zonhin
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Honestly my OP's are horrible so here is a list of roguelikes. I will add to this list by your suggestion. Also, know that I am hardly an expert on roguelikes. I am horrible at them.
NETHACK: The old standby, Nethack. Widely thought of as the best roguelike out there, if not the best game out there, nethack is a good solid game based vaguely of the D&D 2nd edition ruleset. A good first choice
http://www.nethack.org/
ANGBAND: Angband is a pretty good game, though my first impressions of it aren't quite as good as the other games. Maybe it's because I'm a total scrub.
http://www.thangorodrim.net/
IVAN: IVAN is a more complicated rougelike then nethack. But the increase in complexity is offset by a very intuitive interface, especially for a roguelike. IVAN can be described as incredibly gimmicky, and you wouldn't be far off in saying so.
http://ivan.sourceforge.net/index.html
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup: A variant of the ancient and pretty much dead Lindsay's Dungeon Crawl, DCST has a lot of race\class combinations, that in the end don't matter much because your character is completely mutable.
http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net/

Feel free to show off some rogelikes that you've found and tell me why I'm wrong about Angband not being that good.

____________________________
I looked at the world through apple eyes
And cut myself a slice of sunshine pie
I danced with the peanut butterflies
Till time went and told me to say hello but wave goodbye

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[Last edited by zonhin at 11-30-2007 01:58 AM]

Rabscuttle
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Spelling roguelike incorrectly is more annoying than the fountain pen tips.

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[Last edited by Rabscuttle at 11-30-2007 01:58 AM]

coppro
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rougelike
roguelike

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[Last edited by coppro at 11-30-2007 04:54 AM]

silver
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are you sure this wasn't intended to be a thread for games which are kind of reddish?


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calamarain
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Angband is good because it's a lot more tactical than the others. It's simpler in some ways.

NetHack is an amusing game, with lots of silly stuff. But a lot of it is about exceptions to the rules, rather than the rules themselves. And lots of obscure stuff. e.g. it takes quite a while for people to learn that the fountains are almost useless.

Angband is much more a game of tactics, inventory management, and knowing when and how to run for it. Yes, it's harder to start than NetHack, but it's a *lot* better than NetHack once you have. Provided you're careful, once you've gotten to the midpoint of NetHack, the rest of the game is usually easy. Angband gets harder as you descend, and you have to be more and more careful.
If you're relatively new to Angband, your best bet is to play as a Warrior or a Ranger. They're powerful enough to get you started, and allow you to get into some of the deeper levels, where the monsters attacks become more interesting.

Also, a correction - since the new maintainer of Angband took over, the new official Angband site is rephial.org, though Thangorodrim has a lot of the stuff for previous versions. The site that gets most activity is the one that tracks all Angband variants, and does a lot of stuff too - angband.oook.cz. That's probably your best place to go.

Don't get me wrong, both are a great deal of fun, but they're entirely different philosophies. Angband is more... serious, for want of a better word.

Also, there's another roguelike game you might be interested in - ADOM. It's not been updated for a while, but the community is still active and it's a rather good little game. The difference is that it's closed source. But a large amount of the mechanics have been deduced by player experimentation. It can be found at adom.de

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Beef Row
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calamarain wrote:
Angband is much more a game of tactics, inventory management, and knowing when and how to run for it. Yes, it's harder to start than NetHack, but it's a *lot* better than NetHack once you have. Provided you're careful, once you've gotten to the midpoint of NetHack, the rest of the game is usually easy. Angband gets harder as you descend, and you have to be more and more careful.

I don't think Angband is harder to start than Nethack at all. It's ever so much easier to avoid starvation, none of your food will ever poison you, poison itself is less fatal (until Drolems, obviously), and there's recall and a town to run back to to recover.

Also, there's another roguelike game you might be interested in - ADOM. It's not been updated for a while, but the community is still active and it's a rather good little game. The difference is that it's closed source. But a large amount of the mechanics have been deduced by player experimentation. It can be found at adom.de

ADOM is excellent. Its more in the nethack plot and exceptionalism genre than the angband pure tactics genre, but it feels much fairer than Nethack in that there are towns to give you breathing room including one right at the beginning, and it's at least a bit easier to stave off starvation. Sadly the last version Thomas released promotes terrible and needless deaths because monsters sometimes go into a frenzy when badly injured, and this was overpowered to the point where almost anything can give you a suprise instakill once in a while. Too bad he won't either release a new version, or release the source...

