Do you Roguelike?

[rusty_shackleford]

I've been playing Zorbus lately, have you guys been playing any roguelikes?

[pizza_microwave]

I played ToME some time ago and dropped it after 4 hours because of the combat.. I suppose I will try CoQ or DCSS at some point just to see what's the genre about.

[Ratcatcher]

CDDA > Most other human inventions in history, tbh.

That said I also play ToME, from time to time and I used to play DCSS quite a lot, before it was ruined. Never managed an all runes run. Sad.

I always wanted to try Infra Arcana but learning new roguelike is somewhat hard for me nowadays, I lack the focus due to my gaming time being constantly interrupted.

[Lhynn]

Several, both on mobile and on my computer. Fun little genre, very experimental, tons of interesting ideas being tried all the time.

[wndrbr]

I only played Sword of the Stars - The Pit. Got filtered, traditional roguelikes is not my genre I guess.

[WhiteShark]

I've never really gotten into any roguelike aside from DCSS. I dabbled in Angband as a kid and I've tried DoomRL and a couple others, but I never got deep into any of them the way I did DCSS. Now I don't play that much anymore either, partly because the devs are intent on streamlining the game into unrecognizability and partly because I've already played it to death with every class and species.

[Gregz]

I enjoy them quite a bit.

I highly recommend Jupiter Hell, btw.

[Tweed]

Used to play CDDA, but then it got boring and the permadeath system runs counter to the way you progress in the game since it's no easy thing to just get back on top after a death. However, Kevin seems determined to run the game into the ground with his "realism", so much so that a new fork called Brighter Nights is looking to undo something of that crap.

[Ratcatcher]

Yes, Bright Nights originally was just a less autism-dense fork. Think removing changes like stomach content (your stomach has volume, you fill it and then digest its content, it's possible to starve on a full stomach if not paying attention) and the pockets and bags update (each storage item on your body is tracked independently, limiting where you can place things).
CDDA is an incredibly complex and autistic game already, many felt that chasing realism like that was just increasing the number of "chores" commands, without providing any gameplay advancement. A notion I share up to some point.

At some point tho, the main devs (which have always been sorta retard, pink fascists and prone to bullying contributors they don't like), went full retard and prioritized pronoun swapping (cAn dO iT M1d gAeM. I'm gurl today!) and femboy pillows (...shit you not) in merges. To own the chuds probably or something like that, I had already stopped following them.

BN is now the last bastion of unpozzed CDDA. Evenmoreso, while the tranny worshippers were busing merging in dilation stations and HRT replacement, the BN team fixed the vision system, implemented vision (and trajectory) for different Z-levels and ditched the moronic smoke+heat simulation that was killing performance.

Which is better and why?

[agentorange]

I enjoy roguelikes in general but ToME is the only one that I can say I have put significant time into. I enjoy the variety of classes and how absurd and unique some of them can be, like Oozemancer. It also strikes a good balance between static story content/randomness. Some games like Caves of Qud go way too far in the direction of procedural generation/random generation.

[rusty_shackleford]

Meta-progression in games like ToME is a nice addition to the genre imo.

[somerandomdude]

The last roguelike I tried was Dead Cells, which is a metroidvania game. After 8-10hrs I got bored with it.

Some randomization is alright, but roguelikes take that to extremes that non-roguelikes don't and often in ways I don't like. Some roguelike elements such as randomized maps in an ARPG game I'm perfectly OK with. Anything beyond that, I don't care for.

I heard that Hades was really good, and that even people who don't typically enjoy roguelikes might still like that game. I haven't got around to playing Hades yes, but it's on my list.

[Landers78]

I play ToMe and Streets of Rogue now and again.

Apart from those, I haven't really found any that I have sunk plenty of time in since Angband was a thing.

[Simmons]

The last roguelike I tried was Dead Cells, which is a metroidvania game. After 8-10hrs I got bored with it.

Some randomization is alright, but roguelikes take that to extremes that non-roguelikes don't and often in ways I don't like. Some roguelike elements such as randomized maps in an ARPG game I'm perfectly OK with. Anything beyond that, I don't care for.

I heard that Hades was really good, and that even people who don't typically enjoy roguelikes might still like that game. I haven't got around to playing Hades yes, but it's on my list.

Hades is definitely a roguelite, and even at that it's almost a roguelite-lite. It is however fantastic and was my GOTY the year of its release.

I also like Dead Cells,although it does suffer from the common roguelike problem of just getting brutally fucked by the RNG. The items are in no way balanced against each other, and there are enough totally underpowered ones that you can go a whole run without seeing some of the better combinations.

As to conventional roguelikes, the only recent ones I've played are Jupiter Hell and ToME. Jupiter Hell is awesome and highly recommended. ToME was more of a mixed bag. It badly suffers from RNG swing, particularly with the elite monsters, and it's really annoying to have to play the dungeons in pretty much the same order every run. Sure the class unlocks offer a few different paths, but it's not enough (or at least wasn't when I played it 4 or 5 years ago). I got filtered out of it before ever making a successful complete run.

[WhiteShark]

I always wanted to try Infra Arcana but learning new roguelike is somewhat hard for me nowadays, I lack the focus due to my gaming time being constantly interrupted.

I just started this and it's actually not hard to get into at all. Seems much less complicated than something like DCSS. Character advancement is just picking from a list of traits. There are some prerequisite chains but you can press a button to show the currently inaccessible traits are to see what they are.

The central mechanic is shock/insanity. Shock constantly increases and certain events/monsters make it go up faster. If it hits 100%, then it resets to 0% and your insanity goes up and some negative effect occurs. 100% insanity is game over. Descending a floor resets shock to 0%. I've not gotten very far yet but it seems like deciding when to abandon a floor to preserve sanity is going to be a big deal later on.

