The Codex of Roguelikes

[Indranys]

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.

Looks quite interesting.
Unfortunately the protag sprite is bad man.
Anime chibi shit a la early FF don't mixed quite well with survival games IMO.
Though the animations are a nice addition indeed.
If it has the URW visuals then I'll definitely play it.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Been playing it since last night. Pretty cool. Wish the crafting system handed out recipes more logically though (upgrading my blacksmithing has given me recipes for various iron items... which require iron ingots I do not have a recipe for. This kind of problem occurs with every type of crafting. I have access to the right materials no doubt, but I don't know what the recipes are for the basic components required to craft the complex ones.)

 

[MisterStone]

Bros, anyone know anything about rogue legacy?

I've been hearing stuff about it, but the sources were from people who think Zelda is an RPG so what the fuck do they know?

 

[MisterStone]

Aw wtf bros it was on the forum top page in it's own thread...

 

[Damned Registrations]

There's a thread on it in here. My take is that its persistent elements are too grindy and the difficulty is too heavily linked to your stats and unlocked classes (which you grind for.) Would have been far superior if the gold was for temporary bonuses and permanent stuff was unlocked by beating bosses or something.

 

[Stabwound]

Rogue Legacy just isn't a roguelike and doesn't belong here. In before another 5-page argument.

 

[Maelflux]

Half of the new greenlight games are using "rogue-like" in their description. It's getting watered way down.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Tower of Guns is a fast paced shooter for the twitch gamer... with a few roguelike-ish-y elements to keep it fresh with each playthrough. Think of it like FTL or Binding of Isaac mixed with Doom 2.

Oh god! The humanity! Now everyone is going to delete all their copies of every roguelike in existence and play stuff like this instead because of this cruel deception! Woe and calamity! The end times are upon us!

I'm fucking thrilled there are even 33 games that pop up on a search of the word 'roguelike' on greenlight. Even if ToME was the only traditional one (I've no idea if that is the case, I can't be assed to look through 30 games right now), having those elements in other genres is fucking awesome. FTL and BoI are some of the best games to come out in the last decade, I don't give a fuck what genre you want to call them, and I want to see more follow in their footsteps, not hide them all away so nobody ever tries again.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Well, I know people often dislike Steam, but the devs of Legend of Dungeon think it would be helpful for them to help it get greenlit:

Legend of Dungeon Greenlight page:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=108895757

So vote it if you want to help that effort...

So I played this at PAX Prime. Have to say I found it underwhelming. Granted, playing games is a little stressful in the Expo Hall, and the dude and his wife (who were really nice, by the way) showing it off were just telling us (it supports 4 player coop, which is awesome) to go down, down, down ('to see the really interesting stuff') but still. We went down until we walked over... something? And we all exploded in fire. You only seem to have one attack, so the combat isn't very interesting, and it lacks the beat'em up element to be fun like, say, Castle Crashers or the 4 player TMNT arcade game. You have a basic inventory, but in our short playthrough I saw zero items of interest. I got some apples, which healed for small amounts, and beer, which makes your character kind of hard to control and woozy, but that was about it. There's no armor or anything, though probably you can get different weapons. Also, it looks cute, but the level design isn't particularly interesting, and since you move so slowly and the enemies aren't that interesting, you spend a lot of time looking at samey grey blocks.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Was posted in the Gazebo, but I think it deserves mention here, since it's basically a proto-roguelike:

http://blogofholding.com/dungeonrobber/index.php

 

[Stabwound]

I'm all for new roguelike games, but it's a little weird how so many are released that never reach anything close to the depth or style of the good, popular games, and almost all of the commercial ones are very dumbed down and given generic names like "Loot Collector".

So far, there are tons of roguelikes and maybe a handful of them are worth anything, and virtually all of those are free games. It's fine for an introduction to the genre, but most of them are pretty shallow and I don't see there being a huge market for commercial and shallow games of this type. If you're going to use the roguelike formula, you might as well expand on it, not just dress it up with pixel graphics and dumb it down to the basics of killing shit and levelling up with simplified stat/skill/item system.

I guess one of the biggest issues is that most of the big roguelikes have/had very long and ongoing development and are free, where it just isn't worthwhile for a commercial company to update a game constantly long after it stopped being profitable to do so. Free games rely heavily on the playerbase to beta test and give feedback, too. Still, I'm waiting for a good, commercial effort in someone releasing a complex game in the vein of ADOM/Crawl/Nethack with professional design and production values.

 

[Damned Registrations]

There's definitely a lot of people trying to sell shitty roguelikes these days. But I'm not terribly concerned; there's always been a lot of shitty, half finished roguelikes floating around. Charging money for them just means I won't bother trying them.

I'm also hoping to see what some actual production value could do for the genre (though mostly out of curiosity, I'm far from convinced that money is a superior alternative to the kind of fanatical devotion that characterizes so many roguelike devs) and am just generally happy to see more competition floating around, and more experimentation with the genre. ADOM and Crawl are a far cry from Rogue, after all, and they didn't get there by sticking to old formulas. Even Nethack is pretty radically altered.

