August 10th, 2011 by Michał Bieliński
LambdaRogue
 There are two races dwelling on Earth. Mankind and Drekh’Nar. Friendly relations last long but finally a “good” reason to start fighting gets found and war erupts. There are many casualties on both sides. However, neither race had significant advantage until Drekh’Nar acquired the enchanted sword of mankind’s general from a traitor and cursed it. This act caused men to suffer a major defeat and soon they were forced to surrender. Price for losing the war was great: banishment to underground forever. LambdaRogue is a game about exploring locations deep within earth but at the same time shaping future of mankind.
 Play style of this roguelike is close to Angband’s. Dungeons are nonpersistent creating unlimited resources for player to scavenge thus inviting you to grind. However, this is not as simple. Difficulty of a given level is not constant. Killing enough monsters of given type will cause a stronger variant to spawn. Lost hit points do not regenerate naturally. You have to use health restoring consumables which cost you some credits. Early game is a race to get powerful enough as fast as possible in order to earn credits for food and medicine. Weaker characters are going to have tough time starting off. At times it will be more beneficial to descend to meet fresh strain of enemies because these new “basic” specimens will actually be weaker than toughened variants of currently fought monsters.
 An uncommon and controversial feature is ability to have game saved for a gold fee. Permadeath will claim the lot of your early characters but when you finally hit it big and afford life insurance the tension is no more. A streak of mistakes may force you to go back to earlier point in game but the cost is now insignificant. Life insurance cost increases linearly while your earnings do so quicker. Major roguelike defining point is harmed and decrease in challenge reflects this. Most important reason for going this way is LambdaRogue is primarily aiming to tell a story. If a promising character would get sliced by the grim reaper close to final game player may not return to know how all of this ends. Thus greater tolerance for errors.
 Major driving force of LambdaRogue are quests. Those provide story pieces and items crucial to game completion as rewards. Other ways to know more about the World of NeoTerr are to purchase text books from library or to discover them through mining. Certain professional ranks require a specific quest to be completed to obtain it. Other ranks need a certain skill set to be matched. A quest log is available. It lists all people who asked you for a favor by dungeon level.
 Among many facilities in town workshop stands out. Here player may drop items to have them disassembled for some resources like wood, metal and stone. Subsequently those may be used to create a powerful unique item. The problem is amounts required to do so. Only a fixed number of slain monsters will drop items on death. To collect needed quantity one effectively has to purchase cheap stuff from shops to disassemble. In effect resources become merely lots of credits. Exception is stone which is easily harvestable from plentiful rubble.
 LambdaRogue has gods. You choose one at character creation and may only interact with that deity. Other divine beings will contact you if they desire or … you actually met them. If you are good enough an opportunity for deicide may arise. A potentially grindy prayer mechanic allows one to make contact with patron deity. Every time you press ‘p’ it is counted as a single prayer. Remember to press it at least once or that one guy (or gal) up there will get angry at you. Fortunately sacrificing items on altar increases total prayer number by a considerable amount lessening the problem a bit. Still, expect to lean your finger on ‘p’ a few times.
 Recently it is popular among roguelikes to present players with graphical user interface to attract new players and ASCII for veterans. This is good unless those also bring different features impacting gameplay. Unfortunately LambdaRogue commits this sin. ASCII mode displays much larger map area allowing for pleasant exploration. SDL mode feels claustrophobic in comparison even with small tiles option set to true. However, it has minimap which marks NPCs if you have talked to them already and stairs if you have used them before. This greatly speeds up travel through places you have visited in the past. In ASCII you have to wander until you find what you are looking for or juggle interfaces. If you ascend it is worthwhile to watch ending sequence in graphical mode. Text alone just does not do it justice.
All in all LambdaRogue is successful as a medium to tell a compelling story without resorting to linear progress. With two functional interfaces veterans and newcomers alike will find it easy to get in. While not as replayable as most roguelikes it has passed 1.0 version milestone and is a complete game able to stand on its own.
Posted in Reviews, Roguelike Games | 1 Comment »
July 31st, 2011 by Darren Grey
Major News
Dwarf Fortress in New York Times
The famed dwarven fortress simulator, Dwarf Fortress, has become the subject of an in-depth article published in the New York Times. NY Times journallist Jonah Weiner has spent several days with Tarn and Zach Adams, analysing their lifestyles and quizzing them on their motivations to create the successful crowd-funded game. The article makes for a fascinating read, casting a light on some of the odd habits of the developers, but also digging into the joys of playing the game and what makes it so appealing to the fanbase. Dwarf Fortress is also now on display at the New York Museum of Modern Art’s “Talk to Me” exhibit, which runs to 7th November.
