Roguelikes

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Roguelikes

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Mon Dec 23, 2013 7:11 am

Post by xRECKONERx »

I wanna start playing roguelikes but the idea of shitty graphics doesn't appeal to me (IE nethack) so where should I start
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Mon Dec 23, 2013 7:14 am

Post by Svenskt Stål »

With that mindset it will be hard.

Also, less attention whoring.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Mon Dec 23, 2013 8:58 am

Post by CooLDoG »

after a wank.
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Mon Dec 23, 2013 12:43 pm

Post by Brandi »

Some of my favorite roguelikes aren't true roguelikes, but rogue-like-like's
I think you've played FTL, yes? That's a roguelike-like (real time)
What about Dungeons of Dreadmor? those graphics aren't so bad and it's pretty fun yet not very serious.
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Mon Dec 23, 2013 12:50 pm

Post by hitogoroshi »

Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is the best roguelike and also the best game.

Funny enough, I was actually thinking of doing an LP already, this might push me over the edge.
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Mon Dec 23, 2013 2:59 pm

Post by Plum »

In post 4, hitogoroshi wrote:Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is the best roguelike and also the best game.
Agreed.
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Fri Dec 27, 2013 7:21 am

Post by MTD »

In post 5, Plum wrote:
In post 4, hitogoroshi wrote:Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is the best roguelike and also the best game.
Agreed.
I agree as well, I play it in ASCII-graphics though because I don't like the tilesets.
still the same old MTD
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Fri Dec 27, 2013 12:53 pm

Post by CooLDoG »

am I the only one who doesn't like stone soup?
after a wank.
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Fri Dec 27, 2013 1:00 pm

Post by BROseidon »

Nuzlocke challenge.
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Fri Dec 27, 2013 1:41 pm

Post by hitogoroshi »

In post 7, CooLDoG wrote:am I the only one who doesn't like stone soup?
Probably. Having a dungeon crawler that supports control-F is the greatest thing.

This is where I quote Crawl's awesome philosophy writeup:
N. Philosophy (pas de faq)

In a nutshell: This game aims to be a tactical fantasy-themed dungeon crawl. We strive for strategy being a concern, too, and for exquisite gameplay and interface. However, don't expect plots or quests.

You may ponder about the wisdom of certain design decisions of Crawl. This section tries to explain some of them. It could also be of interest if you are used to other roguelikes and want a bit of background on the differences. Prime mainstays of Crawl development are the following, most of which are explained in more detail below. Note that many of these date back to Linley's first versions.

Major design goals

challenging and random gameplay, with skill making a real difference
meaningful decisions (no no-brainers)
avoidance of grinding (no scumming)
gameplay supporting painless interface and newbie support

Minor design goals

clarity (playability without need for spoilers)
internal consistency
replayability (using branches, species, playing styles and gods)
proper use of out of depth monsters

Balance

The notions of balance, or being imbalanced, are extremely vague. Here is our definition: Crawl is designed to be a challenging game, and is also renowned for its randomness. However, this does not mean that wins are an arbitrary matter of luck: the skill of players will have the largest impact. So, yes, there may be situations where you are doomed - no action could have saved your life. But then, from the midgame on, most deaths are not of this type: By this stage, almost all casualties can be traced back to actual mistakes; if not tactical ones, then of a strategical type, like wrong skilling (too broad or too narrow), unwise use of resources (too conservative or too liberal), or wrong decisions about branch/god/gear.

The possibility of unavoidable deaths is a larger topic in computer games. Ideally, a game like this would be really challenging and have both random layout and random course of action, yet still be winnable with perfect play. This goal seems out of reach. Thus, computer games can be soft in the sense that optimal play ensures a win. Apart from puzzles, though, this means that the game is solved from the outset; this is where the lack of a human game-master is obvious. Alternatively, they can be hard in the sense that unavoidable deaths can occur. We feel that the latter choice provides much more fun in the long run.

Crawl has a huge number of handmade vaults/maps to tweak the randomness. While the placement, and often parts of the contents, of such vaults are random as well, they provide several advantages: vaults offer challenges that are very hard to get via just random monster and layout generation; they may centre on some theme, providing additional immersion; finally, they will often contain some loot, forcing players to decide between safety and greed.

