually needs, and I've ended up tweaking things as I've gone along. There are multiple tilesets that can be selected from "setup" at the start. It gives a preview of each. Isometric is best. Two things: One, it needs to sit directly on the C drive for some reason. (The executable is in the Omniband folder.) Two, it tends to run fast. I've gotten used to one click per step to keep from zooming all over fuck, but you might want to slow it down. Potentially annoying, but overall this is the best graphical roguelike I've been able to get my hands on. If anyone wants my somewhat cleaned up version and isn't worried that WUA is out to haxx0r them, I have a 9mb zip file I can email out. I scanned through every creature in the game to make sure they all have appropriate sprites, got rid of the more annoying sound effects, and downloaded a bunch of wav files from public sound effect archives. I added stuff like clicks for footsteps, consistent sounds for spellcasting/traps/status effects/recovery, and multiple combat sounds. When you're killing stuff it sounds more like "tink, smack, chop, smack, urf!" instead of just "tink tink tink tink tink" to the point of insanity. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: grebo on January 30, 2009, 07:11:50 AM WUA, I sent you a PM thing w/email.
I'm still loving Crawl, but I wouldn't mind something, I don't know, maybe a bit easier? Chewing through a room full of orc warrs/mages/priests takes a while as a spriggan and there is never any reward! (other than mangled orcs everywhere of course). My current game has me on D10 or so in the orc mines and I have yet to find a single spellbook. If not for my dagger of poisoning and blowgun of shoot lots of poison at every damn thing I would have perished long ago. Everything gets poisoned to death, except lava statues which just suck! Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on January 30, 2009, 01:26:40 PM Sent.
You also get a copy of my new kobold death knight to kill off, since he was there when I made the zip. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on February 01, 2009, 06:20:36 PM I set a new record with ZangbandTk: I died on level 0.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on February 02, 2009, 12:06:17 AM Get beaten up by a mercenary in town, or did you go exploring on the surface? The roads between towns are usually reasonably safe, having only level one-ish monsters, but the total lack of cover means I still usually want to be at least level 3 or so before leaving the first town zone.
I really want to make a skeleton ranger with death magic, but I can never really get one off the ground. My last attempt died at character level 6 on the 2nd level of the dungeon. Meanwhile getting a death paladin past char level 10 remains relatively simple. EDIT: Awesomeness. I rerolled my kobold until I got the background of being "one of several children of Mughash the Kobold Lord" since you start with the most money that way. Then at character level 17 I killed my own father. He had his big army of kobolds, and having charmed a crypt creep which proceeded to summon more crap, I had an army of undead. Cue a big epic battle with dozens of combatants. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on February 02, 2009, 07:03:53 AM Something killed me while I was holding down NUM4 on the overworld map.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: CharlieMopps on February 02, 2009, 01:05:34 PM This sounds much, much worse than angband, which has a much more predictable difficulty arc, almost never kills you randomly (98% of the time after you die, you say 'whoops' not 'wtf'), has a town, and doesn't load you down with useless items. It's amazing how much presentation you'll give up so that bats can be the letter 'b.'It's amazing how much gameplay you guys will give up so your bats look like a little bat instead of a little letter 'b'. I kinda think that's the point with these games. When playing one of these games and I see a "D" I get a feeling that I just don't get from playing a game like everquest where I have a 100 foot 3D dragon standing in front of me. Also, because these games are turn based, I have time to contemplate my imminent death. I see the D and see the exit to the room... maybe I can make it around that corner before it uses its breath weapon... or should I try my teleport ring that may just move me closer to it... Add to that... they just don't make dungeon crawls anymore. Remember ultima underworld? That game was great. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on February 02, 2009, 01:57:44 PM Something killed me while I was holding down NUM4 on the overworld map. I had a couple "I held down left click to run between towns and a crow ate me before I knew WTF was going on!" deaths early on. If you right click (or shift+num) the direction you want to go, your character will run, clipping along with no further input and automatically stopping when he either comes to a corner, comes near an object, or sights a creature. Then if you don't want to engage the creature, because it's far away or whatever, you can scoot away with squirts of left click/numpad until it's safe to run again. Anyway, my skeletal ranger is off and running at character level 12 and has a couple of nice items. It only took the silly newb deaths of two of his