Roguelike Mega Collection - 700+ free games

I had an amazing idea for a proper RPG rogue-like, but the more I thought about it, the more it turned into just a real-life sim, but in a fantasy setting

"Keep running errands for the Baker? Become employed by the Baker. Level-up into a professional Baker. Oh look, 1000 hours into the game and not got out the city yet"

I've played through a lot of roguelikes and I definitely agree that Dungeon Crawl and TOME are the best. They are quite different though. TOME is very deep, and I love how differently the classes play from each other, and how complicated some are. But playthroughs are also much longer, which can be issue because like all roguelikes, you will be dying a lot. This can make it seem more repetitive, although the incredible variety in classes helps a lot. The metagame of unlocking new classes is exciting too, because the classes are so interesting.

Crawl is much simpler. It has a fair amount of depth, but compared to TOME it's much more straightforward. Crawl runs are much faster, and there's not so much lore or story. This makes starting over much less painful, it's more of a quick fast dungeon run where you try to do the best you can.

I briefly tried out one of the earlier ones many years ago (maybe Angband?) and couldn't get into it. Didn't really grok the gameplay either. That changed only recently with the roguelike-like FTL, which made me realize that premature permadeath doesn't have to be the end of all things in games and makes for a comfortably suspenseful experience. And of course there's the high replay value.

Now, which one would you guys recommend as as lunch break game? I already tried the flash version of The Enchanted Cave 2, which was pretty fun. Any others?

Originally Posted by Ivanwah
Yes really. It's just that other games tend to be more forgiving and, due to their high amount of randomness, success in roguelikes is more dependent on luck than in other games. I can't count how many times my party got wiped because a powerful enemy scored a critical hit in Baldur's Gate for example.

Why is my alarm yelling again?

No. And no.
I can also count how many times my whole party got wiped because of random generator and not because of my party stats&abilities or because a scripted event.
None.

Playing cards and playing chess is not the same thing. BG is not roguelike, never was.
And somewhere else, to avoid the huge impact of luck possible from dice, people invented rulesets.
Meanwhile, on roulette, you win or you lose your house. But it's not a game. It's gambling.

I wish someone did a research what type of people buy Star Trek Online, Mass Effect 3 and DA3 boxes that are plain luck and gamble. Wouldn't surprise me it's only those who adore roguelikes.

Originally Posted by joxer
Why is my alarm yelling again?

No. And no.
I can also count how many times my whole party got wiped because of random generator and not because of my party stats&abilities or because a scripted event.
None.

Playing cards and playing chess is not the same thing. BG is not roguelike, never was.
And somewhere else, to avoid the huge impact of luck possible from dice, people invented rulesets.
Meanwhile, on roulette, you win or you lose your house. But it's not a game. It's gambling.

I wish someone did a research what type of people buy Star Trek Online, Mass Effect 3 and DA3 boxes that are plain luck and gamble. Wouldn't surprise me it's only those who adore roguelikes.

Are you saying roguelikes don't have rulesets? Because they do. They might not be as balanced as something like D&D, and that is understandable because they are mostly made by one person or a very small team. I admit, the roguelike (or I should say roguelite) I played the most is Pixel Dungeons on Android. It's pretty low on stats but, they're there. What I noticed is that I would always go further in the game if I managed to find a good weapon or armor early on. Also, I figured out which enemies are stronger than me so I could avoid them on early levels. And wouldn't you know it, if I attacked or got attacked by them when I was a higher level, I actually managed to defeat them. And they became even easier to defeat as I progressed. Rats, who would sometimes kill me (I'm not very good, but that's not the point) on level one, became one-hit-kill on level five.

And I never said Baldur's Gate was a roguelike. I was actually contrasting it with roguelikes. Maybe your frustration with roguelikes comes from the fact that most of them (and some would say it's the main feature of roguelikes) have permadeath. So, in the situation in Baldur's Gate where you face a powerful enemy that can instakill you, you would reload the game and make a mental note not to go there until you are level or two higher. You don't get that in roguelikes. You either die and have to start over, or you manage to escape and hope you don't encounter that enemy again until you are level or two higher. Underlying system in both is almost the same, it's the execution and consequences that differ.

As for cards vs chess, I would classify both RPGs and roguelikes as something in between, with RPGs leaning more on the chess side and roguelikes more on the cards side.

