Elderlore

Source: Ascii Dreams

I've got 99 roguelikes and a Dwarf ain't one...

For the third year running, there have been more roguelikes being written, played and voted for. Thanks to all 505 of you who voted this year. I am overwhelmed at the breadth and depth of competition, and look forward to a bumper crop again next year.

The full results were:

3069	4 (0%)
8rogue	1 (0%)
Agduria	1 (0%)
aemoebaRL	1 (0%)
Angband	24 (4%)
Angband/65	1 (0%)
Battlement	0 (0%)
Blast Tactics	0 (0%)
Brogue	8 (1%)
CastlevaniaRL	16 (3%)
Caverns of Xaskazien	0 (0%)
Chickhack	1 (0%)
Craftband	1 (0%)
crashRun	2 (0%)
CyberRogue	2 (0%)
Cypress Tree Manor	0 (0%)
DaJAngband	8 (1%)
Dawn of the Dead	1 (0%)
The Dawn of the Dead II	0 (0%)
The Dawn of the Dead III	3 (0%)
Dimension Dungeon	0 (0%)
Domination	3 (0%)
DoomRL	227 (44%)
Downfall	0 (0%)
Dreamhack	2 (0%)
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup	170 (33%)
DungeonMinder	8 (1%)
Dweller	5 (0%)
Elona	32 (6%)
Epic! Monster Quest: Hyper	0 (0%)
Escape from Lab 42	3 (0%)
Excitable Digger	2 (0%)
Expedition	1 (0%)
Faerie's Lair	0 (0%)
First Age Angband	15 (2%)
Fortress of the Goblin King	3 (0%)
Fruits of the Forest	3 (0%)
FOTRW	0 (0%)
GearHead2	27 (5%)
G.O.R.E.	1 (0%)
Goblinhack	1 (0%)
GGRogue	1 (0%)
Gumband	3 (0%)
Grendel's Mother	0 (0%)
Gruesome	3 (0%)
HamQuest	0 (0%)
Hokuto-no-rogue	5 (0%)
Invader Tactics	0 (0%)
Ighalsk	0 (0%)
Incursion: Halls of the Goblin King	69 (13%)
Interhack	4 (0%)
Kharne	3 (0%)
Jacob's Matrix	7 (1%)
Legerdemain	15 (2%)
Liberal Crime Squad	12 (2%)
Lords of DarkHall	2 (0%)
Mage Guild	10 (1%)
Martin's Dungeon Bash	2 (0%)
MAngband	5 (0%)
MetaCollider	0 (0%)
Mines of Morgoth	2 (0%)
Minute Dungeon	3 (0%)
Nazghul	6 (1%)
Neon	0 (0%)
NLarn	5 (0%)
Nyctos	1 (0%)
Papaki	1 (0%)
PBR: Peleron's Briliant Rebirth	5 (0%)
Persist	1 (0%)
Plague	0 (0%)
Plains of Sedia	2 (0%)
PlantForce	0 (0%)
POWDER	48 (9%)
Privateer: Ascii Sector	19 (3%)
Prospector	17 (3%)
Pyromancer	9 (1%)
RealtimeRL	0 (0%)
Rogue Touch	2 (0%)
Sane Roguelike	0 (0%)
Settlement	6 (1%)
SpiritsRL	1 (0%)
SporkHack	11 (2%)
TetRLs	2 (0%)
The Tombs of Asciiroth	1 (0%)
Tomb of the Aztecs	0 (0%)
Tomb of Rawdin	0 (0%)
T.o.M.E.	17 (3%)
Tower of Druaga	1 (0%)
Triangle Wizard	18 (3%)
Tzar	1 (0%)
UnAngband	21 (4%)
Underbooks	2 (0%)
UnNetHack	12 (2%)
URRogue	0 (0%)
Warp Rogue	3 (0%)
Wayfarer	8 (1%)
When Zombies Attack!	0 (0%)
XAngband	1 (0%)
Z+Angband	11 (2%)
Zot Defense	11 (2%)

Source: Ascii Dreams

Even without Dwarf Fortress qualifying as a candidate this year, there were 130 more voters this year than last year. And four roguelikes have consistently garnered more votes than the rest, while not finishing up in either the winning or runner up positions - two from previous years, and two gaining in popularity enough to warrant special mention for the first time.