predecessors to get there. Rangers start with no armor and just a short bow and a dagger, and as a skeleton I certainly wasn't going to roll high enough social status to have bonus starting money for anything better. Surviving long enough to get some armor and a real melee weapon is a bitch. If you have at least a couple levels under your belt and either infravision or "see invisible" as a racial, you might want to poke around the forest zone due west of the starter town. It's full of the usual level one crap, but Smeagol always spawns somewhere in that zone unless he's been encountered and killed in the dungeon already. He blinks around a lot, but about the worst thing he'll do is pick your pockets. If you have access to death magic, the malediction spell will fuck him up fast. Oh, since I've sent this game to a number of people on the board I should also point out: When you're pickpocketed and the thief teleports away, they're still somewhere within the level/zone and killing them WILL get your money back. Just don't leave the level/zone until you've tracked them down. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ingmar on February 02, 2009, 06:18:36 PM This sounds much, much worse than angband, which has a much more predictable difficulty arc, almost never kills you randomly (98% of the time after you die, you say 'whoops' not 'wtf'), has a town, and doesn't load you down with useless items. It's amazing how much presentation you'll give up so that bats can be the letter 'b.'It's amazing how much gameplay you guys will give up so your bats look like a little bat instead of a little letter 'b'. I kinda think that's the point with these games. When playing one of these games and I see a "D" I get a feeling that I just don't get from playing a game like everquest where I have a 100 foot 3D dragon standing in front of me. Also, because these games are turn based, I have time to contemplate my imminent death. I see the D and see the exit to the room... maybe I can make it around that corner before it uses its breath weapon... or should I try my teleport ring that may just move me closer to it... Add to that... they just don't make dungeon crawls anymore. Remember ultima underworld? That game was great. Also in Nethack, at least, things are far easier to identify (for me) via letter/color than they are by the crappy tile art. None of the graphics options are enough of an improvement to entice me away from my system mastery of the ASCII stuff. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: rattran on February 02, 2009, 06:52:45 PM Also in Nethack, at least, things are far easier to identify (for me) via letter/color than they are by the crappy tile art. None of the graphics options are enough of an improvement to entice me away from my system mastery of the ASCII stuff. Nothing more menacing than a vicious & Plus, you need to know the letters to use blessed genocide. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on February 02, 2009, 08:24:20 PM I can mouse over something in my current game and it's name and health bar will come up, and the Recall window in the lower left corner will have the name, text description, list of known abilities, and kill count for that creature. Most of the other roguelikes I've played have an interface that doesn't even know what the fuck a mouse is. There's just no excuse for that sort of bullshit.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: grebo on February 02, 2009, 09:03:54 PM The Stone Soup Crawl interface is very clean as well, with decent mouse support. Only gripe I really have is that the text message area gets erased every turn, would be nice if new messages could scroll on to the top instead of having to constantly hit Ctrl+P to read WTF the message was that just flashed by.
I started a Deep Elf Conjurer and that combo is fairly godly, if you can survive the first few levels. Mephitic Cloud(3x3 confusion/poison cloud) is great crowd control and sprinkle in some other spells from books you hopefully find and you can handle just about anything. Once I finish saving up for a book of Wizardry(haste!!!!) I will not have much to fear from what I'm currently fighting. Soon as this guy dies though(and he will) I plan to play a bunch of Zangband. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Sophismata on February 02, 2009, 10:55:28 PM Those who don't mind the ASCII graphics might want to check out Incursion (http://www.incursion-roguelike.org), a Roguelike that uses the SRD (3 & 3.5 edition D&D ruleset). You have a lot more control over your character than is typical, and character building can help avoid or alleviate standard problems - like the RNG never giving you decent loot.
It's alpha/beta, but I enjoy it and play it almost as much as ADoM (one of my other favourite Roguelikes). I recommend a basic knowledge of D&D though. Bonus points if you played before 3rd edition and can recognize some of the more crazy monsters. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on February 03, 2009, 12:58:11 AM So I was on my skeleton ranger Deadeye (Diablo reference FTW) and I just had a moment where I was at one HP facing off with a nearly-dead boss, and everything came down to one arrow. It hit, he died, and I came away with an artifact shield. Also picked up a Trump weapon scimitar, so all in all things are looking up.
