The Gamer's Quarter

[Cycle]

Hello! This is a thread about Rogue-Likes, or Rouge-Likes as I insist on spelling it.

To be honest, I've never been that big on RLs. I played lots of NetHack when I was introduced to it, and jumped on the Crawl bandwagon that we had going not too long ago. Had good times with both games. DooMRL was also pretty cute, and I also spent many hours with ADOM and Moria.

Yet, there were only two I was ever furiously addicted to.

First, is Scarab Of Ra, which is most certainly an RL, despite the cred-crushing graphics. Basically, you start at the top of a pyramid. Each level was a maze, and you had to find a key and then the exit, and you would then go on to the next level which would be larger (since it's the next level of the pyramid). The ultimate goal was to find all three treasures of RA which would allow you to escape the pyramid, but you also had to collect gold on the way to increase your score, and of course, deal with traps, wild animals and the DAMN TERRIFYING Gaurdians, who would hunt you down without mercy as soon as you picked up the Scarab of Ra (one of the treasures). It was BRUTAL but it was also amazingly addictive and is one of my favourite games of all time. It's pretty much a RL stripped down to the bare bones. Perhaps that's why I enjoyed it more than others... I mean I had a good time with the zaniness of NetHack, but it's just so bloated and mechanically broken.

Also, I'm the only person I know who has managed to finish the game once, let alone TWICE!



The other was U Mac Rogue, which was Rogue, but with some anime style graphics. Again, I probably liked this one because it was so bare bones and focused. This was actually the first RogueLike I played. Funny that it was a graphical update of the first RogueLike ever made!



... or was it?

Apparently not! A little Apple II game called BENEATH APPLE MANOR was released in 1978, predating Rogue by two years and featured everything that would come to define the RL genre. WHOA, ROGUE IS A FRAUD!



Read more about this SCANDAL here (and make sure to read the comments to see a message from the creator):

http://psittacine.com/beneath-apple-manor/

SO, there's my bit! Let's hear about Rogue-likes! I bet Bleak has interesting things to say!
_________________

[bleak]

I was obsessed with ADOM for a very long time. Oh, I got into it at around Gamma 16 Prerelease 2. (Who the fuck comes up with these versioning conventions anyway?) That was probably six years ago or something. I don't have records dating back that far, so whatever! The point is, that game is so frustratingly good and hard that I can't really put it into words. Or possibly it's the fact that it's 5 in the morning that has to do with that fact but either way there you have it. ADOM is brutally unforgiving. If you slip up one time it will take your mistake and beat you over the head with it until your brain oozes out your nose. Even if you play perfectly, sometimes the randomness inherent in all RL games fucks you up.

I didn't really want to rant and rave about how difficult roguelikes, or ADOM in particular are, but I kind of had to, since that is a point that can't really be overstated. ADOM was one of the first roguelikes I ever played, along with Angband and Nethack. Nethack was a little too off the wall and overwhelming all at the same time, and Angband was way too formulaic and boring for my tastes. I think Nethack suffered a bit from that as well, but at least Angband had a really super community and several different variants of the game to keep oneself entertained while you played the same shitty game over and over again.

One of the most appealing things about ADOM, I think, is the persistent overworld map combined with the randomized dungeon floors, which also happen to be persistent, except in the case of the Infinite Dungeon, and also once you explore some of the dungeons in the game, more locations become available to you on the overworld map. Also, the more times you actually start and end each game of ADOM, you can further unlock more areas in the overland map to explore. On top of that even, there are yet more overworld places to explore once certain special conditions are met with your character.

*takes a deep breath*

Aside from the overworld, I think ADOM sports one of the best character generation schemes in any roguelike. Question generated or randomly rolled stats, a slew of races and classes to choose from, and a month based starsign with the odd rare birthsign that gives you extra bonuses. Usually in character generation in roguelikes you either just get to pick your race and class or you also get to do some silly min/maxing bullshit which makes the game seem more like a complicated word problem than an actual game.

That said, there are still a lot of problems with the game that will never be fixed, due in part to Thomas Biskup totally abandoning development on the thing in favor of his little startup company and JADE. Fatal crash bugs, monster stat and experience bugs, shit like that. The learning curve is pretty much a right angle, I believe it's harder to pick up initially than most RLs. You pretty much need to spoil the crap out of yourself in order to get anywhere in this game. Some race/class combinations are far too overpowered. The list goes on, but all in all it's a very fun game and I had a lot of fun playing it. I did manage to beat it exactly one time, and that was with a Drakeling Beastfighter. Melee motherfuckers. All in all, I wouldn't say this game is for everyone, only pick it up if you're the manliest of men looking for a real challenge. Because as we all know, only men can do things that are hard.

