Elderlore

Source: TIGSource : Category Roguelikes, everything about Roguelikes

Version 1.0 of George Moromisato’s Transcendence was released recently. Transcendence is a real-time space exploration game that draws inspiration from roguelikes and has randomly-generated star systems and items, among other things (there is no permadeath, however – you get a single save slot that can be reloaded after death). It plays similarly to the Escape Velocity series.

The game’s first public release (v0.7) came out nearly 7 years ago, and the game has been in development since 1995!

(Thanks, BellosTheMighty, for the heads-up.)

TIGdb: Entry for Transcendence

Source: TIGSource : Category Roguelikes, everything about Roguelikes

A new version of Rodain “Nandrew” Joubert’s Desktop Dungeons was released recently (read the original announcement here). Version 0.051 adds a bunch of new stuff like new player classes, level features, challenge levels, and graphics. The game also comes with an option to use custom tilesets, which is nice, because the default graphics are still rather homely (albeit endearing).

And since I love 16×16 tile graphics, I couldn’t not make my own tileset to use. I based most of my designs on the originals, which I like, but tried to make everything more crisp and readable. You can grab the tileset here. Just unzip it into your “tilesets” folder and select “derek” from the main menu screen. Let me know what you think, and share your own if you have any!

TIGdb: Entry for Desktop Dungeons

Source: TIGSource : Category Roguelikes, everything about Roguelikes

I just had my most exciting round of Desktop Dungeons. I went with a Halfling Thief as my character. Halflings can convert skill glyphs into health potions and thieves recover both health and mana from potions. I made an extra effort to slay high-level monsters early on for the experience boost, so when it was time to fight the boss (a powerful level 10 wizard named Aequitas who had a cool beard), I was a pretty respectable level 9. As a thief, my first attack always did 30% more damage, so I buffed myself and attacked, then tried my best to finish him off with a fireball skill. But GRRRRRR damn it, it wasn’t enough! We were both one hit away from dying, and I was out of mana and potions… a hopeless situation. I got ready to hit the “Retire” button and try again.

BUT WAIT! My buff skill! I almost forgot that I could convert the glyph into a potion. It provided just enough mana to launch the final fireball I needed to defeat Aequitas and unlock a new character class (Rogue) and a new monster (Gorgon). Very satisfying!

Rodain “Nandrew” Joubert, the creator of Desktop Dungeons, says his game was based on roguelikes like Crawl, but it plays more like a randomized puzzle game. For one thing, monsters in the game don’t move – they simply sit and wait for you to attack or ignore them – and their level and stats are displayed in plain view (in fact, pretty much all the information you need is). Also, the entire dungeon is just a single screen small, making it feel more like you’re exploring a chess board than the Mines of Moria.

Even at version 0.04, this is a crafty and addictive game – easy to play (mouse-only) with a surprising amount of variety and strategy in what is a relatively small number of races, classes, and skills (compared to most roguelikes). It goes by quickly, too – each game shouldn’t take more than 10-30 minutes, depending on how hard you’re thinking about it. And if the rough graphics bother you, you should take heart that the next version should allow you to use your own custom tileset (personally, I think they’re fun). Great entertainment – I can’t wait to play again.

TIGdb: Entry for Desktop Dungeons

(Source: DukeOFprunes)

Source: Ancient Domains Of Mystery (ADOM)

It’s over…

(more…)

Source: TIGSource : Category Roguelikes, everything about Roguelikes

The latest version of DoomRL has been released. The last version was released over a year ago, so this is nice surprise for fans of the fast-paced roguelike. Version 0.9.9 has a lot of neat additions, including weapon and armor mods, unique items, new levels, new traits, new alt-fire modes, and a badge/medal system, among other things. Lots of balancing and tweaking has been done to the game, too.

This is the coolest version of one of my favorite roguelikes, so I recommend it.

TIGdb: Entry for DoomRL

Source: CyberRogue

Or “oops!”

It might be a little longer before I release more code — my main development environment/machine has gone belly-up and I’ll need to reinstall XP on it. I’ve got Vista x64 on it which is still running fine, but I’ll need to tweak and fiddle to get it working the way I want it for coding (it’s set up for web dev — Adobe suite runs so much better in a 64 bit environment) to the point where it may be quicker to reinstall Windows, which won’t happen until at least the weekend.

On the plus side, school’s out, so I’m not going to have to deal with hundreds of needy humans at work… Oh, and there’s no kids either.