Casting the Animal Taming spell on anything that self-multiplies is handy, since the offspring are also friendly and you can quickly fill a whole region of the level with creatures that are your pets. Any serious enemy will wade through a bunch of worm masses or whatever, but it slows them down and the dozens of tiny hits can soften them up. Deadeye would surely have cacked if a whole shitload of tamed giant lice hadn't thrown themselves under the feet of what was chasing him, delaying it long enough for him to get some health back. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Quinton on February 03, 2009, 06:42:49 AM Those who don't mind the ASCII graphics might want to check out Incursion (http://www.incursion-roguelike.org), a Roguelike that uses the SRD (3 & 3.5 edition D&D ruleset). You have a lot more control over your character than is typical, and character building can help avoid or alleviate standard problems - like the RNG never giving you decent loot. It's alpha/beta, but I enjoy it and play it almost as much as ADoM (one of my other favourite Roguelikes). I recommend a basic knowledge of D&D though. Bonus points if you played before 3rd edition and can recognize some of the more crazy monsters. Okay, what the hell is it with people writing roguelikes as graphical applications in win32? I'm not sure what in the world this guy is trying to do with his binary only linux port, but wtf: setresuid32(-1, 0, -1) = -1 EPERM (Operation not permitted) iopl(0x3) = -1 EPERM (Operation not permitted) open("/dev/mem", O_RDWR) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied) getuid32() = 1001 setresuid32(-1, 1001, -1) = 0 geteuid32() = 1001 Not at all confidence inspiring. Glad I ran it as an untrusted user. Crashed nonetheless. but, seriously, wtf: Quote There is a known issue with the Linux version where sending the game fullscreen will change your desktop resolution to whatever you have the fullscreen resolution in the game set to. This is being researched presently. In the mean time, the obvious workaround is to set your desktop resolution the same as the game's resolution, or to use NVIDIA Settings or your system's equivalent to reset the resolution after running the game. You shouldn't need to be running fullscreen, you should be using the tty. I mean what's the point of a roguelike if I need a 3D driver or to set screen resolutions or use a win32 machine or stupid crap like that? Ye gods... That said, this one sounds like it has some neat ideas. Wow, kids today: (stuff from http://www.incursion-roguelike.org/TechPaper (Web Version).htm) - The current memory management scheme is very poor, keeping every level of the dungeon in memory at once. - Incursion sometimes experiences slowdowns even on my extremely fast 1.8 GHz development machine - Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Quinton on February 03, 2009, 06:46:14 AM Also in Nethack, at least, things are far easier to identify (for me) via letter/color than they are by the crappy tile art. None of the graphics options are enough of an improvement to entice me away from my system mastery of the ASCII stuff. Yeah, it took a while to recognize the critters, but once I learn what's what I find the ascii critters far easier to identify than the (usually terrible) tiles the tiled versions of most roguelikes use. I agree, in principal, that actual art would be better than just ascii characters, but unless the art quality is sufficient to make things make sense, I'll be happy to stick with text. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on February 03, 2009, 08:17:36 AM The roguelike is slow to develop graphically, and the tiles are generally substandard. ASCII works because of easy differentiation, and tiles can achieve this if they are larger and more distinct. You can quickly tell what a D is, no reason you can't simply replace it with a dragon tile but you really need to make sure that it looks very much like a dragon and not very much like a lizardman or gecko. I'll play dumb here and say all you need to do is make larger tiles with better pixel art. The next step after that is to implement a real GUI, but I can't see many roguelike devs being onboard with that due to the neckbeardlessness of a GUI. Baby steps.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on February 03, 2009, 09:17:22 AM Here's a screenshot I won't past directly into the thread.