My only other RL victory came from the aforementioned Doom roguelike. DoomRL is actually really fun, though admittedly much more arcadey than most RLs, which isn't necessarily a bad thing! On the contrary, it works for DoomRL rather nicely. Like the real Doom game, you start off on the surface with nothing but a sweet pistol, and you must reach the bottom and defeat the evil Cyberdemon and close the gate and do all that fun hell-related stuff. This game is as you'd imagine considerably harder than the real Doom, though it does have 5 different difficulties, also just like the real Doom. I managed to beat it on Hurt Me Plenty, the standard difficulty. The neat thing about DoomRL is that it keeps track of your stats between games and uses those to unlock neat things the more you play. It has a cool little tactics system in it, and a pretty good weapons/items collection that essentially mirrors the original doom, though there are some modificatiosn to make the game more interesting, such as a talent system and weapon modifications and the like. This game, in contrast to ADOM, is actually much easier than most roguelike games, so if you're not looking to become too extremely frustrated with a roguelike, this is probably your best bet. The best part? You get to listen to bitchin' ass Doom sound effects and music while you play! Check this one out, definitely, whoever or whatever you are. There's not much bad to this game at all, aside from a perhaps slightly unforgiving difficulty increase at certain points in the game.

Anyway, I hope someone manages to read all this and report back after having played some of these games! I know I enjoyed playing them.
_________________

[bleak]

beneath apple manor-likes doesn't have the same ring to it, cycle!
_________________

[KenLong]

these are pretty good games

[Cycle]

[Redeye]

[Cycle]

I did!
_________________

[Redeye]

[Cycle]

No that's too big! I re-sized it for a reason. I'll just upload it again, GOD.

Alright, back to talking about BAM-Likes!
_________________

[dessgeega]

BAM!
_________________

[bleak]

WHAT ARE YOU DOING CYCLE GO PLAY ADOM
_________________

[bleak]

also guys, I was thinking that we could do some sort of challenge game with a roguelike, is there any one that either everyone is familiar with or no one is? My idea is kind of like the SB one credit challenge. I was thinking of DiabloRL since I know I've never played it and I've had a passing interest in it, plus I doubt anyone else here has played it either. Thoughts?
_________________

[Harveyjames]

[daphaknee]

i suck at rougelikes so bad, i want to get into them so bad, but i dont know what to do

what should i start with

[Scratchmonkey]

Ah, I remember downloding Moria off of a BBS somewhere around 1992 or so. I played that for a year or so until somebody pointed me towards Angband, which I've played since. I only have one legit non-scumming win, with a human mage before they nerfed Globe of Invunerability.

Never really got into any of the others (especially not ADOM since there was never a Mac version) unless you count Dwarf Fortress, which is kind of a stretch.

[Worm]

[dhex]

i have a copy of diablo here i've only played once. should i keep at it?

(i.e. all weekend i'm going to be recovering from a root canal and waiting for a second root canal appointment so it's just me and the percosets)
_________________

[Patrick Alexander]

BAM!

Hey what's the name of that Japanese sort-of-roguelike with the rather cute graphics that got put on PSP recently? I think there was something about it on Select Button not long ago? I saw it in a shop today but I don't want to buy the Japanese version if it doesn't have an English option so does anyone know if it has an English option and also I'm just curious about it generally.
_________________
Raymondo Person | Eegra | Things

[Redeye]

[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

[bleak]

[Scratchmonkey]

Diablo 2 is bigger and shinier. Diablo is probably the better game, even though it's more monotone, in many senses of the word.

[bleak]

I actually like the atmosphere of Diablo 1 more, but I definitely like the world art in Diablo 2 more. Further, Diablo 2 is more satisfying in terms of character development, and much more deep also. Diablo was much better at being immersive, but the grid system detracts from that a bit in my opinion. Anyway, it's your call.

As for the BAM-like challenge, does anyone have any suggestions for games? Nethack, Angband, ADOM seem to be the ones everyone's played already, so we might do one of those, or we could do it the other way around. From what I hear, the Diablo RL isn't too popular amongst my peers!
_________________

[Scratchmonkey]

After going through Diablo II recently, I have to say that I'm not too enthused with the character development, in that I didn't really feel like it added much to the experience. I prefer a more pared-down system with more emphasis on finding random loot.

[Redeye]

Telengard.



