The Codex of Roguelikes

[Occasionally Fatal]

Sup? Original thread. Got tired of waiting around for a list. Feel free to submit more, but if you do, please format so I can just copy and paste it in here. I'm only going to be this industrious only so often and it doesn't always result in roguelike list compiling and formatting. Also, kollecting kodex kontent for these items, ie LPs in the playground or a good discussion thread. Feel free to submit those too. Discuss!!

List of Roguelikes:
Adom

• [Ascii]
• ADOM : The General Discussion
• Let's Metagame ADOM - empi
• Let's Play ADOM - barker_s

AliensRL

• [Ascii]
• Aliens the roguelike: introrun - someone else

Angband
Alphaman

Approaching Infinity:
A Top-Down Strategic Space Exploration Game Of Infinite Proportions where Star Trek Meets Ultima!

Binding of Isaac
Brogue

• [Ascii] Good looking and easy to play - very streamlined. Trapped treasure rooms (think Zelda/Indiana Jones). Character build based on which items you find and keep, and how you use them - no real stat/feat system.

Broken Bottle
Cataclysm

• [Ascii] A post apocalyptic survival roguelike where the player faces off against zombies. And manhacks, apparently.
• Let's play ironman Cataclysm (roguelike) - Multi-headed Cow

Caves of Qud
Castle of the Winds
Desktop Dungeons
Diggr
DoomRL

• [Graphics] Fast, furious, and polished roguelike that is heavily inspired by some FPS no one's ever heard of. Good for beginners or hardened veterans seeking out additional badges and challenges.
• DOOMRL IN GRAFIX IS OUT OH YEAH
• Let's Play Doom, The Roguelike. - 7hm
• Lets Play DoomRL! For Graphics whores! - DamnedRegistrations
• Let's Play Doom RL: RNG busting edition - Renegen
• Let's Play an Angel of Marksmanship in DoomRL - Occasionally Fatal

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

• [Tileset] Popular, open source roguelike that has been branched off of Dungeon Crawl, aiming for balanced systems that do not require spoiling of the players. It is combat and magic heavy with little dross (quests, NPCs, etc). It's a great roguelike for beginners.
• Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup questions/thread
• Stood up and Befriended, the Nagas of Crawl (a lil NSFW) - Yeesh
• Let's Play Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup - 7hm

Dungeon Hack
Dungeons of Dredmor

• [Graphics] A roguelike for beginners. There's plenty of cool stuff to do like tinkering, skill trees, and paths one could take. However, it's not particularly deep, and may be trying too hard to be funny.

Dwarf Fortress

• [Tileset] Combines aspects of roguelikes and city-building games and is primarily known for its unique level of complexity and difficulty. Has an adventure mode as all as the more well-known fortress mode.
• Let's succeed a Dwarf Fortress! [Krash-ing for Fun] - Community
• I want to be an Urist - A community Dwarf Fortress LP - Community

Elona
Faster than Light (FTL)

• [Graphics]This charming game starts off with a simple prospect: your ship has some information which needs to reach the Federation and the Rebels are chasing you. This isn’t a space opera replete with drama and commentary on the human condition. It is a dungeon crawl in space with an intentionally vague plot. As you jump from beacon to beacon inside a sector, the Rebel Fleet—represented by an ominous red blob—slowly spreads across the sector map.
• RPG Codex Review: Faster Than Light Beta
• FTL: Faster Than Light Released
• Let's go into space Faster Than Light! - Ulminati
• Thoughts on FTL
• Tips for Faster Then Light (FTL rougelike) (sic)
• Lets blow shit up in space (Faster Than Light) - DamnedRegistrations

Fatherhood

• [Ascii] Combat free roguelike. All conflict is with the environment; battle raging fires and flooding rivers by carrying rocks and pushing boulders.

