@ Roguelike games

So Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead isn't a new game and there's not a new update but I had an urge to try it out again after something like 5 years. Oh its just SO good. It's got great tilesets (Im using Undead People), and the feature set is just so very deep.

I've been trying to start as a sort of a Ninja. During character creation I pick Black Belt as my profession and Tiger Claw fighting style. I take strength points, and then I take a tough starting scenario like Burning Building and some disadvantages like Bad Knees to give balance out the points I spent.

These scenarios start you in the middle of a huge city that is absolutely crawling with zombies. A semi-recent addition to the game is Z levels (as in up/down) so after 4 tries just trying to get out of the city, I climb onto a roof and wait till dark. This most recent attempt I was the closest to succeeding (just getting out of the city to actually start 'the game') I found a truck in great condition in the dark spent some time sneaking to and from nearby houses to stock it up, and manage to hotwire it (I started with Mechanics 2, as well, because modifying cars is awesome)

The car alarm goes off! I havent found a single truck with a working security system until now! So its dark and now zombies are rushing right for me. I peel out of down, crashing over several zombies, breaking one of my headlights in the process. I even have to let go of the wheel while it's going 20mph and punch a few zombies that jumped on (I didnt know this game could do that!) I just want to stop for the night and get my character some rest so I stop the truck near what looks like a boarded up cabin, unhook the car battery so it'll stop the alarm, break into the house, stumble directly into a bed in the pitch black and sleep till morning.

In the morning I start exploring the house and open the door. GHOSTS!?! There are ghosts in this game?! There's like 8 of them including a giant one. I dont even try fighting them I just run. Thankfully they're afraid of the sunlight and they stay in the house. I hook the truck battery back up and peel off again. There's basically no path for a truck so I have to skirt the edges of the town in a noisy car in broad daylight. I dont know the map so Im just driving and looking for any path out of the city. In the process of dodging zombies and other cars and lightposts and trees I end up crashing with a horde bearing down on me and I just give up, I'll try another Ninja again (immediately because this game is so much fun)

+1 for Cataclysm: DDA. I haven't played it in years, but there is nothing else like it.

It's going to be online this year, which is a great opportunity if you've never been able to make it to one in person.

Gremlin wrote:

It's going to be online this year, which is a great opportunity if you've never been able to make it to one in person.

My thoughts exactly. It starts at 3am here but might “go” anyway.

The Hades discussion on the Nintendo Switch games thread got me thinking about rogue-likes as a genre, and this thread seems like a better home for that tangent.

ccesarano wrote:

Is [Hades] a rogue-like or rogue-lite? It sounds like you aren't 100% reset on every death. I know there's the "God Mode" people discuss, but even before that was brought up I feel like people were discussing elements that allow you to continue to grow stronger somewhat.

By the terms you've described, it's rogue-lite-lite because not only is there advancement, but the runs are all in continuity with one another. Characters remember successes and failures and will comment on them later.

Then again it's also possible to toggle off most of the advancements and difficulty options, so you can do a full mechanical reset if you like. But not entirely... there's one category of upgrade that I don't think can be rolled back. Though that's got a tree structure and it's awfully difficult to max out everything there so you could probably select a branch that was still at zero.

Anyway, I'd argue that all rogue-descended games have metagame advancement. The only difference between "like" and "lite" is whether that advancement comes from the player learning the systems or whether some of it is codified in the software. Nethack becomes a very different game when you know which monsters you want to hunt and eat. Putting metagame bonuses in the software makes that advancement more visible. It makes it easier for a player to see how that's part of the game. The explicit scaffolding makes it easier to advance.

In-software advancement systems can feel quite different, and feelings are important in entertainment. But I don't think those systems actually chance the structure of the game in a fundamental way.

I think the distinction between the in-the-game metagame advancement and the player-knowledge metagame advancement is a useful one, and lines up with some other stuff I've been thinking about.

Oh, it's super useful. And very real.

My main arguments are:

  • It's not as big a difference as it first appears.
  • The trend towards building meta-game advancement onto the software is true to the spirit of the genre and not some great betrayal.

You know how Dive Kick lets everyone see the same timing and spacing game that advanced Street Fighter players experience? In-software metagame advancement systems do a bit of that for rogue-likes.

I've slowly been sucked into the Roguelike vortex, and amid all the definitions and subdued bickering, I have to say, this is a tremendously fruitful time for the genre. More than enough Roguelikes of all types and descriptions to keep anyone busy for years. I just intend to enjoy the ones I like for as long as I can. But I keep finding new ones, and i have to give them a nice home with the others....

One of the bigger patches I've seen for Caves of Qud today, lots of work done on the Mutations. Some more work on the new UI, too:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/333...