Remake

Website of original creator with interesting stories and links




I remember Telengard on C64.

Getting drunk from a fountain and wandering around.

I never did win.
_________________
I felt sheer anarchic joy when I ran over my first pedestrian.

[extrabastardformula]

Frozen Depths is a very satisfying lite roguelike released last year. It doesn't have a graphical version so you'll have to make do with ascii, but color is really used very well, and the game does no more than it sets out to do unlike many rls which just pile shit on.

I'd say that maybe only ADOM is as easy to just pick up and play
_________________
Signature:
This is a block of text that can be added to posts you make. There is a 255 character limit

HTML is ON
BBCode is ON
Smilies are ON

[bleak]

Are we talking about the same ADOM here?
_________________

[extrabastardformula]

I'm not talking about game difficulty or the wild bugs of ADOM. I'm talking about the way the interface is mostly compact and how the game provides menus instead of just assuming you know which letter represents each inventory item you have. ADOM may be hard but it's not like Crawl where you have to contastly alt-tab out to a file containing a list of the various commands, or worse the bizzare expanded commands of Nethack.
_________________
Signature:
This is a block of text that can be added to posts you make. There is a 255 character limit

HTML is ON
BBCode is ON
Smilies are ON

[bleak]

Some of the keybindings in ADOM don't make a ton of sense, like , being pick up, or w being repeat command. And dungeon crawl stone soup isn't that bad in terms of interface, especially with tiles and mouse integration. It's actually probably one of the most accessible roguelikes thanks to that!
_________________

[Worm]

ADOM is totally infuriating because it's a static fucking game world with quests and shit, which makes the forced Iron Man mode and horrible shit inexcusable. Like I'm not allowed to evaluate it like I do any other fucking video game because it's ascii. Haha, the puppy cave is flooded, why didn't you go with the SCUBA DIVER class, faggot?

It's not like I don't mind hard games, Godhand is a game that has nothing but disdain for people playing it, and that's great. My problem here is that RPGs require absolutely no motherfucking skill other than patience, so a hard RPG is just something you need to have autism to play, and well, I'm not autistic.

I don't know, when you know someone is crafting an algorithm to kill your character and make a game hard it's okay, but when it's some single lousy neckbeard explicitly making a game pointlessly difficult so he can impart precious nerd cred makes me fucking insane. IE Gothic, Wizardry 8, The Witcher. I wish someone would just hack save anywhere into the game so it'd be actually playable (and I don't if you beat it, it's basically unplayable)

I think I'm going to stick to flash games in between programming for the meantime, because ADOM really was designed as a piece of shit.
_________________

Exit stage left, exit stage right, there is no place to run, all the fuses in the exit signs have been BURNT OUT

[bleak]

I think the problem there Worm, with your view, is that if you were able to just quicksave past every potentially dangerous situation that much less interesting. The entire genre of games is about presenting a prolonged challenge, and granted it's a pretty niche demographic that people enjoy, but it's definitely unfair to call it shitty just because it's got a static world map and quests.

In all honesty, the quests are essentally unimportant to the meat of the game. You can play through the entire game by simply just making a mad dash to the main dungeon and then going through it to the bottom and then back out*. They're just there to give the player a leg up, to acclimate the player with the mechanics of the game, and ultimately bestow more understanding.

Roguelikes are not like most RPGs, and certainly not like MMORPGs. The differences here are mostly found in the idea that the monsters that you fight actually pose a threat, you don't need to recruit a fucking army to get shit done, and you don't need to endlessly grind exp or gear just to get to the next stepping stone in your quest to save the planet, or whatever. Except for Angband, since you desperately do need to grind for exp and gear in order to win that game, so fuck that game. Anyway, I digress.

Last thing here, I'm not sure about your nerd cred point. What's true for most roguelikes is the community that's found around them, participating in sharing your experiences, victories, and frustrations of the game, and also programming, for open source roguelikes. That's why the community for Angband is so huge even though it's crap, and the community for ADOM is tiny even though it's a much more fulfilling game in pretty much every aspect.

So, basically, my point is that you can't just add a save anywhere feature and have a fun game. It's totally possible to easily cheat and save anywhere, but the problem with that is that you just get to see the game, not play it. So what do you suggest? Limited saves? Save points? I honestly don't think that there's any way to make the game more accessible without sacrificing at least a part of the core gameplay mechanic.

* A very slight exaggeration, since you have to go out one time to obtain the Fire Orb.
_________________

[Intentionally Wrong]

Actually, it just sounds like Worm needs to try Crawl rather than ADOM. It's a different mindset altogether.