Arhu I'd suggest Dungeons of Dredmor and Sword of the Stars The Pit. Dredmor is light and fun and has been modded up so that adds more to the base game. SotS The Pit is one of the few sci-fi roguelikes I've come across. Both are fairly simple, good graphics for roguelikes and fun. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup has like 30 different races, 15 or so classes and is very challenging but fun also and the base game is free. DoD and SotS The Pit are fairly cheap on Steam.

I was really looking forward to Dredmore but I just couldn't get into it. I just felt that the pacing was really poor. Sword of the Stars:The Pit on the other hand is a very good game. It may be the only mainstream true roguelike that actually comes close to the free ones. It's more along the lines of Dungeon Crawl, where it's a simpler roguelike with good pacing.

I was a huge fan of Desktop Dungeons. You could argue if it really counts as a roguelike, but it definitely counts as a good coffee break game. And it's fairly deep, much more so than it originally appears.

Originally Posted by joxer
Why is my alarm yelling again?

I wish someone did a research what type of people buy Star Trek Online, Mass Effect 3 and DA3 boxes that are plain luck and gamble. Wouldn't surprise me it's only those who adore roguelikes.

I gather you are trying to infer that those who "adore" roguelikes prefer games that you perceive as dumbed down? Wow… You really do fancy yourself an elitist eh? I don't even know what to say to that illogical train of thought.

SotStP is a fun roguelike, and yeah quite rare in that it is the only Sci-fi themed one I can think of besides maybe NEO Scavenger. I found myself dying of starvation too often in The Pit. I haven't played many of the new DLC classes yet though.

+1 for SotS:TP. I'm not a huge fan of roguelikes, but that game is a blast.

Have been playing lots of Shattered Dungeon on my Android in my coffee break lately. Amazing little rogue like, very intuitive with a good GUI (fully supports touchscreen). Very shallow compared to other rogue likes, even the rogue likes lite like IVAN but still very addictive.

I have played ADOM in the past but never got really far into it. Still an amazing game. But once I realized that to proceed further I have to game the system it kinda lost its appeal.

Liberal Crime Squad is something that I haven't seen mentioned here yet. It's a…kinda rogue like. You manage a squad of liberal terrorists and you have to stop the republican agenda. Any way possible. From gaining funds by prostitution, drug dealing, bank robberies, to causing nuclear reactor meltdowns, all there. Quite easy GUI as well.

Originally Posted by Cronis
Out of curiosity is there such thing as a group/party based roguelike? Or is that counter to the genre? Would love to try that type of game out if there is such a thing, does anyone know?

Hero Siege has multiplayer. I think it can be parties of 4.

Originally Posted by JDR13
+1 for SotS:TP. I'm not a huge fan of roguelikes, but that game is a blast.

So, I went and picked up The Pit based off the glowing reviews in this thread. Looked like something I'd enjoy for sure. I feel like I should offer a counter opinion now based off my experience.

Started off very excitedly but after getting to around floor 8 on hard a few times I've decided the game is a piece of crap.

Every map is the same. No prefabs. it's all Rooms with objects you need a skill to interact with and doors with traps. Awful exploration.

All the millions of materials you find are for crafting but finding the recipes is SLOW and if your class has poor computers/foraging you wont find any.

Carry space is tied to strength making life a pain for everyone else.

The starting classes are the most unbalanced Ive seen in any game. Levelups mean nothing compared to starting stats. There's very little tailoring you can do. Want to go your own unique style of marine who is a computer expert? GOOD LUCK WITH THAT. You'll get 1 to 3 points a level making it useless to start with and useless while leveling it as fast as you can and it will just never catch up in time. Char select doesn't even show important things like movement speed or the varying(?!) points classes get on level up.

The first 5 levels drag, as the only strategy involves not using your ammo or armour early game, and then it gets hard too fast relative to power that character levelups give you… So there's this BLUE ROOM. It's like all the shit balance in the game is made up for by doing the 5 boring levels naked, stashing your gear and XP then getting a head start hopefully powerful enough to go on. This room is like your guarantee of rubbish balance they have no idea how to fix.

I'm not saying it's impossible to win from the start but you'll need the wiki for recipes and/or some RNG luck on drops in that first 5 boring levels and I can't be fucked playing thru 5 easy maps, watching the loading bar for every search, just to get to the end and go "hmmmm, i found fuck all. Stash all my stuff in blueroom and reroll".

It's just such a mess. I did get a few hours out of it feeling very optimistic, but it just doesn't go anywhere and I really couldn't recommend it.

Been playing ADoM for many years - like 20+ (wow). Started with Amulet of Yendor on floppy disk when I was a teenager and then Hack and Nethack. Have tried many but not particularly obsessively. ToME and ADoM are my favourites. Have dabbled with Stone Soup but not really played it yet, same with SotS:TP - so many games so little time. DoomRL is kinda fun too.

