The Codex of Roguelikes

[Stabwound]

I came across a pretty awesome Angband variant in active development: PosChengband. If you're familiar with Angband, there was a variant called Zangband which turned into more of a CRPG with an overworld, quests, etc. Then came Hengband, which was a fork of Zangband, and then Chengband which was a fork of Hengband.

PosChengband is pretty awesome: it's like a full-fledged CRPG roguelike with a ton of shit to do, an awesome equipment system, and coolest of all, an addition of being able to play as several different monster classes. For example, you can pick from a variety of dragons, which can't wear armor but can wear 6 rings, have resistances/immunities based on the variety of dragon, and are absurdly strong and get stronger as they level up.

Another class is the geletinous cube, which seems to be shitty in stats and abilities but can equip any item in any slot, so can have boots on head or body armor in glove slot, etc.

Another neat thing is the beastmaster class, which can tame any enemy in the game, including unique bosses, and use them as mounts or pets.

I haven't played it much yet, but it seems to be extremely popular and there is a shit ton of neat stuff to do, especially if you're into playing monster classes or taming random monsters as pets/mounts. Even if not, it's a pretty long and in-depth CRPG roguelike with a ton of equipment and quests and shit to do.

https://sites.google.com/site/poschengband/

It's under pretty active development by one guy who seems to change things on his own whims, and there are bugs and imbalances introduced and fixed constantly, but it looks pretty fun. It's still Angband, but a way more expanded and fun version of it, IMO. I don't think it's anything close to balanced, but it's not really intended to be; some classes/races are way stronger than others and some are really underpowered, etc.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Oh man, that sounds pretty awesome. I'm off to try making a gelatinous cube wearing 34 boots of speed. *NOM*

 

[Shannow]

Yeah, sounds awesome. Will check it out when I come back from work.

 

[DakaSha]

Entroband, which was also a fork of hengband, was one of my fav bands with Steamband. Good find

 

[Damned Registrations]

I keep hitting a block around level 15. Mostly due to the fact that there's no decent gear. I've gotten like 3-4 ego items by then, and can't really fight past DL 15 with a weapon that has no brands and equipment with no bonus stats of any kind.

Am I missing some guaranteed artifacts or quest drops somewhere? The only ones that seem possible are the thieves/wargs ones from the first town, but those don't give any reward really, just really shitty items.

 

[JudasIscariot]

Rogue's Souls

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=26781.0

What is it?

It's a roguelike and it's loosely inspired by Demon's Souls and Dark Souls as well Brogue and DoomRL. The focus is on tactical combat. The central mechanic is the stamina system used for things like attacking, blocking and running.

 

[coldcrow]

Stabwound, why??? I was about the reduce the time I spend in front of the screen.

 

[7hm]

Rogue's Souls

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=26781.0

This looks pretty cool.

Nice tileset too.

 

[Damned Registrations]

After screwing around with poschengband, I have to say it's not as good as tome 2.3 imo. Mostly due to the loot and the special levels. The loot is awful; with way too much of it dropping redundantly (like getting rings of confusion resistance 10 levels after you needed confusion resistance, and 5 levels after getting other items that granted the resist for you anyways) and generally being so scarce that you had no options as to what to equip anyways- everything was either strictly better or worse. And the special levels are just tiny levels with random sets of monsters, without any real forethought at all. ToME had cool shit like secret alcoves with treasures or monsters in them, glass walls with spellcasters on the other side, and other cool shit like that.

Playing as the various special classes was fun for the novelty factor, but I'd say stuff like Possessors and Death Molds were more interesting in ToME anyways.

 

[Indranys]

Guys is there any roguelikes similar to Unreal World or anything with low fantasy or historical setting with some survival aspects??
But no apocalyptic, scifi, or modern setting with zombies please.
ASCII or tiles doesn't really matter to me.
But beautiful tile or ASCII art is a welcome bonus.
We get Doom and even Megaman roguelike and shit, but why does no historical roguelike exist yet except Unreal World?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Probably because it's nigh impossible to make a decent game out of it. Unreal World is amusing for a while, but as a game it's pretty shit. It's inherently very exploitable (just like real life if you happen to be immune to pain or tedium or willing to put up with it) and there's nothing to do that is actually interesting.

 

[Indranys]

Probably because it's nigh impossible to make a decent game out of it. Unreal World is amusing for a while, but as a game it's pretty shit. It's inherently very exploitable (just like real life if you happen to be immune to pain or tedium or willing to put up with it) and there's nothing to do that is actually interesting.