It's good to be the king. (http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e121/GrimDysart/zombiking.jpg) I always go out of my way to charm any Crypt Creep (the black robed guys) that I find. Usually something kills them off pretty quickly, but every once in a while they manage to summon some undead, and they summon even more Crypt Creeps and it all snowballs until you're sitting in the middle of hundreds of minions. (I'm the blue-cloaked skeleton in the middle.) Rampaging around the level and wiping everything out with an army is fun every now and then. As you can see it's got health bars, a mini-map, icons, and reasonable graphics. Technically you can do almost everything without ever touching the keyboard, if you don't mind using drop-down menus. Realistically there's a handful of keyboard commands you use and the rest you do with the mouse. Items listed in the inventory will perform their most obvious function if double clicked. (Food is eaten, gear is equipped, scrolls are read, and so forth.) If you right click instead, you get a little pop-up menu listing all possible actions that can be performed on that item, including drop, destroy, inscribe and such. It's not perfect, but to any sane person it's CLEARLY where the genre should be heading. Which naturally means that this version hasn't been updated in years while they keep spewing out ascii versions. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on February 03, 2009, 09:31:43 AM It's not perfect, but to any sane person it's CLEARLY where the genre should be heading. Which naturally means that this version hasn't been updated in years while they keep spewing out ascii versions. Just for the record, Japan already basically got it right with Torneko 3, Shiren the Wanderer, and Nightmare of Druaga. In that order in terms of difficulty. Druaga being fucking obtuse, and Torneko being a totally straight roguelike. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21knrrNsegM Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ingmar on February 03, 2009, 09:44:29 AM To me that just looks like a mess (EDIT: WUA's link that is). The graphics would need to be significantly better than that to pull me away from letters and numbers and keypad movement (I hate using the keypad to move on an isometric display).
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on February 03, 2009, 09:59:38 AM Quote from: Schild Just for the record, Japan already basically got it right with Torneko 3, Shiren the Wanderer, and Nightmare of Druaga. In that order in terms of difficulty. Druaga being fucking obtuse, and Torneko being a totally straight roguelike. That looks like... an actual game. Is the Japanese roguelike scene all handheld/console stuff? Because I can see how the need to reach out to customers, rather than invite the public to accept the quirks of freeware or fuck off, would apply some... uh... evolutionary pressure to the design. Quote from: Ingmar To me that just looks like a mess (EDIT: WUA's link that is). The graphics would need to be significantly better than that to pull me away from letters and numbers and keypad movement (I hate using the keypad to move on an isometric display). It takes about five seconds when you first open the game to swap between tilesets. (http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e121/GrimDysart/srsly.jpg) God help you if you really think the red lowercase letter looks more like a wizard than the robed guy with glowy hands, but it's there if you want it. I'm pretty sure you can also throw your mouse out the window and use only keyboard commands if you really want. Maybe smash one of your hands with a hammer, while you're at it. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on February 03, 2009, 10:08:12 AM Quote from: Schild Just for the record, Japan already basically got it right with Torneko 3, Shiren the Wanderer, and Nightmare of Druaga. In that order in terms of difficulty. Druaga being fucking obtuse, and Torneko being a totally straight roguelike. That looks like... an actual game. Is the Japanese roguelike scene all handheld/console stuff? Because I can see how the need to reach out to customers, rather than invite the public to accept the quirks of freeware or fuck off, would apply some... uh... evolutionary pressure to the design. Should you have a DS, pick up Shiren Mystery Dungeon. Should you have a PS2 or PS1, track down a copy of Torneko: The Last Hope. Should you want to pirate something, get a copy of Fushigi no Shiren for the SNES and go to AGTP for a translation hack. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ingmar on February 03, 2009, 10:12:51 AM I don't care if it looks like a wizard. I don't care if the floor looks like floor. All I care about is, can I look at the screen and know what I'm dealing with. There is a particular range of graphics quality, somewhere in between text graphics and Fallout 3, where the graphics actually detract from the gameplay for me. Your tilesets are in that range, with the *possible* exception of the bottom right one, except in that one it appears they screwed up the color on the wizard guy so identification at a glance is out the window if I've already learned the system. I can deal a lot better with abstraction than I can with ugly.
