Hello friends! Is there a lemmy community for roguelikes? I am, in this case, looking for a place focused on more traditional roguelikes (DCSS, CCDDA, BROGUE, etc)
If there isn’t one, no worries, send me you’re favorite unknown traditional roguelikes. I’ll tell you mine. It’s called “Empires of Eradia” it’s a more open combat focused RL with a unique twist on permadeath. It’s got great crafting and a strong focus on risk reward.
Played Nethack for many years but switched to Crawl eventually. Lately I’ve been playing Brogue too. Never ascended in any of them but that doesn’t keep me from enjoying them.
Must have: HJKL navigation (including diagonal). Big plus: terminal mode. Not a fan of tiles but I’ve grown to like Brogue’s hybrid approach. I think I am ok with it because it’s done so tastefully.
I’ve gotten spoiled by auto-explore and other travel aids in Crawl and Brogue, hard to go back to Nethack now. I am sure there are some variants that have it, I will look around at some point.For a while I played Nethack using an Emacs interface, that was pretty neat but it hasn’t kept up with later versions.
A few communities I am finding on https://browse.feddit.de/:
https://lemmy.world/c/roguelikedev
https://lemmy.sdf.org/c/nethack
https://lemmy.world/c/crawl
https://lemmy.world/c/dcssI am developer of a roguelike game and i was looking too for a community for it, thanks for sharing!
You have a link? I’d love to check it out.
Sure wasn’t sure if i was allowed ^^
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1134610/Dice_Hero_The_Unoriginal_Story/
Looks neat, gonna give it a shot!
Ohh I’ve heard of it! I think Roguelite Deckbuilders are one of my favorite forks to the roguelike genre. They consume more of my time and money than I’d like to admit to…
You know, I never got into nethack. I can appreciate it’s complexity but it seems just a little too much for me. I’ve played well over my fair share of crawl though. I don’t mind tiles so much when done well but ascii is just as good.
I must admit I’m spoiled not only to auto explore but also to the numpad… dcss always hit that perfect balance of an auto that was fluid and purposeful without diving you into weird situations and feeling inadequate (looking at you Qud, I love your game but your autoexplore is garbage).
I guess I may have to check out nethack again though. Thanks for the suggestion!
Eyy!! Just saw the edit! No idea why those didn’t show up when I looked! Thanks you very kindly!
quick Q since I keep reading about it, are Crawl and DCSS the same thing?
They are.
Interested! My first roguelike was, well, rogue. Never got overly into it, but spent many many hours playing ADOM, nethack, and others. I hope there’s a community already, and if not, let’s make one!
That’s the spirit. I’ve played dead cells and rouge legacy
Both excellent games. Though not entirely what I’m looking for. If you’ve never had the experience of a traditional roguelike I would HIGHLY recommend Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It’s free and has a tile version, and can even be played directly in your browser. It’s complex and unforgiving at first but an excellent intro to the genre. And when it does start to click its one of the most well paced RLs I’ve ever played.
I didn’t realize you said ‘roguelikes’ at first 😅 I’m more into roguelites I’ll admit. Is Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup a -lite or -like?
The definition isn’t an absolutely hard one, but I think that DCSS would be pretty uncontroversially a roguelike.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike
See the section on “Berlin Interpretation”, which is one commonly-used set of factors to determine whether something is a roguelike.
A good way to tell between -lite and -like is that lite you get stronger (ex. Stats increase) between runs while -like only unlocks new content.
Adding to what @[email protected] says:
Roguelites like dead cells etc draw inspiration and mechanics from roguelikes.
The main differences are rogue etc are tile- and turn based in a sense. Nothing moves unless you move.
And the in depth meta progression in the modern rogue lites wasn’t really a thing in roguelikes.I remember in Nethack you could technically remove some monster types permanently and find “bones” of former runs but that’s about it.
Not everyone uses that definition, including me. A common definition would separate likes and lites more or less at the meta progression; if each run gets easier, it would be lite. This would put something like Spelunky under like and Rogue Legacy under lite, regardless of turn based.
I honestly didn’t know that about spelunky, I never really got into it.
After looking it up a bit, would you count the Tunnel Man into meta progression? Obviously not the same as unlockeables and powerups in RogueLegacy etc.There’s room for these definitions to get fuzzy really fast, as is the case with any genre of any medium, but while the Tunnel Man is a form of meta progression, the game makes it pretty clear that using the tunnels to beat the game isn’t beating it “for real”. Even using my definition, games like Dead Cells and 20XX blur the line between -likes and -lites a ton.
Ah alright, didn’t realize Grenfur said ‘roguelike’ and not 'roguelite. I’m not that big a fan of roguelikes
Roguelikes are like beer. Often times you have to find one you like to get a taste for them. That said, beer is also not for everyone :).
I’ve never even touched rogue actually. Played quite a bit of ADOM though. Definitely a good time :). Also there’s a post up above with links to RL communities :)
Would love a roguelike community somewhere here. My favourite one is definetly Tales of Maj’Eyal, but that’s not really unknown, so I would recommend Approaching Infinity. It’s a space faring roguelike where you fly a spaceship and exolore planets, stations and such. It gets tons of updates and has a story too, which is nice.