Well, I love Unreal World.
The maker is still developing the game and adding new features, though the process is indeed pretty slow.
And I think the game should has a main quest for each starting scenario, the runaway slave background could have a main quest to hunt his former Njerpezit master for example.
Almost every game with strong simulation aspects tend to be exploitable because the balance isn't that important like in your typical dungeon crawling roguelikes.
Some people who mostly enjoy the combat and dungeon crawling stuff in roguelike won't like the game much, but for the others roguelike isn't only about combat and dungeon.
Cataclysm and a few others prove it IMO.

I think roguelike which plays like Cataclysm in historical setting like Ancient Rome or Dark Age Britain will be an interesting experience.
I hope with more and more devs are approaching and integrating roguelike's doctrines into their games, my thirst for low fantasy roguelike will be sated.
FTL and Ultima Ratio Regum aren't a shabby start in my book.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Yeah, my biggest gripe with survival roguelikes is the fact that I feel that I have no goal, nothing that I should strive to achieve. Sure, I set my own goals like "Survive for one year" etc but they feel to vague for me. And to be honest, surviving isnt that difficult when you learn the basics like how to get food and how to build shelter because then you can just repeat them ad infinity and survive nearly as long as you want.

I would like to have something more to do in game, so kind of very distant goal, maybe trying to find out what exactly happened to the world (Through own research and reading notes/diaries of other people). Or killing a particular person/group of people. Or finding your family/whatever is left of it. Or getting to some very distant place that is presumably safe (Like in "The Road" book).

Also, more settings for roguelikes would be cool, the typical fantasy or real life settings are over represented. There are very few hard SF roguelikes with different planets to visit and civilizations to meet (and exterminate). Historical setting in roguelikes are also very rare. You could do vikings roguelike, ancient rome roguelike, ancient china roguelike or something more modern like victorian era murderer roguelike.

 

[Stabwound]

I think Dwarf Fortress explore mode will eventually pretty awesome, but it wasn't much of a game the last time I tried it (which was like 5 years ago, admittedly). Has it progressed as a survival roguelike at all?

 

[Indranys]

Yeah, my biggest gripe with survival roguelikes is the fact that I feel that I have no goal, nothing that I should strive to achieve.

Also, more settings for roguelikes would be cool, the typical fantasy or real life settings are over represented. There are very few hard SF roguelikes with different planets to visit and civilizations to meet (and exterminate). Historical setting in roguelikes are also very rare. You could do vikings roguelike, ancient rome roguelike, ancient china roguelike or something more modern like victorian era murderer roguelike.

Let's hope someone hear our plea, though I'm pretty pessimistic.
The Roguelike communities love their combat and dungeons too much.
Ambitious games like Dwarf Fortress and Ultima Ratio Regum or an unconventional, unique one like URW are very rare indeed.
Also, I like URW combat very much, it may be too menu driven, tedious, or too long for some people, but the option to select weapon sides during attack and defense options with block, dodge, or counterattack are great IMO.

I think Dwarf Fortress explore mode will eventually pretty awesome, but it wasn't much of a game the last time I tried it (which was like 5 years ago, admittedly). Has it progressed as a survival roguelike at all?

It has its potential IMO, but for now it's still a side feature in DF.
Your character needs to eat and drink (but no hunger meter/indicator whatsoever, so the hungry status will just pop up suddenly during your adventure), you can also make a lot of things.
That's all about it AFAIK.
Unreal World is much much better in survival aspect IMO.

 

[Renegen]

so here goes... best space/ science fiction roguelike? I am willing to play ASCII if it's fucking awesome.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Does DoomRL count? I love that game.

Assuming you want more sci-fi in the game than laser guns and bombs though, the only ones I've really played are Prospector and Gearhead 2, and I never really got into either of them (interfaces felt clunky.)

I also consider Transcendence to be roguelike, but it's in real time and plays as a top down shooter, dunno if thats your thing. Awesome game though, tons of random content, permadeath (though it's REALLY lenient, especially if you get the last domina power) and it has user mods (the Network and spinoffs of it are pretty nice, make the world a lot bigger/add content.) Apparently the second chapter of the game is in the works, but he's going to charge for episodes past the first. (The first is pretty fucking big though.)

 

[Stabwound]

I've been playing more PosChengband, and while it has its issues, the rapid development is great and the character races are pretty unique. The most recent addition is the "Death Sword" race where you plan an animated weapon and inherit power by devouring actual weapons you come across. Its also pretty "wacky" and random since it's based on a Japanese variant (go figure) so you run into shit like Ewoks in the Camelot dungon, which might turn people off since there is no real coherent level design, but I find it a breath of fresh air from the tired old Tolkien shit.

I'm not as well-versed in Angband as Damned Registrations so I can't quite notice the issue in item drops and the like, and I've always disliked the Andband-style of dungeon generation (massive corridor-filled levels that span every screens) but I'm having some fun with it. It definitely has the most varied character combos outside of Crawl, and it might even beat that. My current character is a Troll, and it's even satisfying as such as simple monster, evolving into Stone Troll etc as you gain experience.