Also, one of the most important features of a roguelike, perhaps it should even go in the definition, is you can have it sitting up on your PC screen at work and it doesn't look like much a game to someone who doesn't know what it is. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: sidereal on February 03, 2009, 10:21:22 AM God help you if you really think the red lowercase letter looks more like a wizard than the robed guy with glowy hands You're confusing 'looks more like' with 'easily identifiable'. If there are tilesets where no tile is going to be confused for another one, great. But I haven't seen one yet. Most pixel art is mush. Either do it up right (Diablo 2 style) by spending a lot of money and time, or go for clarity over attempted fidelity. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on February 03, 2009, 10:22:56 AM You're bitching because you've been conditioned by previous iterations that basically said "Welp, we have no graphics whatsoever. This letter P doesn't look like anything at all. It's just a fucking P. But you'll learn that it's a wizard or fuck off, because that's what we have."
Anyone whose brain hasn't already been warped will learn that "little guy in a robe = wizard, little guy with cloak = rogue" a lot faster than they'll start differentiating various hues of ascii characters. EDIT: Again, kid brother and "Not the stupid one where you're an at-symbol." There isn't a human being on earth who'll come into the genre cold and go "Man I want everything to be letters, because after I painstakingly learn what completely arbitrary thing each one represents, telling a red P from a purple P will be much easier than telling the guy in a white robe from the dude with a sword! Hey have I mentioned that I didn't play any console games before like 1990 because I couldn't tell anything apart? Am I the Pac-Man or the ghost?! Herf blerf!" Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Ingmar on February 03, 2009, 10:41:03 AM You're bitching because you've been conditioned by previous iterations that basically said "Welp, we have no graphics whatsoever. This letter P doesn't look like anything at all. It's just a fucking P. But you'll learn that it's a wizard or fuck off, because that's what we have." Anyone whose brain hasn't already been warped will learn that "little guy in a robe = wizard, little guy with cloak = rogue" a lot faster than they'll start differentiating various hues of ascii characters. EDIT: Again, kid brother and "Not the stupid one where you're an at-symbol." There isn't a human being on earth who'll come into the genre cold and go "Man I want everything to be letters, because after I painstakingly learn what completely arbitrary thing each one represents, telling a red P from a purple P will be much easier than telling the guy in a white robe from the dude with a sword! Hey have I mentioned that I didn't play any console games before like 1990 because I couldn't tell anything apart? Am I the Pac-Man or the ghost?! Herf blerf!" Pac Man has exactly 2 things you need to tell apart. Nethack has several hundred. I'm not saying there isn't a learning curve involved, or that everyone has to like it. And forget pre-1990, I still can't tell red shells from green shells in *any* iteration of Mario Kart. Nethack's 1982 color palette is much easier on my color blindness. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: LK on February 03, 2009, 10:45:16 AM I need more interactivity in my games. I just spent several hours playing and beating the Maw. Being able to control a character on a 3d plane with an analog stick is kinda a big deal for me.
But a web version roguelike would work for me. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: sidereal on February 03, 2009, 10:58:26 AM Actually a P is a giant.
I'll just never figure out why you guys get so worked up about this stuff. You're obviously viscerally angry about using some obscure symbol to represent something. I'm reminded of the dude in the DF thread who thought Toady was a complete asshole for using letters and key commands. Not just an obscure grognard, but actually a bad human being. I haven't been 'conditioned' by anything. I rode the learning curve and now benefit from it. Just like touch typing is a huge pain the ass while you're learning it and turns out to be pretty fucking useful once you get it. Since I know the roguelike monster letters I can: a) play over a network, b) take advantage of the increased productivity from developers who aren't spending 8 hours a day fucking with pixels, and c) immediately case a just-opened undead vault because the symbols are clear. It's great. You should try it. Or, you know, you could keep getting ridiculously defensive and lashing out whenever someone points out the advantages. Whichever works for you. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on February 03, 2009, 12:51:20 PM If learning to differentiate shapes and colors that aren't also letters of the alphabet is too hard for you, that's your damage. Some of us don't want to consult a chart to figure out whether P stands for person, pterodactyl, giant person, or pachyderm.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Soulflame on February 03, 2009, 01:24:16 PM I don't think it's worth getting worked up over what sort of presentation people prefer for a roguelike. ASCII, graphical, tiles, whatever works for a person is what they should use.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Tebonas on February 03, 2009, 02:10:37 PM Yeah, getting worked up over this is ridiculous. The tile graphics in the screenshot look like crap to me, but I actually prefer the Nethack tiled version to the Ascii one (which might be because they remind me of the Epyx Rogue, my first roguelike). Also, Stone Soup is an improvement over Dungeon Crawl.