EDIT: Calamarian, do you have any recommendations on which of the newest Angband variants are best, I haven't played much for quite a while.

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[Last edited by Beef Row at 11-30-2007 11:39 AM]

calamarain
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Beef Row wrote:
I don't think Angband is harder to start than Nethack at all. It's ever so much easier to avoid starvation, none of your food will ever poison you, poison itself is less fatal (until Drolems, obviously), and there's recall and a town to run back to to recover.

Sorry, let me rephrase. If you're a magic using class, then Angband is a lot harder to start than in NH. Mages and priests in Angband are *fragile* to start with!

Sadly the last version Thomas released promotes terrible and needless deaths because monsters sometimes go into a frenzy when badly injured, and this was overpowered to the point where almost anything can give you a suprise instakill once in a while. Too bad he won't either release a new version, or release the source...

EDIT: Calamarian, do you have any recommendations on which of the newest Angband variants are best, I haven't played much for quite a while.

Yeah. I tend to play version 1.0.0 of ADOM. It doesn't have the Talents, which is sad, but it also doesn't have the insane frenzies of the monsters.

As for the Angband variants... there's a few currently under active development, though I prefer plain vanilla Angband.

Troubles of Middle Earth (ToME) is rather good, and has diverged a lot from the original, making a completely different experience. It is not that well balanced though, and isn't intended to be - there are some races and classes that are trivially easy to get through the game with, and some where it's almost impossible. Yes, you can complete the game trivially playing an Alchemist, but such a win isn't really respected.

Zangband is good, but not the current version. The Wilderness is unbalanced and annoying - stick to the 2.2.x series just before the wilderness came out.

NPPAngband is probably the best. It's similar enough to vanilla Angband to start with, but there are some subtle differences. The shops are better equipped, and provide a lot of the stuff you dungeon scum for, but obviously at high prices. It's so that money is still useful even in the later game. The addition of optional quests (with nice rewards) spices up the game too, but the biggest change that makes the game a totally different experience is that the monsters are not dumb. They can pathfind to you, just like brained DROD monsters. Their range is limited, but it makes the game a lot more interesting.

I would recommend either NPPAngband or ToME to you Plus, I shamelessly plug the Angband webcomic I do in my signature

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zonhin
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Honestly I am not a very good source of information for this. I'm a very casual player of Roguelikes. Think I should hand over the OP to someone else?

____________________________
I looked at the world through apple eyes
And cut myself a slice of sunshine pie
I danced with the peanut butterflies
Till time went and told me to say hello but wave goodbye

b0rsuk
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Casual player of roguelikes = oxymoron .

I encourage everyone to try Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. And it's Linley's Dungeon Crawl, not 'Lindsay's' . It's probably the most balanced and varied existing roguelike, and it's under active development. And one of best things, it has a skill system that works well. You can shape many different characters. There are no no-brainers.

My opinions:

Angband wants you to die of boredom.
ADOM is nice, but it's one big quirky random death.
Nethack has no consistent atmosphere, is very abusable, unbalanced (dual weapons?), and obscure (greatly rewards spoiled players).

DoomRL is deffinitely worth checking. It's very different from most roguelikes because ranged weapons don't feel like waterguns. It's more tactical than many others.

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calamarain
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b0rsuk wrote:
Casual player of roguelikes = oxymoron .

I encourage everyone to try Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. And it's Linley's Dungeon Crawl, not 'Lindsay's' . It's probably the most balanced and varied existing roguelike, and it's under active development. And one of best things, it has a skill system that works well. You can shape many different characters. There are no no-brainers.

My opinions:

Angband wants you to die of boredom.
ADOM is nice, but it's one big quirky random death.
Nethack has no consistent atmosphere, is very abusable, unbalanced (dual weapons?), and obscure (greatly rewards spoiled players).

