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.
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
Adding to what @Grenfur@lemmy.one 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.Been a while since I’ve played spelunky, is the tunnel man the shortcut to later levels? Because it exists in Shiten the Wanderer and it’s definitely still a roguelike. There are small deviations, like this, unlocking companions and keeping a storage room with limited access, but everything else is pretty straightforward roguelike.
That’s the thing in the end, no clear definition exists. The “Berlin interpretation” is just a bunch of guidelines, and even the most “roguelikes” of roguelikes deviate a bit from it (stuff like “no modes” is even broken by 3 out of 5 games the interpretation considers “canon”).
Personally I consider real time to be a bit of a stretch, but yeah, stuff like spelunky or crypt of the necrodancer blur the line.
Not Hades and Dead Cells though. I love them, but they feel way too different to play for me to consider them the same genre.
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).
I really liked SPD because it felt like I could (eventually) approach 100% win rate, and the bad luck just made things more interesting. In that game, it’s not about what you’ve got so much as when you use it; and careful tile movement. Playing each room like a chess game and not a dungeon crawler was a fun way to play.
It does feel a bit chess-like but I feel like even 50% win rate is probably spreadsheet-level math or even digging into the code to understand mechanics better. Looking at the information given to the player, I am not sure how effective some perks are late-game especially (like the 1 point of shielding stuff), and even when trying certain classes it seems like one is usually objectively better (or at least more straightforward/reliable).
To me it seems more like blackjack because the card I uncover could allow more rounds (not unveiling it is a loss) or it could make me lose right then anyway. But it’s also a game of attrition so some actions seem to just delay the inevitable. Also 1 game already takes hours so I’d rather not prolong it.
If it were my choice, I’d add multiple ways to identify equipment organically(/one-offs, grouped) and more quickly rather than just only having scrolls/equipping (maybe even a new NPC that’d work based on what you sell to them)… similar with equipped cursed stuff (potion effects, something with shopkeeper, or some option to destroy cursed item). Sad ghost’s rewards would give info when picking OR it’d boost similar equipment (identify, de-curse, and +1) rather than giving you a dupe/lesser version. Situational ways to reveal things (such as the ability to use an unidentified scroll of rage at the sacrificial fire). Last unidentified potion/scroll should automatically identify (or allow you to do so via journal).
Information/curses aside, I’d make alchemize give free sales on shop floors (free energy conversion on alchemy pot floors). Crossbow would come with a few free darts (similar to 1+1 free)
Oh yep I see the longer reply. Yes there was at least a month of reading the subreddit and wiki every day before I got to that level, but for me the learning was fun. Would not recommend spending all that time and energy unless it’s part of the fun. For people that watch streams, I’d expect there’s a good educational one, I don’t watch streams though.
More ways to identify is a good example; there’s several methods of explosion to destroy gear that isn’t +1: bombs, explode rune, dungeon trap. Custom rooms will guarantee one of the potions on the same level is the solution to that room. The number of strength potions per dungeon type is fixed (3?). The ? rune is good once you use that meta-info to increase your odds of a good potion guess. Wands are generally safer to ID, just don’t be on something flammable or water.
Wands are pretty overpowered, and you can recharge em by throwing them into an activated electricity trap, or the energy ring. The way rings become overpowered in their own way as you feed upgrades into them is another aspect of replayability.
I have won at least 5 times (with many losses) so basic knowledge isn’t my issue.
Potions/scrolls identification isn’t so bad (still a bit tedious), it feels like a puzzle (and can be to your advantage) even though I don’t really like the meta-ness of it. Wands identification is fine, except for when it curses your worn equipment. I also hate how some rewards can still be cursed.
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!
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.
Rogue Fable is excellent! Definitely a good intro to the Genre for more casual play.
Speaking of, if you like more casual RLs, check out The Ground Gives Way or Path of Achra.
TGGW is a coffee break RL. Meant to be played in small 15-20 min bites. Simple, yet effective.
PoA is a RL almost entirely built on character theory crafting. The actual RL play can be done with 1-2 buttons most of the time. The character and build creation is… a lot lol. But if you’re into theory crafting and build variety its a great time.
Thanks, I’ve downloaded TGGW (https://www.thegroundgivesway.com/download/ for those curious) and will try it soon.
It would be nice to have another background game. Currently, it’s basically Rogue Fable III or Slay the Spire and very rarely something else.
Added PoA to my wishlist for later.
StS is glorious. It’s one of the few games I’ve 100% on Steam. Definitely on my top 10 list.
Same. I usually don’t play to win (casual player, as I said), but I did put in the effort to get all achievements and beat the heart at ascension 20 at some point.
The mods in particular give it staying power (and usually make it a bit easier/more absurd for casual play).