Dungeons of Dredmor top seller on Steam
The graphical roguelike Dungeons of Dredmor has gone on sale at Steam for $5, and has quickly amassed tens of thousands of sales, rocketing it briefly to the very top of the Steam sales charts. Reception of the game has been immensely positive, receiving a metacritic score of 81, with many reviewers praising its quirky humour, challenging gameplay, and accessible interface. The central gameplay features of permadeath and procedural content seem to be joyfully embraced by many. Could this be part of a roguelike renaissance…?
Nethack Summer Tournament Underway
Almost 300 players are now competing in the Nethack Summer Tournament, which runs from 17th July to 14th August. There’s still time to join in and horribly die on poisoned spike traps!
Expedition – call for playtesters
Veteran developer Slash is hoping to release a new version of Expedition soon, and has put out a call for playtesters. If you’re interested in helping out with a detailed roguelike centred around exploration and adventure then get in touch.
N900 roguelikes wiki
Got a Nokia N900 and want to play roguelikes whilst on the move? Well there’s now a wiki to help, with a list of 34 compatible titles and some tips on how to get them running.
New Roguelikes!
Dungeons of Dredmor – humorous graphical roguelike that pulls no punches on difficulty – available on Steam for $5
JADE – the much anticipated open world successor to ADOM, though with limited features at present
Legend of Siegfried – a feature-packed fantasy roguelike under fast development
Temple of Vengeance – martial arts themed roguelike
Vapors of Insanity – detailed game with many original systems and a choice of ASCII/graphics
Updated Games:
Upcoming in August:
Crawl 0.9 and Tournament
Crawl 0.9 has been billed for release around the first week of August, offering new features, content and interface niceties. Anticipation is also high for the now bi-annual Crawl tournament, which will be held 13th August to 28th August. Sigmund shall taste much blood…
ARRP Upcoming
Just seven weeks remain until the second Annual Roguelike Release Party, where developers are encouraged to stop fiddling about in the shadows and get some games out! New games or updates of existing titles are all welcome. The deadline for release is Sunday 18th September.
Cardinal Quest due soon
Keep your eyes peeled on tametick.com, as the graphical roguelike Cardinal Quest is due to come roaring out soon. The game was developed for the 4DRL challenge last October, and has since gained large reknown for amassing $4.8k from crowd-funding site 8bitfunding.com – the site’s first big success. Hopefully with its charming retro graphics and bleepy music Cardinal Quest can continue Dredmor’s success in spreading the fun of roguelike gameplay to the masses.
Know of any other news? Got anything you’d like featured next month? Post in the comments or on the forum.
Posted in Releases Wire | 2 Comments »
July 4th, 2011 by Michał Bieliński
Traction Edge
What would X-COM look if you left out non-battle phases? Have a look at Traction Edge. Version 0.1 is not much beyond technical demo but already gives you several officers to choose for each of three patrol missions. Your objective is to eliminate all opposition. Choose people with at least 10 points of strength. This allows to carry muskets which are much better than pistols.
 
You can just blaze through levels. Resistance is going to be small because enemy decision making capability is very limited. They act only if your agents remain in their view. Otherwise you are free to jump from behind an obstacle fire two snap shots point blank and hide again. After you kill last one mission is completed. If you explored fully last level but cannot see anything to shoot at destroy some walls. Surely some slither was placed inside stone.
 
Traction Edge was first released for ARRP 2010. Next version was announced to be revealed on ARRP 2011. To check out the game you need either to have OS X or compile from sources.
Posted in Reviews, Roguelike Games | No Comments »
June 30th, 2011 by Darren Grey
This is a new monthly article I’m starting, highlighting some of the goings on in the roguelike community and listing all of the releases from the last month, generally compiled from Planet Roguelike, Rogue Basin, the r.g.r.* newsgroups and the Temple of the Roguelike forums. If you have any suggestions of changes/improvements to the ongoing content, format or style then please post in the relevant thread on RogueTemple or in the comments below.
Major News
ARRP announcement
The 2011 Annual Roguelike Release Party will take place on the weekend of the 18th of September. All roguelike developers are encouraged to release updates to their games on this date, and to bring their hidden projects out of the shadows and into the hands of gamers. To enter simply release your game on the 18th of September – feel free to also declare your intentions in advance by listing your name on the RogueBasin wiki.
Desktop Dungeons at E3
The increasingly popular coffeebreak roguelike/puzzler Desktop Dungeons has appeared at E3 as part of IndieCade’s booth (following in the footsteps of Jeff Lait’s Smart Kobold last year). Pre-orders have now opened for the full paid version of the game at a discounted price. [Pictured on right: Desktop Dungeons is shown to the crowds at E3.]
New Roguelikes!