Frozen Depths
Incursion

• Let's Play Incursion - Thydron

Infra Arcana

• [Ascii] A Lovecraftian horror game set in the early 20th century with the goal of exploring the lair of a dreaded cult called The Church of Starry Wisdom. Your ultimate goal is to survive and retrieve an artifact called The Shining Trapezohedron - a window to all secrets of the universe.
• Infra Arcana - An H.P. Lovecraft/Horror based Roguelike

IVAN
Gearhead 1 & 2
Legerdemain
Liberal Crime Squad

• Let's play Liberal Crime Squad (Premature End by GOP's bug) - Cassidy

MageGuild
Mission Thunderbolt
Mysterious Castle

• [Graphics] A well presented roguelike featuring a party and tactics set in a large, spooky castle/dungeon/forest.
• Codex Workshop: Mysterious Castle 1.8 for iOS, Mac, Windows
• Mysterious Castle, Tactical Party-Based Roguelike, Hits 1.9

Nethack

• [ASCII/Tileset/Graphics] A very unique roguelike, and one of the oldest, too. Also benefited from a very active development. It's hard to say anything about it without spoiling the experience, there's just so much content.

Nightfall
Omega
Prospector
Rogue Survivor

• [Tileset] Rogue Survivor is a free zombie survival roguelike sandbox game with unique features and modding support. You wake up amidst chaos and must find ways to survive.
• Let's play ironman Rogue Survivor - Multi-headed Cow

Slash'EM

• [Graphics] Slash’EM is NetHack on steroids. It features new playable races and professions, new items and artifacts, rehashed magic system and tons and tons of new monsters and special levels. It also makes the game much harder.
• Let's Ascend in Slash'EM - Haba

Spelunky

• [Graphics] You're an Indiana Jones type trying to navigate random platforming levels, grabbing as much gold as possible, and avoiding permadeath. Success is based on the player's platforming and luck/choice of items.

Tales of Maj'Eyal and T-Engine4 (ToME)
The Slimy Lichmummy
UnReal World

• Let's LARP the Unreal World!

Vulture
Zangband

Relevant Threads:
Roguelike for a Pansy
The Roguelikes Thread

Entry Format:

[url=LinkToRLSite]Roguelike Name[/url]
[LIST]
[*][[url=LinktoScreenshot]Graphics[/url]/Tileset/Ascii] [More screenshots if pertinent] Description
[*]Discussion thread(s)
[*]LP Name - author
[/LIST]

Only submissions in this format will be updated in a timely manner.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Nicely done.

One minor suggestion, I think it would help to organize the list by "roguelikes with ASCII graphics" / "ones with an available graphical tileset". I for one prefer graphical tilesets, for instance, and find it hard to play without (unless it's some must-play liike ADOM or Incursion).

 

[sser]

Do you take non-PC roguelikes? Shiren the Wanderer is one of my favorite roguelikes, but it's for the DS (and SNES/Wii, I think).

 

[Damned Registrations]

No dwarf fortress? It's at least as close as Binding of Isaac. Spelunky too, for that matter.

 

[zeitgeist]

Alphaman

 

[Malakal]

This should definitely get a sticky. Good job.

 

[JudasIscariot]

Nice thread! Also I just remembered that there is a Castlevania roguelike (along with Mega Man, Zelda, and even Metroid!) all on this one site:

http://slashie.net/page.php?6

The roguelikes included here are:

Castlevania RL: Serenade of Chaos
MegamanRL
MetroidRL
Escape from Mt.Drash the Roguelike
ZeldaRL the Rainbow Maiden

 

[JudasIscariot]

Lambdarogue The Book of the Stars just got updated to 1.6.1 and features a new tileset

http://lambdarogue.net/

Has a Windows, Linux, or even iOS version available.

There's also Decker. I guess you could qualify it as a cyberpunk roguelike. Decker has you take on the role of a freelance hacker who breaks into systems for money. The game is unique because instead of a hunger systtem you basically have to make enough money to pay the rent every month. You can also research your own hardware and software but it takes time.

http://www10.caro.net/dsi/decker/

 

[asper]

Short one-line description of each game would be very useful.

Fatherhood. Ascii.

