The Codex of Roguelikes

[PapaPetro]

Did they ever update Incursion: Halls of Goblin King since it went open source? It was the best 3.5e D&D roguelike and brought a lot of new mechanics with depth to the scene. Great stuff.

One thing I liked about Incursion was that you could find powerful magical items that significantly changed how you played without being overpowered. In too many roguelikes (and games in general), you get some lucky find and it's something like 'Great, my punches now do +1 damage', or 'Cold attacks do 30% less damage to me', with the net result that you carry on playing nearly exactly the same way as before. Even in games like ADOM or Nethack, when you get a wish it normally goes on seven league boots or grey dragon scale mail or something that won't actually change your playstyle at all.

Incursion let you find some powerful stuff that would allow you to try completely new approaches or just stomp all over certain situations, but which didn't generally wreck the game because there were a dozen more types of challenges that your cool new item didn't help you with at all.

I can imagine that (like 3.5 D&D itself) it was easily exploitable by munchkins, but as a more laissez-faire player I found it pretty fun.

Between the wonderous items you find and what you pick up off enemies, it really does change your build style as well. Like if you find a plane of force fauchard and start going deep into 2-handed critical feats and splashes.
Great stuff. The kind of game that made you look forward to the future of the genre as a younger man.

 

[Infinitum]

Playing it right now. It's.. ok? Amazing width, and pretty approachable for how bloated it is, but it has the same problem as say Shadow of the Wyrm: all these advanced systems in place and yet my core gameplay loop once I've gotten a character of the ground seems to be ferrying sacrifices between the temple and bump-tier encounters as I grind levels and piety. Also the dungeon has started to get distressingly cluttered after a few rest cycles and the option not to display piles seems to be broken, ugh.

 

[Metronome]

 

[PapaPetro]

Alas a dump screen.

 

[Infinitum]

Incursion again; is there any way to regain lost Holy Icons? Playing around with priest/barbarians, but so far losing the race to pick up protection from water scrolls before my starting one goes poof from assorted rust bullshit (and losing spell access effectively kills my wish to continue the character).

 

[PapaPetro]

Incursion again; is there any way to regain lost Holy Icons? Playing around with priest/barbarians, but so far losing the race to pick up protection from water scrolls before my starting one goes poof from assorted rust bullshit (and losing spell access effectively kills my wish to continue the character).

I feel you should be able to craft one using 'u'

 

[Infinitum]

Neat idea, but I still seem to be missing something. The artificer feat maybe, idk. Just seems like such a weird oversight that priests can lose their spellcasting with no recourse to a single round of combat or trap or thief or whatever, blergh. Well fuckit, I'm rolling a druid instead.

 

[PapaPetro]

Incursion again; is there any way to regain lost Holy Icons? Playing around with priest/barbarians, but so far losing the race to pick up protection from water scrolls before my starting one goes poof from assorted rust bullshit (and losing spell access effectively kills my wish to continue the character).

Found a way. Use 'p' to pray and call for 'a' aid.

Your god should hook you up with a holy symbol:

Alternatively, you can find a 'graven' item, typically found on armor, and it will act as a holy symbol. There's other tricks too that I long forgot (like casting Creation spells, altars, and other stuff).

 

[Infinitum]

Oh, thanks! Pretty obvious in hindsight, but couldn't find any documentation on it.

 

[Arthandas]

I'm looking for something new to play, did anyone tried Shattered Pixel Dungeon?

 

[buffalo bill]

I'm looking for something new to play, did anyone tried Shattered Pixel Dungeon?

from the first review on steam: "Pixel Dungeon and Shattered Pixel Dungeon were designed for mobile phones which reflects in their simplistic nature."

yikes, no thanks. Also, I can't tell about the gameplay, but the graphics make me want to punch the developer

 

[PapaPetro]

I'm looking for something new to play, did anyone tried Shattered Pixel Dungeon?

I tried it (github), it's more like a Shiren Wanderer/Mystery Dungeon branch of roguelike from Japan and plays as such.
What kinda roguelikes-u-like?

 

[Arthandas]

What kinda roguelikes-u-like?

Infra Arcana and Golden Krone Hotel are my favorites.

 

[PapaPetro]

What kinda roguelikes-u-like?

Infra Arcana and Golden Krone Hotel are my favorites.

If you like lovecraft/gothic horror, then Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is right up your ally. It's a sandbox-survival roguelike that takes places in an post-Apocalyptic town in the East Coast US during a Zombie/Eldritch Apocalypse. Doesn't have a set finishline like other roguelikes (no Trapezohedron ending), but has great RP potential in the difficult scenarios like escaping from a zombie horde buck naked out of the shower or as a hideous genetic mutant caged deep within a experimental lab and seeking to escape to the world outside [or what's left of it].

I recommend Vormithrax as a guide getting into CDDA. It's a deep-&-wide game but it's worth the effort learning all the ins-&-outs.
https://www.youtube.com/@Vormithrax/search?query=guide

 

[Arthandas]

Nah, it's boring just like Project Zomboid or adventure mode of Dwarf Fortress.
I'm not saying sandbox roguelikes are bad but I like mine to have a specific objective.
If I had to play a sandbox roguelike I'd probably go with Wayward.