The good news is that a decent commercial roguelike shouldn't be that hard to come by. I hate the art styles used for Dredmore and a lot of other commercial roguelikes, but their basic level of quality is more than adequate. I just need to wait for someone with some decent aesthetic sensibilities to come along and make a nice looking game with a solid design.

I think the commercial interest in the genre has also spurred work from people who'd otherwise not be bothering. ADOM is a perfect example, with the creator both updating the original game and working on a sequel for the sake of some precious jewgolds. Transcendence is another favourite of mine, and the creator there is intending to sell some expansion modules for the game as he continues to develop it. Both games could easily have gone the way of IVAN or Incursion.

It's definitely going to be harsh for any commercial efforts though, trying to compete with all the excellent roguelikes already available for free. But most MMOs these days are available for free in some form or another, and they still get produced with pretty large budgets, so I think there's definitely room for a commercial success with a heavy, complex roguelike.

 

[MisterStone]

Well, I know people often dislike Steam, but the devs of Legend of Dungeon think it would be helpful for them to help it get greenlit:

Legend of Dungeon Greenlight page:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=108895757

So vote it if you want to help that effort...

So I played this at PAX Prime. Have to say I found it underwhelming. Granted, playing games is a little stressful in the Expo Hall, and the dude and his wife (who were really nice, by the way) showing it off were just telling us (it supports 4 player coop, which is awesome) to go down, down, down ('to see the really interesting stuff') but still. We went down until we walked over... something? And we all exploded in fire. You only seem to have one attack, so the combat isn't very interesting, and it lacks the beat'em up element to be fun like, say, Castle Crashers or the 4 player TMNT arcade game. You have a basic inventory, but in our short playthrough I saw zero items of interest. I got some apples, which healed for small amounts, and beer, which makes your character kind of hard to control and woozy, but that was about it. There's no armor or anything, though probably you can get different weapons. Also, it looks cute, but the level design isn't particularly interesting, and since you move so slowly and the enemies aren't that interesting, you spend a lot of time looking at samey grey blocks.

Thanks for the preview bro, too bad about it being kind of weaksauce.

 

[DakaSha]

I started playing tome4 again, and have to say its a lot better than back during the betas. Not perfect, but generally a very fun game

 

[Mother Russia]

Adom II:

http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2013/05/adom-120-prerelease-14-now-available.html

 

[getter77]

^ ADOM v1.2 specifically, as the actual sequel in the form of ADOM II still has quite a ways to go---though I suppose it will share much, if not nearly all, of the above ADOM v1.2's tileset in the screenshot.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'll prolly check out the new races/classes in ADOM, at least until something causes me to ragequit. From what I could tell a lot of the feedback to the development has been from the diehard fans that think uberjackals are fun, scumming gremlins and the infinite dungeon is legit, and the game isn't hard enough because you might actually live if you farm herbs for 2 hours straight and cap your pickpocket skill.

 

[TripJack]

is 1.2 going to be freely available when it's done? is it going to be infested with backers-only garbage?

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think there's going to be a 'deluxe' version, which lets the backers/buyers play without permadeath. Which seems retarded to me, but whatever. I don't think any of the quests/areas/classes etc. are backers only.

Tried it out a bit yesterday. Mist elves and duelists both seem incredibly overpowered. Ratlings and chaos knights are more balanced and interesting additions. Not that mist elves aren't interesting, they have a lot of unique aspects, like their own version of necromancy and a weakness to mundane metal equipment. But Mist elves get all the best elven skills (alertness, dodge, concentration, etc.) and take half damage from melee attacks. And they tend to start with mithril gear since iron would hurt them. And duelists... holy fuck. Best melee class by far. Starts with healing, has awesome melee skills, strong passives, good stats.

Then I got killed by a fire vortex while I was still level 1 and remembered this game was bullshit and went to play something else.

 

[garren]

Don't charge at fire vortexes at level one?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Right. Was I supposed to hide in a corner or fight my way back out through the entire small mountain cave in a corridor behind me? Oh wait vortexes move quickly so I wouldn't even make it to the stairs alone.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Right. Was I supposed to hide in a corner or fight my way back out through the entire small mountain cave in a corridor behind me? Oh wait vortexes move quickly so I wouldn't even make it to the stairs alone.

It's the one where enemies quickly progress in exp? Going there is always risky.

 

[Damned Registrations]

True, but everything in that game is always fucking risky. 30 levels later it might have been a lightning vortex instead. Oops, it hit you for 300, gg. Shouldn't have opened that door on a tension level without farming some magic mapping scrolls from the ID. Trollololol.

 

[Stabwound]

ADOM was the first roguelike I ever got heavily into but never did finish it before I moved on to Nethack, so I'm eagerly awaiting new and improved versions. The game has a lot of weird bullshit, but also some of the most satisfying parts. The boss fights and special areas actually feel like an accomplishment compared to most of the "special" areas of something like Crawl.

If they don't fix things like uberjackals and casino scumming then meh.

 

[whitepony]

Rouge's Tale is also very enjoyable IMO. Not sure if it was mentioned in this thread.