Infra Arcana – roguelike with a horror / Lovecraft theme
js-like – browser-based roguelike with inspiration from ADOM
Mysterious Castle – party-based game in beta for Windows, Linux, OSX and iOS
NarwhaRL – C++ roguelike at an early stage
tinyhack – a simple 8×8 square dungeon crawling game
Voyage to Farland – graphical roguelike for Android
Updated Games:
Upcoming in July:
JADE
All signs suggest that JADE 0.1.0 will be publicly released on July 2nd. It has been joked in the past that Thomas Biskup’s long-awaited sequel to ADOM would be released after Duke Nukem Forever – how surreal it all seems now! However it has been stressed that this will be a very low content release, unlikely to initially live up to the expectations of fans who have been waiting 13 years. [Pictured on right: An example of a randomly generated world map in JADE.]
Dungeons of Dredmor
Gaslamp Games have announced a distribution deal with Steam to release their game for $4.99, available June 13th. Dungeons of Dredmor will feature many roguelike mechanics (especially in its “Going Rogue” mode) with well-drawn graphics, original humour, unique ability and crafting systems, and very large eyebrows. The developers have also put up a number of teaser shots.
Legerdemain at Origins Games Fair
The roguelike/interactive fiction hybrid Legerdemain will be featuring at the Origins Games Fair from 22nd-26th June in booth #130. Merchandise and info on a new project will be available at Roguelikefiction’s stall, as well as an opportunity to say hi to the creators.
Know of any other news? Got anything you’d like featured next month? Post in the comments!
Posted in Releases Wire | No Comments »
April 8th, 2011 by Slash
The Honorable Evaluation Committee, courtesy of Ataraxia Theatre
With forty-six completed 7DRLs this year,
some people wonder how they will have time to play them all!
Fortunately, that is simple…
Just play about about 1.1304347826 a week for the next year.
For those less dedicated, a team of evaluators was assembled to give all the roguelikes a once-over. We graded the roguelikes under six categories using a simple three point scale. We ensured every roguelike was graded by at least two reviewers, and aimed for most to have three reviewers.
After a long week of playing, we present our results!
Check them out here, at Roguetemple’s 7DRL Shrine! http://www.roguetemple.com/7drl/2011/
The Honorable Members of the Committee
- @ Jeff Lait, Serf in Zincland
- @ Jice, Marquis of Doryen
- @ Ido Yehieli, Lord of Tametick
- @ Michael Curran, Knight Burzmali
- @ Michal Bielinski, Warrior of Ancient
- @ Darren Grey, Scholar of the roguelike world
- @ Slash, Priest of the Temple of Roguelike
This list is not meant to be an authoritative ranking of the games. If you dive in, you will see different reviewers often disagreed on the rankings.
Instead, it is a way for you to help select which 7DRLs are likely to have things of interest to you.
Specific comments were also written by reviewers. Note that these are criticism for the developer to better improve the game – please do not be unduly offended if they are nitpicky or consist of “I got killed by a ferret on the first screen”.
The categories are, with description of what a 3 means:
- Completeness: Bug free, polished game with no features that feel like they are missing.
- Aesthetics: Good looking, excellent controls and UI.
- Fun: If you try any 7DRLs, try this one.
- Innovation: Brings something fundamentally new to roguelikes.
- Scope: Beyond what you think could have been done in seven days.
- Roguelike: 3 means Roguelike, 2 means Roguelike-like, 1 means Not Roguelike. Each reviewer used their own personal definition here.
Thanks to all the members of the committee for their great efforts, we hope you enjoy it! Thanks to kaw too, for providing the tools to generate the results page.
Posted in 7DRL | 10 Comments »
March 23rd, 2011 by Slash
So, we now have a compiled list of all entries.
The Ancient Holy Roman 7DRL Evaluation Committee has already assembled and taken the daunting task of reviewing all successful entries, expect a detailed evaluation soonish!
In the meantime, stay tuned to templeoftheroguelike youtube channel, where we are posting videos of some of the entries.
Posted in 7DRL | 5 Comments »
March 16th, 2011 by Michał Bieliński
And so it was that 99 brave challengers entered the 2011 seven day roguelike challenge!
Of those, 46 returned alive, claiming to have a finished and playable game… Now it is your turn to judge!
The Newcomers (First 7DRL Challenge)
Experienced (2 7DRL Challenges)
Gentlemen (3-4 Challenges)
Singing, happy drunks (5+ Challenges)
Posted in 7DRL, contests | 20 Comments »
March 6th, 2011 by Michał Bieliński
The challenge has started! Many entrants declared start date and game title. Announcement thread is over seventy posts by now but there is still time to proclaim participation until end of March 6th. A success thread for victorious challengers is already created.
Visit http://7drl.org/ weblog to read how development struggle goes or to learn that other authors are also desperately tracking down a bad pointer reference on the 167th hour.
