Roguelikes!
So I checked out this thread on the SA forums and was instantly hooked on playing roguelikes again. Nethack was the first one I played many years ago, and Dungeon Crawl is what sucked me in this time. I found the unforgiving gameplay to be really fun and challenging. In fact, as most RL players will admit, winning the game isn’t really the fun part – it’s seeing how far you can get before something absurd kills you. Someone on the SA forums described Nethack as this: “Nethack is a computer game in which you die. There are many ways for this to happen and quite a few of them will make you want to throw your computer out the nearest window.”
Read the rest! Click below
Rogulelike description (from ADOM’s website):
There are two major differences to roguelike games though: most roguelike games do not use any graphics but rather rely on the ASCII character set to display their surroundings. While this might sound horrible to you, you will be surprised how quickly you start to enjoy this “primitive” type of display. Your imagination quickly will take over and you’ll no longer miss those ugly hand-drawn graphical tiles that do not resemble your picture of a dragon at all. But in your imagination, that blue D will soon become the most horrible and frightening ice wyrm you can imagine. Try it out. You won’t be disappointed. A side effect of this “graphical style” is that you won’t need to download much. Roguelike games are pretty small because most of their code is concerned with a very intense sort of gameplay and not some ugly graphics quickly becoming out of date. In that respect many roguelike games are far superior to commercial roleplaying games (did I forget to mention that? Most roguelike games are available for free!)
Roguelike games are very random. While almost all of them have a background for the gameplay, the dungeons, villages and other locations in the game are randomly created anew for each game. This offers a never-ending challenge as each dungeon will be different and there (almost) is no tedious “Let’s try this dungeon for the twentieth time… how boring since I know all the tunnels”.
Roguelike games usually do not allow you to save your character past his/her death. While this might seem overly harsh at first, you will quickly discover that this provides a level of tension unheard of in commercial games. Every decision is importand and it’s a lot more exciting to explore unknown terrain, if you know that death is final.
Not all RL’s are ascii based anymore. In this era of next-gen graphics I know many of you wouldn’t want to view… text. But that’s ok. Many of the popular RL’s have graphical representations as well. Nethack’s win32 version has an option to load up some nice tiles to play graphically. I linked to the graphical version of Dungeon Crawl, and in that forum link above they have a download for the Stone Soup + Tiles version as well.
I think I’ll paste the morgue file of my greatest Dungeon Crawl character yet. RIP Diabolous!
- Dungeon Crawl with Tiles (graphical version! play this)
- Stone Soup – community modded version of Dungeon Crawl (many prefer this one)
- ADOM – another popular roguelike
- Falcon’s Eye (isometric nethack project – dead project i think)
- Vulture’s Eye (new isometric project taking on where Falcon’s left off)
Dungeon Crawl 400b26e070tf(Windows/Tile) character file. [Last build Dec 23 2005] Diabolous the Thaumaturge Race : Spriggan Res.Fire : . . . See Invis. : + Class : Venom Mage Res.Cold : . . . Warding : + Worship : Sif Muna Life Prot.: . . . Conserve : . Res.Poison: + Res.Corr. : . Level 12 Res.Elec. : . Gourmand : . Exp 29260 Next Level 37699 Sust.Abil.: . Rnd.Telep. : . Exp Needed 8439 Res.Mut. : . Ctrl.Telep.: . Spls.Left 5 Res.Slow : . Ctrl.Telep.: . Gold 67 Clarity : . Levitation : . Ctrl.Flight: . HP : -1/ 53 MP : 21/ 37 Weapon staff of wizardry Str : 4 Armour +1 robe Int : 21 Shield none Dex : 17 Helmet +2 wizard's hat Armour Cl: 4 Cloak none Evasion : 12 Gloves none Shield Cl: 0 Boots none Amulet amulet of warding Play time : 10:22:05 Ring ring of poison resistance Turns : 19914 Ring ring of wizardry You are