Yoo Approaching Infinity is great! The duality of the Ship and Away Team is done so well! They really kind of break up the gameplay loop into distinct bites. Definitely a great dame.
DragonFangZ is a cute, anime themed traditional roguelike that’s noteworthy for its cute chibi artstyle, and its rather poor localization. It’s not bad in that the translation choices are bad, but in that the person who did the translation, they did their best and it’s really endearing!
The gimmick of this game is the Fang system, wherein sometimes when you kill a monster, they’ll drop a “Fang” which can be consumed for a permanent upgrade, or equipped for access to an ability. These are themed around the monster the Fang dropped from and can be combined. Further, there’s the Brave system that incentivizes players to leave corridors and battle with 8 spaces surrounding them for an attack boost.
Overall, it’s a really sweet and endearing game, and I wish more people would give it a shot!
I’ve had it on my switch wish list for a while but never picked it up because it just didn’t look as good as Shiren the Wanderer (which is excellent), but your comment has convinced me to give it a try, thanks!
I’ve actually never heard of this one! Definitely worth a look.
Both the Fang and Brave system sound great. Particularly the later since you generally DONT want to fight in the open like that in RLs. What a cool idea!
My first real foray into roguelikes was Nethack.
Absolutely overwhelming but bit by bit i figured out the controls and found a decent android client to mess around in.
Never ascended, but had some good runs :)
Dwarf Fortress adventure mode is probably the most fun I’ve ever had in a roguelike. CataclysmDDA comes second.
Yes! Exploring old forts and seeing the world you’ve built through that different lens is an excellent experience!
send me you’re favorite unknown traditional roguelikes.
My favorite roguelikes are probably pretty well-known roguelikes.
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Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. You listed this one.
The ones that I’ve probably spent the most time on that someone today might not have played are mainly because they’re pretty elderly now. Tales of Middle Earth 2, the predecessor to Tales of Maj’Eyal. Zangband and Angband.
I’ve just started playing Qud. The depth to the game is insane. First roguelike I’m really getting into.
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As a very casual rogue-like enjoyer (failed to ever kill the unicorn in nethack), I regularly enjoy Rogue Fable III. There’s not a ton of story or content, but all the essentials are there.
It’s a generic dungeon with various themed levels. (No puzzles.) Minor lore through occasionaly messages by the underlord or by reading signs/messages. Get the keys from guardians in side dungeons, then beat the big wizard and take his goblet of immortality.
You get a race for basic modifiers (no weight limit, but only move horizontally, for example).
You get a class, which determines your default talent/spell list.
Then you can get some extra talents/spells regardless of class from books/altars/librarians.It’s simple, but I enjoy doing it while listening to other things. No direct challenge modes, but various race/class combos are more difficult than others.
Not sure if it counts, but I’ve been playing Elona/Eternal League of Nefia. it’s been hard though because there is very little english discussion of it, and I refuse to set foot on 4chan where most of it would probably be.
I love Elona. I enjoy dcss and Nethack and all of the traditional roguelikes that get tossed around, but I really wish there were more that focused on exploration and roleplaying like Elona does.
Those sound interesting. Favorite moment in Elona was when I kept accidentally summoning monsters in my house while learning a spell, and after clearing them out I found that I summoned a regular hamster for some reason. He just lives there now, I named him Hamsuke.
You may enjoy caves of qud. It is probably the closest to Elona of all the roguelikes I have played. There was one time where I got an item that allowed me to turn inanimate objects into a sentient companion. I accidentally cast it on a stone wall only for the wall to come to life and start following me around. It was incredibly handy when exploring dungeons since I could just swap places with it to block a door or corridor. The whole game is full of weird stuff like that.
Super big Caves of Qud fan here!
I also really enjoy DCSS and have got the orb out a few times. I hope a true general and traditional-only Roguelike community will pop up soon.
Not sure if it’s just me, but I find many games tedious (often because hunger and inventory management). Difficult games are just a different kind of tedious than filler games.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is one, it does let you deal with things from many angles but I don’t think it’s good enough for unknown/cursed equipment. Especially as it’s so easy to get screwed over (especially early on).
I play the (old) free alpha of Rogue Fable III on itch. It has a completely different feel, a lot more going on mechanically (skills/attributes, terrain) so it at least somewhat feels like more my fault when I lose.
Either way we both know I’m probably going to lose with unused potions/scrolls even if I got a good sword, but I probably will not have gotten suitable armor etc. either. And when I win it seems like I either got perfect luck or I found a way to (borderline) cheese the game (which I mean sometimes that may be intended, but it doesn’t feel great to try again).
Oh if you don’t know it yet, check out Ultima Ratio Regum.
Still in development but super impressive
I’ve really enjoyed SanctuaryRPG: Black Edition (really cheap on Steam as I type this), Brogue and Shattered Pixel Dungeon.
Ultima Ratio Regum is an interesting thing. It’s more of a culture generation experiment than a complete game. It procedurally generates detailed designs for basically every item around you, which will vary depending on which part of the world you are, whether this place is rich or poor, etc. For many things it generates a close-up image, in what can basically be called ASCII+ art (images which still use traditional roguelike console-like engine, but are drawn with colored rectangles and triangles, so it’s not literally ASCII)
