Roguelikes (Huh? What're those?)

[Crash the dog]

Marf, anyone here ever play any Roguelikes before? Hmm, what's that? You don't know what a Roguelike is? Well aren't you lucky, I'm going to ramble about them just for you! *wags*

"Roguelike" is a video game genre, and one of my favorites. The genre has this name because all games that fit its descriptors get their roots from this OLD game called "rogue", an ASCII game where you travel deep underground in hopes of getting stronger and obtaining riches. Roguelikes are usually tied with RPG and hack n' slash games. In order for a game to be considered a member of the roguelike genre, it needs to feature 2 main, well, features!

1: A roguelike game is always randomized as soon as you make a character to play with. Upon starting a new game with a fresh character, the levels, items, enemies, EVERYTHING is randomized entirely. You will never play the exact same game twice. Not only is every level different from how it was previously, but that red potion that healed you in your last game may very well poison you or turn you into a newt in this game!

2: When your character dies in a roguelike game, that character is really dead. You don't get to restart with a penalty, or just choose to continue. You have to start over entirely with a brand new character.

So imagine this. You've started a brand new Human Wizard, and your goal is to get 25 floors deep into a dungeon where you will find a wand that you need to give to your god in order to win the game. First couple of floors you gather some items, kill some monsters, typical fare. But on floor three you find a wand. You have no idea what it does, and no way to identify it... What better way to learn than to try zapping it at something! As soon as you try it out on a nearby wolf, your target turns into a gigantic red dragon, which proceeds to eat your face. Looks like you should have waved that wand at yourself!

Oh, here's another scenario. You're a Troll Barbarian, and you're REALLY strong. Nothing can take you down! You barrel through the dungeon and you're getting close to the bottom when you discover a really nice-looking piece of gear that you just HAVE to have! You grab it, but the second you put it on, you realize it's cursed, and you can't remove it! That's the least of your problems however, for you notice a moment later that it's draining your health as you move around! If only you had saved some sort of item that could purify or remove it! Too bad you sold everything you had at a shop a floor earlier to afford that killer new weapon...

So roguelikes are hard. Very hard. Like, in all your time playing them, you may never beat one. But that's part of why I love them so much =3 You actually fear death in a game where dying means all progress is lost! You become attached to your character. You know their strengths and weaknesses, you know that every step you take, you need to be ready for anything. And with roguelikes, anything is possible. Do you want to find a key for a door or just kick it down? Do you want to dip your weapon into a potion to test its effects, or throw it at an enemy instead? Do you want to freeze all of the monsters around you and hack away at them, or charm them to fight with each other while you slip by? There are no limits! And when you make a deadly mistake, you learn from it, and remember how to avoid it in the future, or how to tackle it appropriately.

Wow, I've typed out a lot here, haven't I? I really do ramble when I'm passionate about something Marf, I've really only scratched the surface of the roguelike genre here. If you'd like to try one (or more than one!), I'll put some links here. And I promise, unlike the original rogue, all of these games have graphics =D

Powder Homepage
Powder Download Page
Powder is the easiest, simplest roguelike I've ever played. It's got no race or class selection, and it's far easier to control than other roguelikes. Great for beginners of the genre to learn what roguelikes are all about, but it's still got enough to it for veterans and skilled players to have a really good time with it too! Powder is available on MANY different platforms, as you can see at the download page! It was originally made for the gameboy advance first, then ported just about everywhere

http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress - Dungeon Crawl - Stone Soup Homepage
http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/downloads - Dungeon Crawl - Stone Soup Download Page
Dungeon Crawl - Stone Soup is a lot more complex than Powder in terms of controls and gameplay, but it's still simpler (in my opinion) and easier to learn than other roguelikes. It's got a very large selection of classes and races, and if you get good at it, it can last you a VERY long time! There are many people who call this roguelike their favorite one of all time (There are 100s, maybe even 1000s of roguelikes available on the web!). If you download this game, make sure you get the tiles version if you want graphics!

Nethack Homepage
Nethack Download Page
Nethack is one of the hardest roguelikes there are, and it's currently the most famous. It has a moderate selection of classes and races compared to Dungeon Crawl, but the complexity and level of difficulty are even higher!

I could list many, many more games of the roguelike genre, but I'll stop here. Marf, I hope you guys try some out and enjoy! I'll post more links if you ask me to =3 *wags*

[Kyriin]

Ooh.. interesting x3

[flames]

Nethack in good old text mode on a UNIX or unix-like OS all the way (or failing that, the original Hack from 1985 or Rogue from 1980 should suffice)
I'm not very good nor do I play often but hey, it's a nice lightweight game with plenty of history to it, a lot of depth and legendary status. I believe I've played a port of Powder to the Wii once or twice and from what I can recall it was pretty good.