All in all, something about Angband annoys me and PosChengband inherits that, but it's neat enough. I think what I dislike most about Angband is that it's a game that a bot can win a good percentage of the time, so that should tell you enough right there how formulaic each game is.

 

[Damned Registrations]

You should check out ToME 2.3.5, you can pick it up here:

http://www.zaimoni.com/zaiband/Angband.ref/ToME/

Development is dead, but I think at this point it's overdeveloped anyways, if anything. There are mods for it floating around too, I forget where though. Fury and Theme both have interesting stuff.

But even the base game has some really cool stuff, you should check out possessors for example. Or Alchemists. Or loremasters using symbiotes. Or even just play a normal character far enough along to find a sentient weapon (and hope it doesn't learn how to cause earthquakes or prevent teleportation.)

Also, regarding angband style dungeon generation, I've found that if you set 'always make small levels' at birth options it helps (though it still makes giant levels fairly often, you can just stair scum for a reasonably sized level in ToME at least.) The aimless sprawling of the levels is irritating though, which is why I find the special levels with their handmade layouts pretty important. The bottom of the orc caves for example has several unique enemies, 3 artifacts in secret alcoves, some secret side passages, and a hidden exit. Moria ends with a giant open area with chasms on either side and a horde of demons, including durin's bane.

I'll have to give poschengband another shot though, sentient weapons are among my favourite things in fantasy settings.

 

[Stabwound]

Yeah, I've played ToME2 in the past, not extensively; I made it maybe 25% through the game on my best character, but I agree that it does do the same style of game more coherently. As far as I know, though, contrasted to something like Crawl, many of the character combos of ToME2 are simply impossible to complete the game with. I'm sure that goes with PosChengband as well, considering there are a ridiculous number of combinations.

I'll have to check out the small levels option, because I believe it also exists in PosChengband. I also dislike how Angband in general has non-permanent dungeon levels, and the game is designed around having to scum for shit, so it's something of a necessity. At least in PosChengband each dungeon stays permanent while you're in it and only resets once you leave. The level generation of Angband irritates the shit out of me. Nethack is cool because each level fills a single screen and doesn't scroll, and Crawl isn't endless tunnels with need for a lightsource, but Angband is just, ugh.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Well, some angeband dungeons are better than others. But yeah, most variant makers don't bother making lit dungeons or anything but variations of windy pathways filled with various monsters. And even if they do it's a small portion of the game. And it's probably deadly as fuck. Being in a wide open space when you stumble upon 20 spellcasters is a very bad thing, generally speaking.

I think pretty much any character combo in ToME2 can win (especially if you use fumblefingers) but some defenitely take a lot of scumming for the right stuff. Thieves for example are pretty much expected to empty out black markets repeatedly scumming for overpowered gear to balance out their shitty skills. And a lot of them rely very very heavily on the magic device skill, which can pretty much win the game for you if you find nice enough wands. It's also infamous for dumping retardedly powerful breath weapons on you, so you need to be stupidly careful with monster detection to avoid getting one shotted with a low hp character, though that mostly applies only to the early game or sorcerors (and even sorcerors get decent hp lategame.)

Anyways, I got my deathsword off the ground finally. Took like 20 attempts before I could clear the warg quest, but it should be pretty reasonable from here on out. Level 20 now, absorbed a defender weapon so I have the basic resists. Still no decent slays, not that it would matter since the weapon dice are shit and I get 2 attacks per round right now.

Should potentially be interesting once randarts start dropping with any degree of frequency. Though unless you innately get crazy bonuses AC is going to be utter shit later on. And depending on how bonuses besides just attack/damage scale things might be really grim for a lot of other stats as well, so this might play out like a really inferior weaponsmith. I wouldn't really want to be trying to get through the end game with just +4 speed for example.

 

[Stabwound]

There is already a Deathsword winner on the Angband ladder and someone else pretty close, so it seems to be reasonably balanced for such a unique class that was just barely thrown into the game within the past few weeks. I'm not well-versed with Angband mechanics so I can't really comment on the rest.

I've always wanted to like the *band games, but the level design in general really turns me off. I believe many variants have an option for permanent levels, but since the game is designed around the assumption that you're going to grind for gear, setting permanent levels more-or-less makes the game impossible as far as I can tell.

The best part of games like Nethack and Crawl is that you're generally forced to make due with what you find in the dungeon. Yeah, Nethack has ways to scum and Crawl development has lead to a point where you can also scum Pandemonium, but in general it's fun because you get what you get, and that's all. And the games were so well balanced that you can virtually always complete them, even if it means pulling some McGuyver shit and getting by on the skin of your teeth.