(The next topic can also be filed under balance; see Replayability for what balance does not mean to us.)
Crusade against no-brainers

A very important point in Crawl is steering away from no-brainers. Speaking about games in general, wherever there's a no-brainer, that means the development team put a lot of effort into providing a "choice" that's really not an interesting choice at all. And that's a horrible lost opportunity for fun. Examples for this are the resistances: there are very few permanent sources, most involve a choice (like rings or specific armour) or are only semi-permanent (like mutations). Another example is the absence of clear-cut best items, which comes from the fact that most artefacts are randomly generated. Furthermore, even non-random artefacts cannot be wished for, as scrolls of acquirement produce random items in general. Likewise, there are no sure-fire means of life saving (the closest equivalents are controlled blinks, and good religious standings for some deities).
Anti-grinding

Another basic design principle is avoidance of grinding (also known as scumming). These are activities that have low risk, take a lot of time, and bring some reward. This is bad for a game's design because it encourages players to bore themselves. Even worse, it may be optimal to do so. We try to avoid this!

This explains why shops don't buy: otherwise players would hoover the dungeon for items to sell. Another instance: there's no infinite commodity available: food, monster and item generation is generally not enough to support infinite play. Not messing with lighting also falls into this category: there might be a benefit to mood when players have to carry candles/torches, but we don't see any gameplay benefit as yet. The deep tactical gameplay Crawl aims for necessitates permanent dungeon levels. Many a time characters have to choose between descending or battling. While caution is a virtue in Crawl, as it is in many other roguelikes, there are strong forces driving characters deeper.
Interface

The interface is radically designed to make gameplay easy - this sounds trivial, but we mean it. All tedious, but necessary, chores should be automated. Examples are long-distance travel, exploration and taking notes. Also, we try to cater for different preferences: both ASCII and tiles are supported; as are vi-keys and numpad. Documentation is plenty, context-specific and always available in-game. Finally, we ease getting started via tutorials.
Clarity

Things ought to work in an intuitive way. Crawl definitely is winnable without spoiler access. Concerning important but hidden details (i.e. facts subject to spoilers) our policy is this: the joy of discovering something spoily is nice, once. (And disappears before it can start if you feel you need to read spoilers - a legitimate feeling.) The joy of dealing with ever-changing, unexpected and challenging strategic and tactical situations that arise out of transparent rules, on the other hand, is nice again and again. That said, we believe that qualitative feedback is often better than precise numbers.

In concrete terms, we either spell out a gameplay mechanic explicitly (either in the manual, or by in-game feedback) or leave it to min-maxers if we feel that the naive approach is good enough.
Consistency

While there is no plot to speak of, the game should still be set in a consistent Crawl universe. For example, names of artefacts should fit the mood, vaults should be sensibly placed and monsters should somehow fit as well. Essentially, this is about player immersion. As such, it's good to have in mind, but consistency is always secondary to gameplay. A typical example is player vs. monster behaviour: while we try to make these identical (or similar), there are good reasons for keeping them distinct in certain cases.
Replayability

This is actually quite important, but in some sense just a corollary to the major design goals. Besides these, there are several other points helping to make playing Crawl fun over and over again:

Diversity
whenever there are choices to the player, be that choice of species, god, weapon or spell, the various options should be genuinely different. It is no good to provide dozens of weapons with different names (and perhaps even numbers) if, in the end, they all play the same.
Many different species
This is partly due to the skills and aptitude system. Similarly important are the built-in starting bonuses/handicaps of species; these often have great impact on play. To us, balance does not mean that all combinations of background and species play equally well! Some are much more challenging than others, and this is fine with us. Each species has at least some backgrounds playing rather well, though.
Dungeon layout
Even veteran players will find the Tomb or the Hells exciting (which are construed such that life endangering situations can always pop up). These and other branches may or may not fit a given character's buildup. By the way, we strongly believe that games are pointless if you can reach the invincible state.
Religion
This addresses new players, as getting to the Temple and choosing a god becomes the first major task of most games. But religion is also a point in favour of replayability for experienced players, since the choice of god can matter as much as species does.
Playing styles
Related to, but encompassing, species, background, god are fundamentally different playing styles like melee oriented fighter, stabber, etc. Deciding on whether (and when!) to make a transition of style can make or break games.