• Combat free roguelike. All conflict is with the environment.
• Battle raging fires and flooding rivers by carrying rocks and pushing boulders.
• Children run their own AI causing them, like real children, to not always do what you want.
• Randomly generated levels can be saved to try and master the level later.
• Starting levels are saved in plain ASCII, allowing people to share challenging games or easily create new challenging scenarios.

 

[empi]

Great thread, good work

Under adom there is ADOM : The General Discussion

 

[Zed]

Sticky'd, yo. Good job.

Short one-line description of each game would be very useful.

I agree.

 

[SCO]

If you'd mention RL with auto-explore, it'd be nice, since i can't live without it anymore. I know TOME 4 and DCSS has it.

 

[TripJack]

so is this just a list of roguelikes?

i think one of those already exists

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Do you take non-PC roguelikes? Shiren the Wanderer is one of my favorite roguelikes, but it's for the DS (and SNES/Wii, I think).

Sure, if you want to write up an entry for it, I'll shove it in there. Revised GRPGD rules and all.

No dwarf fortress? It's at least as close as Binding of Isaac. Spelunky too, for that matter.

No one mentioned them in the other thread, and I always forget about DF adventurer mode. They've been added, I'll have to hunt down some of the Codex Lps and stuff.

so is this just a list of roguelikes?

i think one of those already exists

Indeed it does. This is by no means going to be the definitive list of all roguelikes ever, but more a way to keep track of what Roguelikes the Codex is playing, enjoying, and discussing. I intend to get more anal about submissions; if you can't be bothered to do a little write up for a roguelike you want to see here, it probably doesn't belong. Something like that. For right now I'm just chucking stuff in. There have been requests for adding details like tilesets, autoexplore, and short descriptions, and I'm not going to be going through and doing those all myself. I'll probably do some for the few I've played, but the rest depends on my fellow codexers. For example, asper did a nice little submission for Fatherhood, so that's going in, and you're instantly going to know that one is going to be more worthy of further investigation, than say, The Slimy Lichmummy, which has zero entries underneath it. Or maybe you want to look at some that have been submitted but don't have much Codex interest.

Actually, screw it, inserting stick up my ass now. Submissions must be in the entry format for timely updating. Also, good submissions are worth a brofist.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Dungeons of Dredmor
[Graphics] A "casual" roguelike. That is, it's very easy to get into it even if you've never played a roguelike before. There's plenty of a lot of cool stuff like tinkering, a lot of skill trees and paths one could take. It has been criticized for an apparent lack of depth, compared to the more "hardcore" roguelikes. There's also humour in it, which some people like and some hate ("tries too hard to be funny" vs "adorable in its own way").

Nethack
[ASCII/Tileset/Graphics] A very unique roguelike, and one of the oldest, too. Just because it was developed/patched/improved so much over the years led to a famous rule: if you want to do something clever, devs have probably already thought of it first! It's hard to say anything about it without spoiling the experience, there's just so much content. It's been criticized for being "too easy" once you've figured out the tricks and being impossible to play thriough spoiler-free (though there are occasional 1-2 claims of having done so).

Spelunky
[Graphics] A roguelike in its two core ways: permadeath and random levels. You're an Indiana Jones type of guy trying to get from the entrance to the exit point and grab as much gold on the way as possible, while avoiding death. It's a unique roguelike in that it has no "RPG" aspects to it though, since success is all based on the player's "platformer skills", fast thinking and twitch reflexes.

 

[SCO]

So, it's not a roguelike at all then?

 

[Damned Registrations]

He forgot to mention the items, your selection and use of which have a big impact on how the game plays. You can get different types of boots for example; spike boots will let you kill things by jumping on them rather than merely stunning them, as well as letting you jump on at least one type of enemy that would normally just kill you. Spring boots give you higher jumping height though. Neither are guaranteed to be available and they're mutually exclusive and might cost you a big chunk of money if you do find them. Unless you steal from the shopkeeper, which has obvious consequences, or murder him, which has slightly less obvious ones. There are a number of things you can wield, including a bow and arrow (which you can attach bombs to, but arrows are not infinite) guns, a pickaxe (which can break) and a few other things. Despite being a platformer it has a very strong roguelike feel from all these random elements and consequence of choice combined with the permadeath.