Posted in 7DRL, Challenges, Roguelike Development, Websites | No Comments »
February 21st, 2011 by Slash
Choose your champion and begin your quest to slay the Evil Minotauer!
Cardinal Quest is an arcade-style dungeon crawler inspired by 80s classics such as Gauntlet, Red-Box D&D and Golden Axe.
Posted in Indie Support | 4 Comments »
February 16th, 2011 by Slash
The 2011 7DRL Challenge, March 5 to 13
The time has almost come! Gather all your strengths and build a roguelike, be it your first one or your next one.
A good roguelike is an expression of pure gameplay: as a developer you can turn your ideas into games for the people to enjoy, without the constraints of 3d modeling or expensive graphics creation.
Developing a roguelike also allows you to portrait a theme within the limitations of abstract or simple gfx output, but having imagination as a tool to recreate infinite environments and stories
Summon your indie gamedev friends, be they roguedevs or not for this, the annual roguelike development party!
Links of interest:
Posted in 7DRL, Challenges, Roguelike Development | 6 Comments »
|
|
There are two races dwelling on Earth. Mankind and Drekh’Nar. Friendly relations last long but finally a “good” reason to start fighting gets found and war erupts. There are many casualties on both sides. However, neither race had significant advantage until Drekh’Nar acquired the enchanted sword of mankind’s general from a traitor and cursed it. This act caused men to suffer a major defeat and soon they were forced to surrender. Price for losing the war was great: banishment to underground forever. LambdaRogue is a game about exploring locations deep within earth but at the same time shaping future of mankind.
Play style of this roguelike is close to Angband’s. Dungeons are nonpersistent creating unlimited resources for player to scavenge thus inviting you to grind. However, this is not as simple. Difficulty of a given level is not constant. Killing enough monsters of given type will cause a stronger variant to spawn. Lost hit points do not regenerate naturally. You have to use health restoring consumables which cost you some credits. Early game is a race to get powerful enough as fast as possible in order to earn credits for food and medicine. Weaker characters are going to have tough time starting off. At times it will be more beneficial to descend to meet fresh strain of enemies because these new “basic” specimens will actually be weaker than toughened variants of currently fought monsters.
An uncommon and controversial feature is ability to have game saved for a gold fee. Permadeath will claim the lot of your early characters but when you finally hit it big and afford life insurance the tension is no more. A streak of mistakes may force you to go back to earlier point in game but the cost is now insignificant. Life insurance cost increases linearly while your earnings do so quicker. Major roguelike defining point is harmed and decrease in challenge reflects this. Most important reason for going this way is LambdaRogue is primarily aiming to tell a story. If a promising character would get sliced by the grim reaper close to final game player may not return to know how all of this ends. Thus greater tolerance for errors.
Major driving force of LambdaRogue are quests. Those provide story pieces and items crucial to game completion as rewards. Other ways to know more about the World of NeoTerr are to purchase text books from library or to discover them through mining. Certain professional ranks require a specific quest to be completed to obtain it. Other ranks need a certain skill set to be matched. A quest log is available. It lists all people who asked you for a favor by dungeon level.
Among many facilities in town workshop stands out. Here player may drop items to have them disassembled for some resources like wood, metal and stone. Subsequently those may be used to create a powerful unique item. The problem is amounts required to do so. Only a fixed number of slain monsters will drop items on death. To collect needed quantity one effectively has to purchase cheap stuff from shops to disassemble. In effect resources become merely lots of credits. Exception is stone which is easily harvestable from plentiful rubble.
LambdaRogue has gods. You choose one at character creation and may only interact with that deity. Other divine beings will contact you if they desire or … you actually met them. If you are good enough an opportunity for deicide may arise. A potentially grindy prayer mechanic allows one to make contact with patron deity. Every time you press ‘p’ it is counted as a single prayer. Remember to press it at least once or that one guy (or gal) up there will get angry at you. Fortunately sacrificing items on altar increases total prayer number by a considerable amount lessening the problem a bit. Still, expect to lean your finger on ‘p’ a few times.
Recently it is popular among roguelikes to present players with graphical user interface to attract new players and ASCII for veterans. This is good unless those also bring different features impacting gameplay. Unfortunately LambdaRogue commits this sin. ASCII mode displays much larger map area allowing for pleasant exploration. SDL mode feels claustrophobic in comparison even with small tiles option set to true. However, it has minimap which marks NPCs if you have talked to them already and stairs if you have used them before. This greatly speeds up travel through places you have visited in the past. In ASCII you have to wander until you find what you are looking for or juggle interfaces. If you ascend it is worthwhile to watch ending sequence in graphical mode. Text alone just does not do it justice.