Currently I have my eyes on The Doors of Trithius and Stoneshard.

 

[PapaPetro]

Nah, it's boring just like Project Zomboid or adventure mode of Dwarf Fortress.
I'm not saying sandbox roguelikes are bad but I like mine to have a specific objective.
If I had to play a sandbox roguelike I'd probably go with Wayward.

Currently I have my eyes on The Doors of Trithius and Stoneshard.

Those look pretty cool. I remember trying Stoneshard before but hit a dev wall since its early access. I remember liking the polish and anti-save-scumming difficulty.

 

[buffalo bill]

Nah, it's boring just like Project Zomboid or adventure mode of Dwarf Fortress.
I'm not saying sandbox roguelikes are bad but I like mine to have a specific objective.
If I had to play a sandbox roguelike I'd probably go with Wayward.

Currently I have my eyes on The Doors of Trithius and Stoneshard.

I you haven't played Doomrl, you should. It and Infra Arcana are prob my fave games of all time, and Doomrl might edge IA out mechanics-wise (though IA of course beats Doomrl in terms of style & atmosphere etc.)

 

[Arthandas]

Shiren on Steam looks intriguing. Is it really an honest to god roguelike with permadeath?

 

[buffalo bill]

Shiren on Steam looks intriguing. Is it really an honest to god roguelike with permadeath?

vomit-inducing jrpg graphics aside, here's something from the second review on steam: 'keeping the spirit of classic Rogue but boiling away any and all bloated stats or unnecessary items.' the reviewer might be an idiot (since the OG Rogue has so few elements that removing any of them is basically impossible), but it sounds like this is a streamlined casual roguelike for fans of JRPGs.

Also, the videos show simultaneous movement for characters and enemies, but then seems to sometimes show combat taking non-simultaneous turns? or maybe I am misinterpreting the video—it was hard to keep looking at it tbh

 

[Arthandas]

vomit-inducing jrpg graphics aside

I don't know if you have a vendetta against anime but the pixel art is quite charming.

Also, the videos show simultaneous movement for characters and enemies

The main video on Steam clearly shows everything is turn based.

I don't care about Steam reviews since most are written be people who have no idea what they're doing.
Did anyone here actually played it?

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Shiren on Steam looks intriguing. Is it really an honest to god roguelike with permadeath?

Mysterious Dungeon series is old as fuck Japanese roguelike series starting from a dragon quest spin off where you play the fat merchant.

If you like them you have like whole lot of catalogue you can play in emulators since from SNES/PSX era.

 

[buffalo bill]

vomit-inducing jrpg graphics aside

I don't know if you have a vendetta against anime but the pixel art is quite charming.

Also, the videos show simultaneous movement for characters and enemies

The main video on Steam clearly shows everything is turn based.

I don't care about Steam reviews since most are written be people who have no idea what they're doing.
Did anyone here actually played it?

yes, I hate anime lol

wrt "main video on Steam clearly shows everything is turn based": in my post I said it is all turn based. There are different ways to be turn-based. Typically in roguelikes all characters take simultaneous turns, but it looked like in the video there were alternating turns occurring (but again it was hard to tell, and might be just this game's way of depicting simultaneous turn based)

 

[Infinitum]

Finished incursion (Orcish Priest 7 Thaumathurgist 3 Ranger 1), and now I'm just mauve that nobody kept developing it. Some very glaring balance issues (what with all spellcasting levels stacking and whatnot), and some sort of divine caster seems mandatory to avoid some very nasty you-save-or-you-die situations (or you don't save and die, say if you dumped a stat and catch an unlucky curse). Lots of crashes to desktop, lots of utter jank bugs (autopicking all holy symbols, bags and shields, mana potions not working, Khasrach straight-up not accepting sacrifices etc), but the ingame help system and character options are downright inspiring. Can recommend if you even slightly like DnD 3e.

 

[PapaPetro]

Finished incursion (Orcish Priest 7 Thaumathurgist 3 Ranger 1), and now I'm just mauve that nobody kept developing it. Some very glaring balance issues (what with all spellcasting levels stacking and whatnot), and some sort of divine caster seems mandatory to avoid some very nasty you-save-or-you-die situations (or you don't save and die, say if you dumped a stat and catch an unlucky curse). Lots of crashes to desktop, lots of utter jank bugs (autopicking all holy symbols, bags and shields, mana potions not working, Khasrach straight-up not accepting sacrifices etc), but the ingame help system and character options are downright inspiring.

Can recommend if you even slightly like DnD 3e.

Same here. Great roguelike that had a lot of potential.
The sole dev Julian released the source for the game years ago but no one really picked up the torch for whatever reason.
https://bitbucket.org/rmtew/incursion-roguelike/src/master/

 

[Narushima]

and now I'm just mauve that nobody kept developing it

Stay mauve.