Game News Roguelike Chatter - Desktop Dungeons & Incursion

Tags: Incursion

@Play's John Harris got together with Rodain Joubert for <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27960/Interview__Enjoy_A_Coffee_Break_Of_Victory_With_Desktop_Dungeons.php" target="blank">an interview</a> about <b><a href="http://www.qcfdesign.com/?cat=20" target="blank">Desktop Dungeons</a></b>.
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<blockquote>JH: The philosophy, correct me if I'm wrong as this is just an educated guess, would be to reduce or eliminate unnecessary variables, keep things as simple as possible without reducing complexity, and to eliminate grinding behavior?
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It's both not like Crawl (in that it's not even a roguelike technically) and it is like Crawl (in that there are tradeoffs to a lot of player decisions). And Crawl is just generally inspiring too, its elements come together very well.
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RJ: Yep. DCSS took EVERYTHING and made it a meaningful decision, and I wanted that to carry through to Desktop Dungeons. I ended up taking that idea to the extent that the very act of dungeon exploration became its own resource, and every monster encounter, movement, spell cast and item pickup could tip the balance subtly, yet significantly. All of the game's elements did their best to interact with one another in as many ways as possible.
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I reckon it's far from perfect in this sense, but I like to think that I gave it a jolly good shot. Crawl is astounding, not least because it wasn't afraid to knock convention. I mean, it takes real guts to develop a game to rival a dinosaur like Nethack while explicitly disagreeing with parts of its design</blockquote>
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And Greg Costikyan played <b><a href="http://www.incursion-roguelike.net/" target="blank">Incursion</a></b> for <a href="http://playthisthing.com/incursion-halls-goblin-king" target="blank">Play This Thing</a>.
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<blockquote>What's most interesting, however, are the degree to which skills and feats are essential; they are purposefully more powerful than most magic items, and choosing and using them effectively is vital. Thus, advancing your character isn't just a matter of levelling up plus some lucky magic finds, but is more a matter of consciously and strategically planning the route your character takes.</blockquote>

 

desktop dungeons looks interesting, and a potential good time waster.

of course it doesn't run on my machine, whoop de doo.

 

It's a pretty neat little game but I fucking suck at it... I've only managed to unlock the rouge after a dozen runs or so, oh well.

 

Desktop dungeons are cool little thing. It's more of an brain hurting puzzle than a game, but still fun. I managed to unlock everything (but one class) and place on the highscore table - unfortunately, after that, the game has little to offer.
Oh, and check the Derek Yu's tileset and more importantly, games wiki if you plan to play.

 

God damn FUCK COCK CUNT BITCH!
Taurog doesnt like magic and I get the best possible endboss...

 

Fun little game. Happened to win my first game with a Human Fighter against Frank the Zombie which was quite lucky because it came down to my last potion.

 

I've unlocked most of the stuff in Desktop Dungeons now and I'm still having fun with it but I wish that you could take characters through a series of maps or something longer like that. It reminds me of playing HoMM 3. Incursion is great and I love how it's more character based then item based, can't wait for it to get finished. Anybody know any more game like it or should I just check out nethack?

I tried to play Dwarf Fortress but my shitty computer actually gets bogged down by it, good thing I'm getting a new netbook soon.

 

NetHack is almost the opposite - it's item-based, not really character-based. Your goal for the first half of the game is to accumulate the necessary items and intrinsics to ensure a painless victory in the second half of the game.

 

Stone Soup is character based and pretty fun.

 

"RJ: Yep. DCSS took EVERYTHING and made it a meaningful decision"


That right there is imo one of the greatest design concepts i've ever seen.

 

I'll check out Stone Soup when I get the time, thanks.

 

Handicap through shitty race.



Still number 400! Vampire pussies on top...

 

DCSS is awesome, I highly recommend it.

Desktop Dungeons is pretty awesome too. I finally won with a wizard (gnome) after what seemed like a million tries. So satisfying.

 

I like Desktop Dungeons. got most of the stuff unlocked. Anyone have any tips on beating the crypt with the assassin?

 

Do a money run for full bank. Restart crypt till you get the undead hating god at level 1. Pray for good stores/runes.

 

What about factory with wizard? That's the last unlock I'm missing.

 

Well, I didnt have much luck with it either but my strategy is:

Restart till you get fireball and a high level (8 or 9) Animated Armor nearby. Kill it at level 1. Search for poison rune for the Meat Man. Hope for good stores.

 

It's interesting how he attempted to distill a roguelike experience down to the bare minimum such that "every decision matters" and yet, because of that very distillation, the game's hardest challenges rely more heavily on luck than any roguelike I know of.