 

[zeitgeist]

I propose a change to the submission format to include screenshots. For example:

[url=LinkToRLSite]Roguelike Name[/url]
[LIST]
[*][Graphics/Tileset/Ascii] [[url=screenshot1.jpg]1[/url],[url=screenshot2.jpg]2[/url]] Description
[*]Discussion thread(s)
[*]LP Name - author
[/LIST]

Roguelike Name

• [Graphics/Tileset/Ascii] [1,2] Description
• Discussion thread(s)
• LP Name - author

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

He forgot to mention the items, your selection and use of which have a big impact on how the game plays. You can get different types of boots for example; spike boots will let you kill things by jumping on them rather than merely stunning them, as well as letting you jump on at least one type of enemy that would normally just kill you. Spring boots give you higher jumping height though. Neither are guaranteed to be available and they're mutually exclusive and might cost you a big chunk of money if you do find them. Unless you steal from the shopkeeper, which has obvious consequences, or murder him, which has slightly less obvious ones. There are a number of things you can wield, including a bow and arrow (which you can attach bombs to, but arrows are not infinite) guns, a pickaxe (which can break) and a few other things. Despite being a platformer it has a very strong roguelike feel from all these random elements and consequence of choice combined with the permadeath.

Yeah, definitely sometimes you can get lucky with items and shopkeepers, getting an early cloak + shotgun and breezing through the whole game. Then other times you're less lucky, and will have to play a lot more cautiosly. Still, it has no "RPG" elements that 99% of roguelikes share (stats, class choice etc.), and 95% of success is player's "platforming" skill, 5% item luck. I still consider it a "roguelike" hybrid of a kind, since it has 2 very core elements - random levels and permadeath.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

I propose a change to the submission format to include screenshots. For example:

[url=LinkToRLSite]Roguelike Name[/url]
[LIST]
[*][Graphics/Tileset/Ascii] [[url=screenshot1.jpg]1[/url],[url=screenshot2.jpg]2[/url]] Description
[*]Discussion thread(s)
[*]LP Name - author
[/LIST]

Good idea, if people want to include screenshots. I've modified the format a little. See Fatherhood entry for a limited example.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Hehe. IVAN has a funny easter egg in the "graphics" folder, on the character textures file to be precise.

 

[Renegen]

Dungeons of Dredmor
[Graphics] A "casual" roguelike. That is, it's very easy to get into it even if you've never played a roguelike before. There's plenty of a lot of cool stuff like tinkering, a lot of skill trees and paths one could take. It has been criticized for an apparent lack of depth, compared to the more "hardcore" roguelikes. There's also humour in it, which some people like and some hate ("tries too hard to be funny" vs "adorable in its own way").

Spelunky
[Graphics] A roguelike in its two core ways: permadeath and random levels. You're an Indiana Jones type of guy trying to get from the entrance to the exit point and grab as much gold on the way as possible, while avoiding death. It's a unique roguelike in that it has no "RPG" aspects to it though, since success is all based on the player's "platformer skills", fast thinking and twitch reflexes.

I don't think it's fair to call Dredmor a "casual" roguelike and then gush all over Spelunky and call it unique when it actually has no RPG "aspects" to it. The RPG aspects ARE what make roguelikes fun. Spelunky is a freaking platformer with randomized levels.

Why is it that we gush all over casual games that try to reach as many audiences as possible (Spelunky) and become very critical of slightly different variations to the genre(Dredmor)?

 

[Stabwound]

Of all the games in this thread, I personally wouldn't call Spelunky a roguelike. I agree with calling it a randomized platformer; that's a very apt description.

 

[Malakal]

Spelunky definitely does not meet the requirements ie its not rogue-like (like a game called rogue that happened to initiate the whole deal).

That having said why not make a separate category for games with similar core concept in other genres.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It's as close as Binding of Isaac. If you're going to get rid of one get rid of the other. Personally I consider equipment, money, and consumable items to be rpg aspects, but if you don't, they're both in the same boat.