Robear wrote:

I've slowly been sucked into the Roguelike vortex, and amid all the definitions and subdued bickering, I have to say, this is a tremendously fruitful time for the genre. More than enough Roguelikes of all types and descriptions to keep anyone busy for years. I just intend to enjoy the ones I like for as long as I can. But I keep finding new ones, and i have to give them a nice home with the others.... :-)

I'm curious which ones you've been giving new homes to, and which ones you are enjoying.

There's Demon, of course, and Cogmind, both local faves lol. Noita, Armoured Commander 2, Dungeonmans, Jupiter Hell, Slay the Spire and Monster Train (kind of RL?), and I keep trying to get into Caves of Qud. Those are the big ones for me.

I spent a couple hours with Going Under last night, a roguelite where you play as an unpaid intern at a startup that was just acquired by an Amazon-type company, and despite being hired for a marketing position you are instead sent into the basement offices to raid all the failed startups that preceded yours. Gameplay is pretty standard yet enjoyable, but what really sells it are the aesthetics and biting late capitalism office satire.

I have been getting enjoyment out of Iratus: Lord of the Dead lately. Scratching the itch, so to speak.

Quick comments on a few games to tag myself in the thread. Mostly all Roguelike-adjecent, but I think they belong here. While I'm currently playing most of these on PC, my primary platform for these sort of games is definitely the Nintendo Switch (Gungeon, Deadcells, Slay the Spire etc.)

Monster Train

This is genuinely incredible, and I feel like it's slipping under a lot of people's radars. There was a bit of interest at launch, but they've just released a massive content update with an extra hero for each faction. I find myself firing this up almost daily just to poke around and build fun combinations. The first win was easy, but playing on "covenant 1" (this game's version of ascension), the difficulty is far greater.

It's the ONLY game to come close to Slay the Spire. Whereas Slay the Spire is perfectly balanced in almost all ways, Monster Train feels broken beyond belief, but so is everything so it becomes balanced in it's being so over-the-top. Absolutely brilliant game.

BPM: Bullets Per Minute

It's DOOM meets Crypt of the Necrodancer. The music is great, and so is the gamefeel. It's rough around the edges and feels like it comes from an amateur team, but they really struck gold in the execution. A bit surprise this year, and it will be on my GOTY list.

Last Evil

Ok stay with me...What if Slay the Spire but sexy? It's a bit too much in the Hentai genre for me, and it makes me uncomfortable with it's sexualisation of things (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this game fumbles it). BUT it's a very competent Slay the Spire clone with some of it's own strategic wrinkles. Different resources to manage, a persistent skill-tree that you upgrade between games, and some genuinely good card/artifact combos. It's better than it looks, and I'd like to see more "adult" games with this level of gameplay.

Tangledeep

On of the few traditional-ish roguelikes I've been playing on Switch. It's got a lot of charm the music is GREAT , and I adore the different classes (Floramancer?! so cool), but there's something about it making it difficult for me to keep at it. It lacks..excitement? I feel like I'm playing the classes the same way every single run. Perhaps I'm not yet understanding the systems.

Noita

Has totally failed to grab me as well. Again, I need to spend more time with it, but I haven't had that urge to fire it back up again. I do find there's an initial hurdle with the non-deckbuilding roguelikes that I need to get over before I have fun, but I haven't quite hit that yet. Looking forward to when it clicks, but I'm not sure when that will be.

Hades

God DAMN. That is all.

_______________

Closing thoughts, it feels like a wonderful time for procedurally generated single run games, but (at least on Nintendo Switch), there seems to be far fewer traditional style roguelike games releasing. My absolute favourite in the genre is Dungeons of Dredmor, and I'd love to see a few more games like that on the platform. I find the "pure" roguelike games a bit hard to understand, but DoD had a great balance of difficulty and accessibility.

A_Unicycle wrote:

Hades

God DAMN. That is all.

It's amazing. I can't play anything else all week.

Tangledeep is a great game mired by a lack of gameplay speed refinement. It has so much good going on, but plays out in a somewhat tedious way. I've never been able to place exactly where they could've tightened things up, but I'd welcome a Tangledeep 2 that somehow tightens the dungeon exploration and combat.

I guess I should include Stoneshard, too?

The genre has really expanded over the decades since I first tried Rogue and its clones.

I got on the Monster Train. So good. I think it helps to feel really powerful, to get some ridiculous combos. They can beat you down at the higher ranks Im sure but I got a win on my 2nd run and it felt good.

Edit: 86% of players have defeated Seraph, a final boss in normal mode. In Slay the Spire, 72% of players have 'unlocked ascension mode' which I think basically has the same requirement. So they're actually not as different as I expected. Im willing to bet StS requires more runs on average to get there but players are more persistent than I thought.