in the Hive. You worship Sif Muna. Sif Muna is exalted by your worship. You are not hungry. Inventory: Hand weapons h - a +2,+2 sabre H - a +5,+2 elven long sword of holy wrath Missiles t - 6 +0 elven darts x - 13 poisoned +0 orcish darts Armour o - a +1 robe +r - a +1 robe (worn) y - a +0 buckler E - a +0 robe +K - a +2 wizard's hat (worn) Magical devices c - a wand of polymorph other (5) d - a wand of polymorph other (5) g - a wand of disintegration (4) n - a wand of random effects (13) S - a wand of enslavement (6) Comestibles f - a royal jelly I - 8 honeycombs Scrolls b - 2 scrolls of enchant weapon II i - 6 scrolls of teleportation G - 7 scrolls of remove curse O - 2 scrolls of blinking R - a scroll of immolation Y - 3 scrolls of detect curse Z - 2 scrolls of enchant weapon I Jewellery k - a ring of protection from magic l - a ring of protection from magic +q - a ring of poison resistance (right hand) +s - a ring of wizardry (left hand) +z - an amulet of warding (around neck) A - an amulet of clarity B - a ring of wizardry C - a ring of levitation F - a ring of regeneration N - a ring of protection from fire T - a ring of fire Potions a - 4 potions of healing e - 2 potions of might j - 2 potions of berserk rage m - a potion of speed X - 2 potions of invisibility Books u - a book of Conjurations W - a book of Wizardry Magical staves +D - a staff of wizardry (weapon) You have 134 experience left. Skills: - Level 1 Short Blades + Level 3 Long Blades - Level 1 Darts - Level 1 Throwing - Level 5 Dodging - Level 4 Stealth - Level 1 Shields + Level 13 Spellcasting - Level 11 Conjurations + Level 7 Divinations + Level 3 Fire Magic - Level 1 Air Magic - Level 9 Poison Magic - Level 2 Evocations You have 5 spell levels left. You know the following spells: Your Spells Type Success Level a - Sting Poison/Conjuration Excellent 1 b - Mephitic Cloud Poison/Air/Conjuration Excellent 3 c - Cure Poison Poison Excellent 2 d - Venom Bolt Poison/Conjuration Great 5 e - Fireball Fire/Conjuration Very Good 6 f - Detect Creatures Divination Excellent 2 g - Magic Mapping Earth/Divination Great 4 h - Identify Divination Very Good 6 i - Magic Dart Conjuration Perfect 1 j - Throw Frost Ice/Conjuration Excellent 2 Last messages:
The killer bee hits you! The killer bee hits you! Cast which spell ([?*] list)? Which direction ([*+-] to target)? The bolt of poison misses the killer bee. The killer bee misses you. The killer bee hits you! The killer bee hits you! The killer bee misses you. You kill the killer bee! Cast which spell ([?*] list)? Which direction ([*+-] to target)? The sting misses the killer bee. The killer bee misses you. The killer bee misses you. The killer bee hits you! The killer bee hits you! * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * * The killer bee hits you! You die...
. ### #.. ##.###.?.. ##...#....# #.........# ##..........k #..kk..k!..# ## #.@k.....# #.....k..>....k ##.#.......?..! # ##.#.###.#. ##### ### Vanquished Creatures 2 hydras 2 elephant slugs 3 hill giants 10 giant brown frogs 2 humans A cyclops (D:12) A giant snail (Lair:9) A queen bee (D:10) The ghost of Diabolous the Stinger, an experienced Sp VM (D:6) 3 komodo dragons Psyche (D:11) A polar bear (D:9) 2 hippogriffs A two-headed ogre (D:10) A blink frog (Lair:9) A hungry ghost (D:11) A grizzly bear (D:10) 15 yaks A giant slug (Lair:4) Edmund (D:10) 7 ogres 3 ice beasts 4 centaurs A yellow wasp (Lair:1) A phantom (D:6) 8 giant lizards 7 gila monsters 6 war dogs (Lair:7) 3 orc warriors Sigmund (D:3) 12 giant frogs Blork the orc (D:7) 7 brown snakes 25 killer bees 9 hounds 3 imps An orc priest (Orc:1) 2 wights 8 orc wizards 3 giant ants 4 giant beetles 7 giant iguanas 4 scorpions Ijyb (D:2) 2 jellies (D:12) 7 gnolls 3 giant centipedes 3 worms 3 giant mites 29 green rats 17 snakes An ooze (D:3) 3 giant eyeballs A hound zombie (D:5) A killer bee zombie (D:8) 26 giant bats 9 giant geckos 16 goblins 51 grey rats 19 hobgoblins 22 jackals 32 orcs 14 quokkas 22 rats 10 giant cockroaches 10 giant newts 4 killer bee larvae (D:10) 16 kobolds 2 orc zombies A small snake (D:6) A plant (Lair:7) 504 creatures vanquished.