Since everybody can choose which one to play, why exacly give in to the nerd rage? Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on February 03, 2009, 02:34:45 PM I'm tired of threads about Trammel and Jesus and I'm looking for a new raison d'être.
:why_so_serious: Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: grebo on February 03, 2009, 08:49:37 PM "You fell down a shaft" = terrifying! But I survived it! I've achieved the lofty status of player level 12, been down to D15, explored a bunch of The Lair and Swamp, and iced a minotaur in a labyrinth(very easy actually). I've got an AC of 20 and an evade of 22! Go deep elf wizard go!
Although I fear that once Mephitic Cloud stops working so well I will soon be dead... Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Quinton on February 04, 2009, 12:13:54 AM I don't think it's worth getting worked up over what sort of presentation people prefer for a roguelike. ASCII, graphical, tiles, whatever works for a person is what they should use. For the record, I have no objection to people playing with tilesets. I do think it's silly to *require* tilesets for a roguelike (hey I like my asciitext), and I think it's *absurd* to require win32 and/or a GPU to display *only* text. I grew up on Hack back before we *had* graphics (well, not quite, but damn close). I'm grateful that we had both upper *and* lowercase monsters. ^^ Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: CharlieMopps on February 05, 2009, 09:33:32 AM what? Has everyone forgotten the #1 reason anyone ever played Rogue? You can have it up on your screen while talking to your boss and he will just assume you are programming or something. Seriously, it's like the most stealth game ever created.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on February 05, 2009, 09:35:03 AM Zork?
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: sidereal on February 05, 2009, 10:57:55 AM I think once you start typing 'patch raft with toothpaste' he or she will figure out what's up.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Yegolev on February 05, 2009, 11:17:58 AM I submit a roguelike would not survive such close scrutiny, however I work in IT so YMMV.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Slayerik on February 05, 2009, 11:34:37 AM I'm tired of threads about Trammel and Jesus and I'm looking for a new raison d'être. :why_so_serious: Hey guyz, whats goin on in here?!?!? Thanks for some stuff to try, good thread. Always loved good ole Rogue. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: grebo on February 05, 2009, 03:04:17 PM My Crawl deep elf conjurer is still going strong! I'm level 13 now and have cleaned out the mines and most of the lair. I wanna go rape elves but I have not found a single way to see invisible and the damn tricksy elves keep going invisible.
Fireball is fun. Highly recommended. Does anyone know at what point Mephitic Cloud will start poisoning things? Or maybe if they nerfed that out recently? I have it up to I think 7/10 power and it has yet to poison anything. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Raging Turtle on February 08, 2009, 06:12:44 AM Having some trouble getting this to work - do I download the DOS version first, then install the other stuff later? Or can I make it work with the multiple-platform version? the install icon doesn't automatically come as a .exe, but even when I add that it doesn't work.
Me no understand roguelikes... Edit: Using Windows XP. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Moaner on February 08, 2009, 11:55:15 AM Having some trouble getting this to work - do I download the DOS version first, then install the other stuff later? Or can I make it work with the multiple-platform version? the install icon doesn't automatically come as a .exe, but even when I add that it doesn't work. Me no understand roguelikes... Edit: Using Windows XP. I probably missed it, but which game are you referring to? ZangbandTk? If so I may be able to help. I just installed and am trying to figure out Angband. The command interface is so much different than Nethack and Crawl, I'm having a rough time getting started. It looks pretty fucking epic though. Anyone know if Vanilla Angband is worth learning or should I jump straight to TOME or Zangband or maybe even some other variant? EDIT: I have a PS3, DS, PSP, and a nice gaming PC and I've been playing ASCII/tile-based games for almost a month now. WTF? Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Raging Turtle on February 08, 2009, 11:58:08 AM Trying to make Stone Soup work.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Moaner on February 08, 2009, 12:17:46 PM Trying to make Stone Soup work. Go here (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=143991&package_id=204028&release_id=653860) and download 'stone_soup-0.4.5-tiles-win32.zip'. Unzip the file and just run crawl.exe from that directory. Also, prepare to die, A LOT. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Raging Turtle on February 08, 2009, 01:19:40 PM Perfect, thanks!