Incursion: Halls of the Goblin King is a D20 based fantasy roguelike by Julian Mensch that features deep game mechanics and a 'next-gen' religion system. It's possible to win this game as everything from a warrior or summoner or assassin or even a diplomat, and starting characters are considerably more powerful than many other roguelikes. John Harris on Incursion in his column @ Play.

POWDER is the premier portable roguelike, developed originally for the Gameboy Advance but ported to multiple portable and cell phone platforms. While the name is a play on the frequent mispelling of rogue as rouge, the game play comes in tactical bite size chunks winnable in an afternoon. John Harris on POWDER @ Play.

Elona, or Elona: Eternal League of Nefia is a graphical roguelike, with animated high quality tiles, developed in Japan but translated into English and with updates released on an almost monthly basis (including a Christmas edition). While John Harris hasn't featured Elona @ Play, the fact you can marry virtually anything you can encounter in game, and bear playable children, leaves me more than a little intrigued.

GearHead2, the mech based science fiction roguelike, builds on a robust arena combat system with a procedurally generated plot and anime style art. The fact that the winner and this popular choice are so successful while avoiding the typical fantasy tropes bodes well for the future of alternate genre roguelikes. Again, John Harris has yet to feature either GearHead2 or it's predecessor @ Play.

Source: Ascii Dreams

Last year's winner put on a brave run for second place, but while the voting fans seem to have rested on their laurels a little early, the developers have tirelessly continued to work on the game, taking it from version 0.4.5 at the start of the year to version 0.5.2, as well as migrating to a git-based source repository. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup also celebrated a well-deserved third birthday party in September, from when they branched, or more correctly took up the torch and kept running from the original Linley's Dungeon Crawl.

The fact that Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup didn't win, while getting 50 more votes than last year, is testament to the strength and dedication of the community around the roguelike genre in general. I can only refer you to the write up of last year's win for more Crawl resources and the obligatory John Harris article.

Source: Ascii Dreams

This year, there was never any doubt... the movie featuring Dwayne 'The Rock' Hudson and Karl Urban had inspired an unstoppable roguelike force that lives up to it's unforgettable tag line 'No One Gets Out Alive'.

Ahem. DoomRL is the enfant terrible of the roguelike world - the quick play game that shouldn't be good but is instead great, and is one of the few roguelikes that has successfully broken out of its genre niche and achieved popular acclaim. Kornel Kisielewicz has gone on to make other roguelikes inspired by the likes of Aliens and, in a post-modernist twist, Diablo, but this game is arguably now superior to its inspiration. DoomRL also predated the now common trend of 'demakes' - taking a modern game and porting it to an older platform.

It looked for most of 2009, that this 'coffee-break' roguelike had gone for an extended latte - but version 0.9.9.9 of DoomRL was released in October 2009 and I'm sure version 1.0 will be 'real soon now'. The DoomRL community features PR managers, a monthly newsletter (The Phobos Times) and lively forums.

For further reading: John Harris has featured DoomRL in one of his @ Play columns where he describes it as 'set[ting] out to do one thing and do it well'.

Source: Ascii Dreams

The race for honorable mentions is still wide open...

Source: Ascii Dreams

Because who wins really matters.

Source: Ascii Dreams

Voting is open for 'Ascii Dreams Roguelike of the Year 2009'.

How did the roguelikes qualify?

The list was taken from the roguelike releases announced on the Rogue Basin news section between January 1st and December 19th 2009 and from the list of Actively Developing Roguelikes maintained by Jeff Lait. There are a record 99 entries this year - up from 75 the previous year.

What about 'x'?

Make sure you announced your roguelike on Rogue Basin for next year. In particular, NetHack didn't make it in, again. One of the previous winners also didn't make it in, much to my surprise. Although another roguelike developed by the same guys did, if you want to vote by proxy.

What about the 7 day roguelikes?

I decided to exclude any 7 day roguelikes that weren't announced separately. However, most of them were on Jeff Lait's list.

What's the prize?

Pride. And a sexy logo - if you want one. You can see the winning 2007 logo on the Dwarf Fortress links page. The Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup crowd didn't seem to need one. Logo designs for this year are welcome.

Having a competition is a dumb idea/offensive/stupid when you can't police the results.

Yep. Doesn't stop it being fun. You can vote for multiple different roguelikes. The idea here is that you will be encouraged to go out and download a roguelike that other people consider interesting, not that there is any kind of real competition element involved.