50 "Really Good" independent games

[Tairnyn]

Hardly a comprehensive list, but it may provide some options for a few hours of entertainment. I've never played any of them to offer my opinion on the quality but some of them sound interesting enough to be worth a download on a rainy Saturday. Most are free and all of them are under $25.

http://www.tigsource.com/features/games1-10.html

[UnSub]

That's a nice list - thanks for the link.

I actually played Rose and Camellia the other day. Don't know if I'd ever go back to master it, but it was a good distraction for a bit.

[Morat20]

I'm futzing through Dwarf Fortress now, and I'd love it if it he simply gave up on the ASCII graphics. Nostalgia is all well and good, but it's easier to manage all that damn information with good graphics and a decent UI.

[Samwise]

The inclusion of The Endless Forest in that list renders the entire thing suspect IMO.   

[WindupAtheist]

Dungeon Crawl is ass next to ZangbandTK as far as the "Roguelike + tile graphics" department goes.  I haven't installed the latter on my new PC yet, so I gave the former a shot.  Yech.  ZangbandTK is way more customizable and user-friendly, with sound and multiple tilesets to choose from.

[Zetor]

No Spiderweb love?! *bzzzzt*
Exile used to be teh_bomb back in the day.. and the Avernum remakes are even better (though I have only played two of them so far). Not to mention Geneforge.


-- Z.

[Ironwood]

Dungeon Crawl is ass next to ZangbandTK as far as the "Roguelike + tile graphics" department goes.  I haven't installed the latter on my new PC yet, so I gave the former a shot.  Yech.  ZangbandTK is way more customizable and user-friendly, with sound and multiple tilesets to choose from.

Huuuuge ADOM fan and I couldn't get into ZangbandTK.  I can only assume I'm doing it wrong...

[Tebonas]

If that is wrong I don't want to do it right either. ADOM is my favourite roguelike, I have a version for every system prepared on the USB stick on my keychain. I can kill days regardless of where you lock me in with a computer.

Even if you ignore everything that hasn't tile graphics Nethack reigns supreme over Zangband.

I have trouble buying Sam and Max as an independent title, btw.

[cmlancas]

No Spiderweb love?! *bzzzzt*
Exile used to be teh_bomb back in the day.. and the Avernum remakes are even better (though I have only played two of them so far). Not to mention Geneforge.


-- Z.

I was thinking the exact same thing Zetor. They had some Dungeon Crawl game there, but no Exile. I played Exile I, II, and III.

[Tairnyn]

Been giving Dwarf Fortress a shot for the last few hours and it's interesting enough to keep me piqued. There's a decent wiki here to help with the basics and there's also a few tilesets that provide actual graphics for your dwarves and other animals. In fact, if you download this version of the game (via the crappy download site) it comes with all the tileset packs preinstalled so you can just play, although you'll have to start over and rebuild the world.

[WindupAtheist]

I like my ZangbandTK because it has a billion races, an overworld with a wilderness and multiple cities, and (by the standards of the genre) a pretty good GUI.  When my vampire rogue comes up from the dungeon, he likes to eat a few street urchins in their sleep, waste some money at the casino, then breeze through a couple of towns to see if the inventory in the black market shops has turned over at all.  It's not the same when you're doomed to live in the dungeon forever.

Plus you can customize the shit out of it, add your own sound effects, and it comes with hundreds of unused sprites that can be swapped for existing in-game ones on the fly.  Enough to redo the entire game, if you really wanted to.  If a monster doesn't look right to you, flip through a couple of menus and assign it a different graphic before you kill it.

[Ironwood]

No, I get that.  Others tell me that the total freeform that Zangband has makes it for them, but for the most part I found it overwhelming in terms of content and, further, confusing in terms of difference.

Of course, I could simply have an advanced case of the LawlNoobs.

[Tebonas]

I absolutely do not care about graphics and sound when I play a roguelike, so I can't talk about UI, graphics and sound.

But Zangband (as well as all the other bands) is totally random, to the point of me not caring about the multiple cities. I can spam for items at each level by rapidly going up and down the stairs and taking everything I find in that room. Or spam the towns to get the items in the shops I want. I prefer semirandom like in Adom and Nethack. Each level is randomly generated when you first enter it, but then it stays that way. And some levels are predefined to give them flavour and a story. To each his own, and when total randomness is your thing, the Bands are the way to go (my favourite there is ToME, formerly known as Pernband).

[Ironwood]

I just wish they'd make these games more laptop friendly.  It's pain in the ass if you don't have a numpad.

[Tebonas]

I know what you mean. I almost bought one of these once because of that:

[Azazel]

Interesting list. I'd like to check some of those out but I doubt I'll have time. I have too much commercial stuff I need to get around to playing.. damn timesink MMOGs  :-(

I might see about putting a couple of them on my Mum's computer, though.

Also, if you're into some old-school Amiga software, check this link out:

http://killerbeesoftware.com/

[hal]

OK I am disgusted that Dominions 3 is not there. I suck at it but I love it. I am hosting it and playing eq2 on the same computer. Thats just how much resources the game takes. Atari 400 graphics but very deep gameplay. It really tastes of MTG the way things work. It is not cheep and the games on that list are either free or cheep.