Angband is a game that a bot can win a high percentage of the time, and that should tell you something about its design. Grinding the same floors over and over so you have the proper binary resistances by floor X is mind-numbing and boring game design to me. Crawl, before it started to turn into a multi-headed dick and expand in every possible (wrong) way was a great game. I really haven't found anything similar. I like a lot of what some of the Angband variants have to offer (ToME2/PosChengband) but the core mechanics of how the dungeons work and resistances are needed kills it for me. Does the dungeon Angband really need to be 100 floors? On top of that, games like PosChengband have other dungeons with 25+ floors on top of the Angband dungeon. It's just ridiculous.

 

[Damned Registrations]

You could probably do a permanent levels run of ToME2 tbh. Though I'd be leery of trying in case it bugs out and gives you a floor with no exits or some such rubbish. The loot thing is a non issue- there are so many side dungeons that you'll easily have enough without scumming for loot on normal characters (i.e. not something total shit like a yeek), especially with all the guaranteed artifacts in the special levels. It'd be a billion times more lenient than ToME4 that's for sure. When I play through ToME2 I generally end up using the thunderlords or probability travel (or both, some places can't use one or the other) to skip to the bottom of dungeons and fight the bosses/special levels and get the best loot. If you meticulously cleared all the floors you'd get a ton more stuff. Though I do like that there are so many dungeons: they all have different enemy types, map profiles, and loot tables. So if you want staves for a mage you can go to the path of the dead, if you want stat potions you can search the sandworm lair, if you have kickass dragon slaying ammo you can go to erebor and murder some dragons, etc.

I like the way Nethack did things best: you need a certain level of gear to proceed past the midgame, but you're guaranteed a wand of wishes to outfit yourself with what you deem most important. It's probably a little overkill, but I think a guaranteed wish or two (rather than the 3-7 nethack gives) is a great way to balance out the RNG being a dick about those boots of speed. I certainly wish ADOM had one, so I didn't feel like just starving any character that clears the tower of flames without finding an AoLS.

 

[Stabwound]

I forgot that ToME2 was varied like that, with different monster types/loot tables in the different dungeons. That's one of the things I like about Crawl; the different side-branches are themed and you generally know what to expect, how to prepare for it, and such. I'll have to try it out again, because as much as I like PosChengband, it's not a very cohesive game at all, but I guess that's part of the charm. Fighting Dragon Quest monsters alongside Ewoks, Orcs and DOOM cyberdemons; it doesn't even pretend to be serious.

It really is a shame that ToME2 ceased development and the guy went on to make ToME4, which while it has cool ideas, is way different from the original and not nearly as good. There is actually maintenance done on ToME2, but it's only bugfixes and they don't plan on building on the game at all. It's too bad someone wouldn't pull a PosChengband like the guy did on Hengband except do it on ToME2, because he updates it on at least a monthly basis, adding tons of new shit, bugfixes, etc.

On the Angband note, Sil is an interesting variant that has almost nothing Angband left in it. It's more of a shorter, straight-forward dungeon crawl, very refined and not that complex, but it's interesting to see someone make a pretty decent roguelike from the Angband base that barely resembles Angband at all anymore. It has some cool tactical combat, weapon/armor crafting and that kind of shit, too. For whatever reason, it doesn't have magic of any kind and there are only 4 races which function more as difficulty levels, so yeah, it's pretty slick and refined. It reminds me of an advanced version of the original Rogue.

 

[Stabwound]

Has anyone played Wayward? It's a neat-looking survival roguelike that's been under pretty heavy development but has been flying under the radar for some reason. It reminds me of a combination of roguelike/Unreal World/Terraria with a heavy emphasis on survival and crafting, but in a more fantasy setting than Unreal World. It's about as "hardcore" too, except way more accessible and a not nearly as obtuse and Finnish as Unreal World is.

I'm not sure how feature-complete it is, but it's free and surprisingly professional looking, and the concept is pretty close to my ideal game. It seems like it has an actual goal, too, not just blindly surviving as long as possible until you get bored. It seems like the guy is doing it completely on the Dwarf Fortress donation model, so I'm hoping it catches on and becomes popular, because it's a pretty neat game.

Current Beta Features

• 5 distinct environment types to explore – all generated procedurally.
• Nearly 200 items to craft, discover and interact with.
• Around 20 nasty creatures and animals to combat and harvest.
• Sandbox game mechanics mixed with roguelike gameplay.
• Deep, multi-faceted skill system.
• Open-ended and open-world gameplay.
• 10+ hours of content and gameplay before reaching the “end-game”.
• Day and night system.
• Preliminary modding support.
• Iterative game design and community feedback driven.