Out of the depths

From time to time a discussion about Crawl's unfair OOD (out of depth) monsters turns up, like a dragon on the second dungeon level. These are not bugs! Actually, they are part of the randomness design goal. In this case, they also serve as additional motivation: in many situations, the OOD monster can be survived somehow, and the mental bond with the character will then surely grow. OOD monsters also help to keep players on their toes by making shallow, or cleared, levels still not trivial. In a similar vein, early trips to the Abyss are not deficits: there's more than one way out, and successfully escaping is exciting for anyone.
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Post Post #10 (ISO) » Fri Dec 27, 2013 2:44 pm

Post by IH »

Some of the newer ones that they've been popping out are accessible, and have decent graphics

Try Binding of Isaac, and if you've tried that try Rogue Legacy. Rogue Legacy is a roguelike where your family is taking on a castle, and you can buy perks for later generations. The castle changes, but the people in charge (IE bosses) don't. So if you kill a boss they stay dead. After each death you choose one descendant who has their own class, perk, and flaw. Flaws include things like dwarfism, colorblindness, and vertigo (and vertigo is actually pretty serious and disorienting). Give it a whirl.
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Post Post #11 (ISO) » Sat Dec 28, 2013 7:34 am

Post by Uite »

I've been a fan of Doom: the Roguelike for a long time. It's quite different from most roguelikes in that it's fast-paced and has an emphasis on ranged combat. A regular playthrough takes about one to two hours so it's not as big an investment like a lot of others. It also got a very nice graphics patch not too long ago. I highly recommend it!
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Post Post #12 (ISO) » Sat Dec 28, 2013 7:54 am

Post by Tamuz »

Diablo III hardcore mode.
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Post Post #13 (ISO) » Sat Dec 28, 2013 8:47 am

Post by CooLDoG »

In post 12, Tamuz wrote:Diablo III hardcore mode.
get out.
after a wank.
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Post Post #14 (ISO) » Sat Dec 28, 2013 1:22 pm

Post by Oman »

I really like FTL.
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Post Post #15 (ISO) » Sat Dec 28, 2013 1:24 pm

Post by Tamuz »

In post 13, CooLDoG wrote:
In post 12, Tamuz wrote:Diablo III hardcore mode.
get out.
CoolDog I find this post overly hostile and highly offensive. Please amend it and do not direct derision to me in the future when I am trying to spread the word of a little-known and under-appreciated video game. Thank you.
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Post Post #16 (ISO) » Sat Dec 28, 2013 2:13 pm

Post by Svenskt Stål »

Doom, very simple, based on the popular pc game, a game is over pretty quick.

ADOM - advanced fantasy
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Post Post #17 (ISO) » Sat Dec 28, 2013 2:14 pm

Post by Svenskt Stål »

In post 12, Tamuz wrote:Diablo III hardcore mode.
Nightmare belail with a monk. Running MP3

You?
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Post Post #18 (ISO) » Sat Dec 28, 2013 2:41 pm

Post by Brandi »

In post 10, IH wrote:Some of the newer ones that they've been popping out are accessible, and have decent graphics

Try Binding of Isaac, and if you've tried that try Rogue Legacy.
I forgot to mention these two, both are great!
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Post Post #19 (ISO) » Mon Jan 06, 2014 1:47 pm

Post by MTD »

In post 8, BROseidon wrote:Nuzlocke challenge.
Erm, Roguelike? Nonetheless a great thing!
still the same old MTD
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Post Post #20 (ISO) » Mon Feb 10, 2014 6:17 am

Post by kuribo »

I've loved nethack for years


That shits like crack
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Post Post #21 (ISO) » Mon Feb 10, 2014 6:18 am

Post by kuribo »

Dungeon of dredmor is a great rogue like too.


Even has graphics
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Post Post #22 (ISO) » Mon Feb 10, 2014 6:12 pm

Post by Ythan »

All of the best roguelikes use simple graphical displays. If you really can't get past that use tiles.
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Post Post #23 (ISO) » Mon Feb 10, 2014 6:14 pm

Post by Ythan »

FTL: Still not a Roguelike
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Post Post #24 (ISO) » Mon Feb 10, 2014 6:30 pm

Post by Ythan »

Also I played FTL so you still have to play Nethack. Get over your poor taste in fun games and give it a real shot and you'll be hooked.
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