@BlackLagoon: He did it AROUND the time of the Skyrim marathon, but I don't know if it was precisely then or not. Look through justin.tv archives in that period.
But the funniest part was, he played the version immediately BEFORE it got a huge graphical update, and any livestream footage of Dave looks super primitive, even as the game has advanced. Since it's free, like all true roguelikes, I suggest you check it out at te4.org.
Not to gush on ToME, but some of its classes are crazy - my last guy was a Solipsist who threw enemies into waking nightmares and blasted them apart with his mindpower.
Since it's free, like all true roguelikes, I suggest you check it out at te4.org.
Heh, I was mainly interested in seeing Dave play. For my self, Angband's got me covered. I dig it out every couple of years, never finished it, but one day Morgoth, one day... If I were to stray, it'll probably be NetHack. That seems to be what all the cool kids are into.
@BlackLagoon: Actually, all the action on 4chan and Reddit is for DCSS's just-launched v0.11 update. Well, that and NetHack are usually both the big topics.
People really need to stop equating "not scripted" and "permadeath" with roguelikes. Particularly the latter.
XCOM is not a fucking roguelike. Man, it'd be crazy if it was, but god dammit this is a very specific classification you're diluting. It's like calling Call of Duty a First Person Adventure.
I've downloaded Spelunky, but I'm too tired to try it out tonight. I've been trying to wrap my head around why people would play a game with permadeath, and maybe this will help.
With the hardware/driver/upgrade issues I'd always stayed away from PC gaming until last year, after seeing the QLs for Dredmor and Isaac, I got a steam account and trieed a few freeware RLs such as Spelunky and DoomRL and am glad I did so. Although I grew up with a BBC and even typed in a couple of Basic listings from magazines for little Night Driver type games, I still have yet to take the plunge into ascii but even so I think I'm hooked.
Compared to many contemporary games where you are encouraged to go all out at every encounter and easily recover and restock afterwards, in Roguelikes it's more of a worry when or whether to play conservatively or let loose and use up your items/abilities. The fact that death and losing health matters reminds me of gaming in the 80's and 90's.Even going back to Silent Hill/Resident Evil, I remember long periods with less than 1/4 health.
I never really cared about high scores, but shorter games with less linearity and more random factors gets my oldskool gaming gland. Nobody wants to lose progress in a long game but there's something liberating about not having to care anymore rather than a Ryan's Inferno/Breaking Brad situation. As one of the FTL New game tips says "Dying is half the fun."
I'm normally not a stickler for genre definitions and such, but please, don't call everything with permadeath a roguelike. I'm getting super confused hearing people talk about games that I haven't played on podcasts. Especially stuff like Tokyo Jungle, which doesn't feel anything like a roguelike. If it weren't for seeing the game on this site, I would have assumed it was a turn-based, tile-based game since people keep calling it a roguelike.
Good introduction to the genre. All the games you mentioned are pretty excellent as well. I would agree that the Souls games really don't fit the roguelike architecture, I don't really get why people refer to them as such so frequently.
I'd definitely recommend Nethack, ADOM, and those style of Roguelikes to anyone who's curious about them. They can seem intimidating at first, but once you get a feel for the controls and mechanics, you find yourself on a (practically) neverending journey of discovering new things and learning new aspects about the game world that you never knew before. Nethack is my main roguelike of choice, and the level of The Dev Team Thinks Of Everything in that game is what's kept me interested even after a few years of on-and-off sessions with it.
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