The Roguelike thread.

I would have to lean towards Shiren the Wanderer as well, though I really love Izuna also.

Found something fantastic:

http://roguelikedevelopment.org/archive/index.php

Here you can download the superior commercially released
(by epyx) color pc version of the original rogue.. that seems to work under Winxp Sp3 with no emulators or additional pains, even in a window! It has color and makes use of some additional characters instead of the pure black/white 128 ASCII marks making for a lot clearer presentation. A great simple yet deep game.

An excellent place to start for those with little or no experience with roguelikes.

If you download the "Rogue 1.49 by Epyx (DOS) - EpyxRogueDOS149.zip" make sure to first run the configuration utility and start the game with the .com not the .exe.


I think I see some serious shaders, HDR and bloom in there!


Oh yeah, and all companies involved in developing/publishin/marketing this game have long since vanished, so this is 100% abandonware.

Also, my favourite deep & complex & brutally hard roguelike, ragnarok now seems to work straight without emulators (thanks to SP3?) in XP. This game has nice clear colorfull graphics, so even you ASCII haters should try this.

This game is more for the rpg veterans who enjoy a real challenge and a truly different gaming experience with each try. (I haven't really gotten past the starting forest yet… )

http://members.chello.at/theodor.lau…s/ragnarok.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnarok_(video_game)

This game has been released by the author as freeware.

anyway to get ragnorak to run in vista??

Did you try to run it? I've got no vista so can't say.

Try the compatibility mode? There's a big chance that'll work.
And of course you can always just use dosbox.

Oh man, I remember playing Nethack back when it was just Hack on a PDP10. The death descriptions are great! Killed by an halluecengen (sp?) distorted kobold zombie. Killed by an iron ball. Killed by touching Stormbringer.

Gotta love a game where you can eat a tengu and catch teleportitis.

Some time ago I've discovered japanese RL Elona:
http://homepage3.nifty.com/rfish/index_e.html
I've been sceptical at first because of its J-RPG look but under the graphics is very deep and enjoyable roguelike game (you can buy your own house etc.) It's really worth a try.

I now can recommend Dwarf Fortress. Not a RPG (though there is an adventure mode), but a strategy game instead.

http://www.bay12games.com/

It is fun, and can be hilarious. I collapsed a roof down on most of my dwarves, and starved another bunch just for the sheer heck of it.

Got mad today though, it's in alpha so it's still buggy. And that wiped out an entire fortress for me.

Dwarf Fortress ? Try this … :
http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/searc…earchid=491880

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Dwarf Fortress ? Try this … :
http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/searc…earchid=491880

Sorry, no matches. Try different terms…

Ooops, seems the forum doesn't save searches for a longer time …
It was actually a search through thjese sub-forums with the term "dwarf fortress" as search criteria.

Yeah, DF is not a roguelike. It has ASCII graphics, sure. But that's about it.
And we have a metric f*ckton of DF discussion here in other threads
(Yeah I know, censoring the f-word (and censorship in general) is sad and silly, sorry about that, but for some reason I'm the only one on these forums not allowed to use that word )

Oh.. and everyone knows&Loves&plays DF already !

Originally Posted by txa1265
I would have to lean towards Shiren the Wanderer as well, though I really love Izuna also.

Shiren is amazing, for my liking it beats hard Adom but there's many littles features in Adom I regret not have in Shiren:
- Auto walk in Shiren stops only when you collide a monster or cross something. That's quite stupid in games like that and could make you dead quite fast. Auto walk should works like in Adom.
- I understand Shiren has graphics but anyway I wish I had a look command like in Adom.
- The beginning of Adom is incredibly diversified, it's quite important because it's the part you'll play the most and from far. I enjoyed a lot how Shiren beginning was much more easy but now it becomes a little tedious because the price seems to be a lack of random generation.
- Adom classes is an interesting feature I'd like have in Shiren.
- Adom warns you with some periodic messages of the main features in a level, like if there's a monster house and some other points. That wouldn't be hard to add to any roguelike and Shiren could benefit a lot of this feature.
- Adom pets or companions are almost useless but benefit of a polished design I wish Shiren had. For example you could give some orders to pets or companions or could use some items or spells on them and you could find an object to get more detailed information about them. Even if Shiren companions are more useful and not always a burden a designed a bit more detailed would have been great.
- Secrets seems to me much better designed and generated in Adom, eventually it's because I haven't yet understand the tricks around this in Shiren system.

That mentioned there's also many features I don't like in Adom and like in Shiren and that's why I prefer much more Shiren. Almost all in game hints in Adom are extremely obscure, so much that they are useless. Beside obscure hints Adom has also very few in game hints when compared to Shiren. Many mechanism in Adom lack of any logic and it's extremely difficult to remind them and often I had to check and check again the guide for the same tricks. Adom pets get a detailed design I wonder why such waste by having make them so useless, in Shiren they can be a burden but also can have a good use and won't die after the first fight like in Adom. The mini secondary stories that slowly evolves in Shiren if a quite cool feature. Well Shiren graphics are cute and that's a plus even if it's less important for the core gameplay.