I like roguelikes for the randomness and the occasional brutal results that ensue. I also like the little intricacies of the games that give you options to solve problems or improve your PC. Stuff like dipping items in potions or greasing yourself to get rid of cursed items or eating creatures to get special effects etc etc. I also like them because you don't necessarily have (or get) to spend hours and hours playing a character. You can get a lot done in an hour or two as opposed to "real" rpg's that take dozens of hours to complete.


-kaos

The only rogue-like I've ever played was Rogue. It was a rare pleasure back then. Now it seems so archaic. Too much luck, too little player skill.

Originally Posted by SirJames
So, I went and picked up The Pit based off the glowing reviews in this thread. Looked like something I'd enjoy for sure. I feel like I should offer a counter opinion now based off my experience.

*Snip*

It's just such a mess. I did get a few hours out of it feeling very optimistic, but it just doesn't go anywhere and I really couldn't recommend it.

Well, first of all, you barely scratched the surface if you only played it for a few hours. I also get the impression that you don't have much prior experience with roguelikes. RNGs, and randomness in general, are a big part of the genre.

Your frustration is easy to understand if you were trying to play on Hard difficulty as you say. It's not meant to be played on Hard for newcomers. Even the normal difficulty is pretty tough, and the Easy setting is basically equal to the average difficulty of most other games.

I tried Tome v4 and it is really cool game. Got owned by a group of rogues when I went down into their lair with a lvl 12 or so barbarian

Originally Posted by SirJames
So, I went and picked up The Pit based off the glowing reviews in this thread. Looked like something I'd enjoy for sure. I feel like I should offer a counter opinion now based off my experience.

Started off very excitedly but after getting to around floor 8 on hard a few times I've decided the game is a piece of crap.

Every map is the same. No prefabs. it's all Rooms with objects you need a skill to interact with and doors with traps. Awful exploration.

All the millions of materials you find are for crafting but finding the recipes is SLOW and if your class has poor computers/foraging you wont find any.

Carry space is tied to strength making life a pain for everyone else.

The starting classes are the most unbalanced Ive seen in any game. Levelups mean nothing compared to starting stats. There's very little tailoring you can do. Want to go your own unique style of marine who is a computer expert? GOOD LUCK WITH THAT. You'll get 1 to 3 points a level making it useless to start with and useless while leveling it as fast as you can and it will just never catch up in time. Char select doesn't even show important things like movement speed or the varying(?!) points classes get on level up.

The first 5 levels drag, as the only strategy involves not using your ammo or armour early game, and then it gets hard too fast relative to power that character levelups give you… So there's this BLUE ROOM. It's like all the shit balance in the game is made up for by doing the 5 boring levels naked, stashing your gear and XP then getting a head start hopefully powerful enough to go on. This room is like your guarantee of rubbish balance they have no idea how to fix.

I'm not saying it's impossible to win from the start but you'll need the wiki for recipes and/or some RNG luck on drops in that first 5 boring levels and I can't be fucked playing thru 5 easy maps, watching the loading bar for every search, just to get to the end and go "hmmmm, i found fuck all. Stash all my stuff in blueroom and reroll".

It's just such a mess. I did get a few hours out of it feeling very optimistic, but it just doesn't go anywhere and I really couldn't recommend it.

I like The Pit, but I can't completely disagree with some of what you've said. Recipes are a bit clumsy, character development is limited, and the first few levels are kind of dull.

Mostly what I like about the game is the pacing. Sure the first few levels are dull, but they are fast. I think around lvl 3 or 4 you start to be in real danger, and the levels get a bit more interesting, but they are still fast. Overall I find it to be a good mix of speed and difficulty, which is a hard thing to accomplish in a roguelike. Really only Dungeon Crawl does it as well.

I do disagree though that exploration is boring, there are a reasonable number of interesting things to find in rooms especially as you get deeper. I also like the themed rooms, like the security rooms, manufacturing rooms, medical rooms, etc. They add a lot of flavor that you don't always see in a roguelike.

I've also found skills to be a little easier to develop then you say, just because they go up through practice. Sure a marine is never going to be an amazing computer user, but that seems fair given everything else he can do. There are also tools you can find that can give you a big boost there. I never really felt like the blue room was essential either, I don't think it was even added to the game until the expansion (?) It's just a way to skip some of the early levels every once in awhile. I rarely used it myself.