©2010 CyberRogue. All Rights Reserved.

No related posts.

Source: CyberRogue

Since I’ve spent a couple of days trying to get back to the point I was with the LibTCOD/Python version of CyberRogue, I’ve managed to get there (or thereabouts). In honour of that milestone, I’ve decided to release a Windows binary to the public. I would never have gotten this far without the help of jice, mingos, and others at the Doryen Library forums, being the C++ newbie that I am. To them, my eternal thanks.

Suffice to say that there are probably many bugs with this, and I will update as time goes on. The current download contains 5 different FOV algorithm versions, used for testing (and fixing my errors).

©2010 CyberRogue. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Boost? More like deflated…

Source: CyberRogue

After fighting for a day with Boost, I’m pretty much going to give up. I’ve finally managed to build the libraries, but I needed to upgrade gcc (MinGW) to 4.4.0 (from CodeBlocks default of 3.4.5, which still works with it, fortunately).

When I import the string algorithms into my own code I get a whole slew of errors (over 50), and when I try the demo code I still get errors (OK, not so bad, just “expected constructor, destructor, or type conversion before ‘(‘ token” on two lines, but it should still work “out of the box” right?) (OK, I’ve got dain bramage… I made a proper program (no output) but I’ve got the “test” working — now to get it working in CyberRogue)

Am I doing something wrong, trying to use two conflicting libraries (LibTCOD and Boost, but I didn’t think they’d conflict?), or is MinGW just not up to the job and I should try CygWin (will LibTCOD work with CygWin?) Maybe I should just stick with what I’ve already got as it works (ain’t broke, don’t fix it approach).

Fixed: OK, maybe I should have just checked my defines — it’s working, yay! Now I just need to use it.

©2010 CyberRogue. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Debug Binary Available
2. Magic Disappearing Scautura
3. Bursts of Activity

Source: TIGSource: Category Roguelikes

A couple of neat roguelikes went 1.0 recently. One is Legerdemain, which we covered previously on TIGSource. It’s a story-based, IF-influenced RL, and is definitely worth checking out.

The second is MageGuild, which, as you may guess, is a magic-centric dungeon crawl. My experience playing wizard classes in roguelikes is that it’s generally too complex for my tastes. Reading books, having spells fizzle, getting my ass handed to me by weak enemies – I like sorcery about as much as Conan the Barbarian, which is to say, put that staff away and give me a sword to cleave a mage in twain with!

So it was a pleasant surprise to find out that MageGuild is one of the more easy to get into RL’s that I’ve played. The interface is clean, the controls are simple, and there’s a tutorial. The game also supports mouse control and graphical tiles (I may make a tileset, actually!).

What makes the game interesting is its focus on mixing spells and potions. At the beginning of the game, you pick up to two schools of magic that will decide which spells you can learn. Then during the game you can combine potions with a variety of objects to create new ones. Want to become a werewolf? It’s as easy as mixing a Potion of Change with some Hair of Wolf.

Having only made a few runs into the dungeon, I can’t comment too extensively on this system, but my initial impression is quite favorable. It’s a pretty fast-paced roguelike that encourages experimentation without being too overwhelming to beginners. I recommend trying it. (Keep in mind that it requires the .NET framework!).

TIGdb: Entries for Legerdemain, MageGuild

(Source: Slash, via Temple of Roguelike)

Source: TIGSource: Category Roguelikes

Notrium, an obscure but very high-quality freeware game released in 2003, is a survival game where you have to choose between one of four body types: human, alien, android, and psionic, each with its own drastically different abilities, and try to survive on a planet. You have to manage resources like energy and food, and your body temperature, and can scrounge around for items and combine them.

I recommend the alien for first-time players, as that’s the one I managed to survive the longest as—it has the strongest starting weapon, good resistance to temperature, and evolves new abilities as the game goes on. The human is probably the hardest, because he’s the most fragile and can’t survive for very long without a lot of technology.

The music is nice and ambient, although the graphics feel a bit cut and paste (they appear to be rendered 3D sprites, which can look a bit disjointed). The writing is very clear, although there may be a little too much text for the tastes of some, especially when starting out and learning about all the different items. The item placement on the maps appears to be randomly generated, which makes it somewhat of a roguelike, and which combined with the drastically different character types makes it very replayable.

The game takes a while to get into, but it has a good amount of depth to it, although you’ll probably die many times before you make any significant progress. There is a FAQ here.

TIGdb: Entry for Notrium