[bleak]

I suggested Crawl to him after he talked to me for like a good hour of trying to get somewhere in ADOM. I guess it's both a combination of me being a terrible ADOM tutor and also the game being completely unsuited to him. No word back yet as to the success of this endeavor though.
_________________

[dhex]

forced iron man is the whole point of roguelikes.

it's what keeps me crawling back.

har har har.
_________________

[bleak]

heh heheh heh heh

Yeah, that's pretty much the same thing here. Thinking about it, I realize that it's a very cheap and easy way to add investment and intensity to a game without having to add silly things like art assets, sound, or music.And that's honestly fine by me, it doesn't really strike me as lazy or anything.

I'm having trouble formulating my thoughts right now.
_________________

[Redeye]

[Patrick Alexander]

[Worm]

[kirkjerk]

I love nethack far more in theory (and wizard mode) than in practice. I couldn't get how not to starve.

I was trying to get a feel for ok, which game really came first and made the genre, but it seems Temple of Apshai (my darkhorse candidate for first) came out in 1980 (weird, didn't realize the game came w/ separate "flavor text" in a printed manual) as did Rogue and Beneath Apple Manor. Any thing make it out in the 70s?

The look of Beneath Apple Manor reminds me of games I sketched out after seeing how friendly the Tandy CoCo seemed to be for block color graphics by reading its manual. (Esp. compared to the C=64, and maybe even a bit better than the Atari 8bits). I thought I had a shot at blocky DigDug. (The result might be something like those world's tiniest websites that were amusing for about 3 days in 2002.) How I managed to write any BASIC programs with not even properly named subroutines seems a bit amazing to me now.
_________________
=/ \(<D)_/
==/\/ >_ kirkjerk.com

[kirkjerk]

[kirkjerk]

PS What is forced Iron Man? Are you talking more about the initial character choice (i.e. Barbarian) or just the tough, long, grinding road of it all?
_________________
=/ \(<D)_/
==/\/ >_ kirkjerk.com

[squidlarkin]

I think it refers to the permadeath and lack of backup saves which is the entire point of roguelikes. In pretty much all other single-player games failure means a boring slog through experiences you just had a few minutes ago, and the massive prevalence of that approach is strange to me since it's not fun. Permadeath plus randomization is a great idea because it chastises you for failure yet never stops giving you novel experiences.

[kirkjerk]

[Worm]

ADOM however is static, which is what vexes me. Also the distribution of monsters is totally off when compared to Nethack, which is on average much more fairly distributed.

EDIT: kirkjerk, BAM was released in 78 according to the article in the OP(and backed up by the author replying to that article). None of this matters since history is written by the victors, but still an interesting little factoid.
_________________

Exit stage left, exit stage right, there is no place to run, all the fuses in the exit signs have been BURNT OUT

[extrabastardformula]

[friedchicken]

[Worm]

Nethack doesn't need to change because it actually feels like a scoring game. You can take risks, get rewards, and be better off for it. However in ADOM it doesn't matter if you take risks or not, because there will always be the OBSCENELY tough Giant Ants in the puppy cave, and always be the "LOL WHERE IS YOUR ACID RESISTANCE NOW?" Giant Slug in the dark druid cave, so you just walk around the wilderness and GRIND, or dodge in and out of dungeons like a PUSSY hoping to god your guy doesn't get doomed for some reason, or god, play the game with a min/max guide in hand.

It's a real shame that the guy who originally programmed it obviously did it out of pure contempt of anyone who would play his game, and it's doubly a shame that legions of willing gimps like it so fucking much.

It's not even that I hate the game. A few changes to make the monster spawns say ... only as horribly unfair as Daggerfall and wouldn't be bad at all.
_________________

Exit stage left, exit stage right, there is no place to run, all the fuses in the exit signs have been BURNT OUT

[Cycle]

I just want to mention that some friends actually set up a NetHack server, where we would play and compete for scores, and could watch other people play. The best part was that you could bump into the ghosts of other players. I loved watching someone fight my ghost, until he actually managed to kill it and stole all my good loot. Bitch.

Only problem was that it was slightly laggy, so you had to move around very carefully or you'd bump into an eyeball or something.

Also: http://tigsource.com/articles/2008/01/28/roguelikes-more-like-bam-likes
_________________

[Worm]

Do people telnet into that? Or is it set up some other way ... like through a linux box with ssh?
_________________

Exit stage left, exit stage right, there is no place to run, all the fuses in the exit signs have been BURNT OUT