Just a reminder (or perhaps first-time information) that the Roguelike Celebration is happening online this year this weekend! (10/3-10/4/2020)

I've always wanted to go, but heading out to the west coast wasn't really feasible, so I've watched several of their talks on their YouTube channel and really enjoyed them!

https://roguelike.club/

Roguelike Celebration wrote:

The conference will take place on October 3 and 4 virtually. All talks will be live-streamed on Twitch for free. A ticket gets you additional access to our custom social space and all of the other conference activities such as unconferencing, the arcade, and more.

Tickets are Pay-What-You-Can. We recommend $30 per ticket, but it is completely reasonable to pay less – or nothing! – if you can't afford it. We know things are tough right now. All ticket revenue goes towards providing live captions, paying speaker honorariums, and providing AV equipment for speakers who need it.

(I am not affiliated in any way to this convention, just an enthusiast like the rest of us here! )

polypusher wrote:

I got on the Monster Train. So good. I think it helps to feel really powerful, to get some ridiculous combos. They can beat you down at the higher ranks Im sure but I got a win on my 2nd run and it felt good.

Edit: 86% of players have defeated Seraph, a final boss in normal mode. In Slay the Spire, 72% of players have 'unlocked ascension mode' which I think basically has the same requirement. So they're actually not as different as I expected. Im willing to bet StS requires more runs on average to get there but players are more persistent than I thought.

Absolutely agree. You always feel like you're making a cool combo, and feeling powerful is fun!

I beat the game on my first or second sitting, and while I was initially upset that it seemed so easy, the difficulty ramps up a lot as you ascend the ranks. I'm still trying to get a win on Covenant 1 (first difficulty up from normal) and have only come close 2 or 3 times in 17 hours of play.

I've started doing a run a day, minimum, and I'm learning the proper synergies. I'm loving the combination of Melting Remnant (candle folks) and Stygian Guard (spellcasters).

Just a reminder (or perhaps first-time information) that the Roguelike Celebration is happening online this year this weekend! (10/3-10/4/2020)

I've always wanted to go, but heading out to the west coast wasn't really feasible, so I've watched several of their talks on their YouTube channel and really enjoyed them!

Ooh! I'll have to tune in. While not deep into the classic Roguelikes, they scene really interests me! Sounds like an interesting watch.

quasiChaos wrote:

Just a reminder (or perhaps first-time information) that the Roguelike Celebration is happening online this year this weekend! (10/3-10/4/2020)

Will be trying to get up at 3am Australia time to watch D:

I spent some time playing Monster Train tonight on my iPad via the Steam Link app. It was nearly perfect once I set controls to Direct Input. Damn near plays like a native iOS app. A little choppy even with my very good home WiFi, but not disruptive.

I've tried playing it on my Galaxy S8 and it's pretty damn good. I'm surprised the Steam Link app isn't getting more attention!

And speaking of Monster Train, I finally got my Covenant 1 win. I was using the unlockable melting remnant character. I went down the upgrade path that gave it endless and +75 attack (scaling) every time it died, then I picked up an artifact that doubled all on-death effects. Things got nutty fast.

I feel quite strongly that Melting Remnant are one of the stronger factions now, but I need to go back and try the others as primary for a while.

Okay Dead Cells; I get it. I don't have the Bad Seed DLC. I know it's suppose to be random but I seem to run into a pathway I can't go down and burn precious time a lot.

I like you and I will purchase it but still grumble a little bit about It.

Epyx Rogue (the one I played on my Tandy 1000 as a kid) is coming to Steam:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/202...
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1...

Not sure it adds anything of value over the copy I've had running in DOSBox for years. /shrug

JohnKillo wrote:

Okay Dead Cells; I get it. I don't have the Bad Seed DLC. I know it's suppose to be random but I seem to run into a pathway I can't go down and burn precious time a lot.

I like you and I will purchase it but still grumble a little bit about It.

How much have you played? I don’t think the DLC adds new runes; if you can’t go down a path, you haven’t unlocked the thing that will let you do so.

Played a decent amount. Picked it up again and notice that you can get lead down to the DLC entrance area without letting you enter. It doesn't announce itself until you get to the Dead body with a note. A few seconds and you can easily not get under the two min mark to the first door.

Noita 1.0 has released! Graphics update, daily practice game mode added, apparently lots of new skills and events, all sorts of goodness. I'm enjoying it still.

Has anyone tried Ring of Pain? I'm itching for more turn-based roguey games on Switch and it popped up today. I tried the PC demo and it's...very weird. Looks like some decent decision making but also fairly heavy on RNG. Quite streamlined. I can't really decide whether I like it or not - even though I love card-based games. Not sure I'd consider it purely a card game though. It's almost like Reins meets Slay the Spire?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/9...

Robear wrote:

Noita 1.0 has released! Graphics update, daily practice game mode added, apparently lots of new skills and events, all sorts of goodness. I'm enjoying it still.

Excellent! I'll have to drop in and poke around some more.

Well, Ring of Pain certainly looks unique in its approach. Wishlisted. Curious how soon that uniqueness wears off.