Sweet jesus I love this game. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Sheepherder on February 09, 2009, 01:01:11 AM Actually a P is a giant. I'll just never figure out why you guys get so worked up about this stuff. You're obviously viscerally angry about using some obscure symbol to represent something. I'm reminded of the dude in the DF thread who thought Toady was a complete asshole for using letters and key commands. Not just an obscure grognard, but actually a bad human being. I haven't been 'conditioned' by anything. I rode the learning curve and now benefit from it. Just like touch typing is a huge pain the ass while you're learning it and turns out to be pretty fucking useful once you get it. Since I know the roguelike monster letters I can: a) play over a network, b) take advantage of the increased productivity from developers who aren't spending 8 hours a day fucking with pixels, and c) immediately case a just-opened undead vault because the symbols are clear. It's great. You should try it. Or, you know, you could keep getting ridiculously defensive and lashing out whenever someone points out the advantages. Whichever works for you. Yes, but it's hard and convoluted purely for sake of being so. Every software I've worked in since 1989 has used "escape" to back out. This one? Space. Page Up/ Down would be natural for moving between either levels or menu pages, instead it's ctrl 5, alt 5 and +, - * Silly shit like that This was enough to make me delete the zips off my desktop. It's like, he found a neck and just had to put a beard on it. Beyond nerdy and niche to change shit like that. In fact, it transcends to something entirely different. Seriously, it's fucking pixel art. It takes all of a few minutes to create a function that will make a passable stick figure with Draw() functions that will accept colour variations as a argument. Or a few hours to palette shift a handful of figures a few hundred times. Or a few minutes to code a system to put a colour-coded base/ring under/around the feet of the NPC. Or you can just make a non-shitty UI which supplies detailed data on the monster your mouse is hovering over and have people applaud you for shaving the fucking beard off and doing that particular portion of the most critical component of the game right. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on February 09, 2009, 02:10:25 AM But then you couldn't, like, fucking port it to Amiga or something! :uhrr:
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: schild on February 09, 2009, 07:22:37 AM Quote Seriously, it's fucking pixel art. It takes all of a few minutes to create a function that will make a passable stick figure with Draw() functions that will accept colour variations as a argument. Or a few hours to palette shift a handful of figures a few hundred times. Or a few minutes to code a system to put a colour-coded base/ring under/around the feet of the NPC. Or you can just make a non-shitty UI which supplies detailed data on the monster your mouse is hovering over and have people applaud you for shaving the fucking beard off and doing that particular portion of the most critical component of the game right. While I'm on your side on this, I'm gonna go ahead and point out - damning pixel art should be a crime. That shit is work if you want something passable. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Sheepherder on February 09, 2009, 02:08:55 PM While I'm on your side on this, I'm gonna go ahead and point out - damning pixel art should be a crime. That shit is work if you want something passable. I think you and I define "passable" pixel art differently. Which is probably good, because I'm not currently trying to do anything with it. But really anything that wouldn't be shameful to release on a NES is fine by my book. What pisses me right off is people who refuse to use the mouse for anything, it's fucking inexcusable. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Moaner on February 09, 2009, 02:11:43 PM What pisses me right off is people who refuse to use the mouse for anything, it's fucking inexcusable. But, why would I wan to take my hands off home row? ;D Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: WindupAtheist on February 09, 2009, 03:36:10 PM Besides which, the pixel art only needs to be done once and then everyone can reuse it. It's not like this is commercial software, or like the nine million *bands don't are all original work.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: raydeen on March 02, 2009, 11:21:36 AM Not sure if this qualifies but some people on the internet say it does.
http://neurohack.com/transcendence/index.html (http://neurohack.com/transcendence/index.html) From the Big Download review: "Imagine if Nethack and Star Control 2 got together and had a top-down illegitimate child that went on to bigger and better things. That's Transcendence in a nutshell." Haven't tried it yet but it sounds like something that is relevant to my interests. Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: Murgos on March 02, 2009, 11:26:24 AM It's not turn based.
Title: Re: A Discussion on Roguelikes Post by: raydeen on March 02, 2009, 11:31:39 AM Gotchya. It's got the random factor going for it though. Me rikey dat.
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