I haven't touched magic at all yet since I've only played War Veteran and that class doesn't start with any magic. There are explosives; my last run ended partly due to my discovery that you cannot throw molotov cocktails over enemies. I don't know the extent of potions yet, either. I've found at least five or six different types, but only quaff ID'd a couple and that only because of... pressing circumstances.

I'm not clear yet on how XP works. You get some for discoveries (secret doors, alchemical workbenches, obelisks, etc.) but I haven't paid enough attention to tell if you get any for kills. I'll pay attention on my next run; if it doesn't grant any XP, that's a good reason to conserve ammo instead of hunting. I haven't quite yet run out of ammo entirely, but it seemed like I was headed that direction before the end of my last run.

[MadPreacher]

Last one I played was Ziggurat. It was okay for a FPS where you play as a mage.

[WhiteShark]

Okay, I confirmed that you do not receive XP for kills in Infra Arcana, only discoveries, which also includes new enemy types. Makes me want to try a stealth build to avoid unnecessary ammo usage.

I also finally tried out magic. You learn new spells by finding and using manuscripts. Manuscripts are like scrolls in other roguelikes except you learn the spell permanently after using a manuscript of it once. Each spell has a variable Spirit cost. It turns out if you cast a spell with insufficient Spirit, you die! So that's all I learned about magic on that run. Oh, and I think they raise your shock, too, so you have to be careful not to drive yourself crazy.

[Acrux]

I used to play DCSS quite a lot, before it was ruined.

I used to play DCSS all the time a decade ago and every now and then think about going back to it. How did they end up ruining it?

[rusty_shackleford]

DCSS is ruined because it's a game designed to be beaten, not played. It's an adjacent mentality to speedrunners.

[Ratcatcher]

How did they end up ruining it?

I sincerely stopped following it ages ago but it's a fundamentally different game. People more expert than me will need to chime in for the details but, for example, they removed the hunger mechanic entirely iirc (they definitely removed butchering monsters and meat chunks).

It's a much less complex game nowadays. I cannot say if it's harder or easier since I haven't played in more than 8 years but they definitely dumbed it down quite a bit.

[WhiteShark]

I used to play DCSS all the time a decade ago and every now and then think about going back to it. How did they end up ruining it?

The current devteam has made it their mission to """streamline""" the game by cutting anything they feel redundant, abusable, or unfun, including but not limited to: hunger, a bunch of races, cursed equipment, a bunch of spells and items, all references to slavery (because slavery is BAD), any reason to not use flying all the time if you have it, and in 0.29 I guess ammo is going too.

[Acrux]

Oh, that sucks.

[Ratcatcher]

including but not limited to: hunger, a bunch of races, cursed equipment, a bunch of spells and items, all references to slavery (because slavery is BAD), any reason to not use flying all the time if you have it, and in 0.29 I guess ammo is going too.

[WhiteShark]

Oh, that sucks.

There are forks that roll back some of these and add in other stuff, and you can always play on older versions. I haven't tried any of the forks though, so I can't give specific recommendations.

[Lucky]

I rarely play video games anymore (mostly started as a time issue and then later it was more a case of "I like the idea of playing a game more than actually playing one.")

Having said that, I have been messing around with ToME for a few days now and I must say it's a lot of fun. While I mostly play in short bursts, it's still the first game in a long time to really hold my interest and might actually get me back into the groove of playing other things. My longest living character was my first one, funny enough. Strong guy hit hard. Strong guy smash. Strong guy ran into a skeleton mage that kept using ice and killed quite quickly. Naturally, after that, I tried a mage. I'm now doing an archer character that is pretty fun, even if I haven't quite figured out how the marking system works.

[Incognito]

Spent about ~10 hours with Dead Cells a couple months ago. Got bored. While the graphics and mechanics are good, it didn't really grab me.

Started playing Curse of the Dead Gods but haven't put many hours into it yet.

[GothGirlSupremacy]

I heard that Hades was really good, and that even people who don't typically enjoy roguelikes might still like that game. I haven't got around to playing Hades yes, but it's on my list.

Ugliest art style I've ever seen for a game, faggy humor, "pet the dog so wholesome so cute", and the gameplay itself is whatever. Got lucky on the refund for it after putting in a passionate three paragraph essay on why it sucked to Lord Gaben and spent part of that money on a McDonald's egg-and-sausage McGriddle. No cheese though, I'm not some fat fuck.

I liked the Doom Roguelike. Waste your time on that one instead.

[Mystic_Sausage]

Played Crypt of the Necrodancer a lot, since I like rhytm games an it has awesome music and nice atmosphere in general.

Also tried a bit Binding of Issac. It has interesting item motives, but overall did not capture my attention for long.

[Dead]

Infra Arcana's experience system works well with its shock, insanity mechanics. You have to think about each step carefully to avoid getting into unnecessary fights, and to try find the shortest route for exploring as much of the floor as you can. This gives your character a sense of purpose, that you're there to find secrets, than just to kill monsters with a flimsy excuse.

One detail I liked was how lanterns reduce shock temporarily. How a commonplace object like that can reduce your shock implies the unnaturalness of the environment.

[Lucky]

I've been playing Zorbus lately

I played some of this today since I hadn't heard of it before this post and I like it so far. I thought it was too easy as I strolled around killing everything in my path except for the friendly elephant... Until I made it to the second level, opened a door, and got my face stomped in by orcs. Good times. I'm looking forward to playing some more.