DoomRL is deffinitely worth checking. It's very different from most roguelikes because ranged weapons don't feel like waterguns. It's more tactical than many others.

In their defence: There are lots of Angband variants, you can find one you like.
ADOM: It's very different from all the other roguelikes, and quirky random deaths are not nearly as common once you know the game.
NetHack: Of course it's abusable, but it's meant to be. As you get more skilled, you can do cooler ascensions. The conduct system tracks it to a degree, but there's all sorts of voluntary challenges. If you want a more interesting game, play an atheist. Or an illiterate. Or a vegan.

As for Crawl... it's rather good, rather different, but it is also rather hard It's not a game that the average rogueliker can complete (though it is entirely possible). That can put players off.

Just playing Devil's advocate here

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zonhin
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If being a casual ROGUELIKE player is an oxymoron, then I am a walking paradox.

____________________________
I looked at the world through apple eyes
And cut myself a slice of sunshine pie
I danced with the peanut butterflies
Till time went and told me to say hello but wave goodbye

zonhin
Level: Delver

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So, like I asked earlier, who wants to take over the OP?

____________________________
I looked at the world through apple eyes
And cut myself a slice of sunshine pie
I danced with the peanut butterflies
Till time went and told me to say hello but wave goodbye

Dex Stewart
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Just for all those other people using laptops like me, please specify for each game wether a numeric keypad is required. I'm not too lazy to try, but other people may be.

calamarain
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Dex Stewart wrote:
Just for all those other people using laptops like me, please specify for each game wether a numeric keypad is required. I'm not too lazy to try, but other people may be.

All of the games have two keysets - one for laptop, one for numpad. However, in some cases they're harder.

I would not recommend Angband on a laptop, but NetHack works fine, as does ADOM.

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Dex Stewart
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And what about those poor souls who don't habe a standard keyboard (i.e. where Z and Y are exchanged, also for those who use Dvorak) . To be more exact I'd like to know which work only with the arrow keys or have keys you can set yourself (unlikely with so many commands).

calamarain
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Dex Stewart wrote:
And what about those poor souls who don't habe a standard keyboard (i.e. where Z and Y are exchanged, also for those who use Dvorak) . To be more exact I'd like to know which work only with the arrow keys or have keys you can set yourself (unlikely with so many commands).

Not sure about the arrow keys. Nor am I sure if any of them can be set yourself - it's just not something I've ever considered.

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Maurog
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Why not just get one of those?



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BDR
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DC:SS allows its keys to be edited from within the game; DoomRL's keys can be edited from the .ini file. I don't know as much about the others, though Sangband (Skills-Angband, which I find to be interesting) allows keymapping within the game. IVAN unfortunately does not support keymapping, but it's possible one of the modded versions might.

One very good site that anyone interested in roguelikes ought to look at is the Rogue Temple.

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[Last edited by BDR at 12-04-2007 07:10 AM]

NeonElephant
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calamarain wrote:
I would not recommend Angband on a laptop, ...

What's wrong with Angband on a laptop? I played it that way for many years.

Angband also at least claims the ability to construct your own keymap from the ground up. I haven't done any large-scale key remapping, though (just some basic keymaps for one-key missile attacks), so I couldn't say how well it does or does not work.

b0rsuk
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If you want some information about Linley's Dungeon Crawl, there's an old thread about Crawl. Crawl development has progressed quite a bit, so it's a bit outdated. But it's still a good start.

http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=13164&page=0

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Beef Row
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b0rsuk wrote:
If you want some information about Linley's Dungeon Crawl, there's an old thread about Crawl. Crawl development has progressed quite a bit, so it's a bit outdated. But it's still a good start.

http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=13164&page=0

Is the Stone Soup version the only Crawl in active dev? Or is it a branch-off like Slash-Em for Nethack?

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calamarain
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Beef Row wrote:

b0rsuk wrote:
If you want some information about Linley's Dungeon Crawl, there's an old thread about Crawl. Crawl development has progressed quite a bit, so it's a bit outdated. But it's still a good start.

http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=13164&page=0

Is the Stone Soup version the only Crawl in active dev? Or is it a branch-off like Slash-Em for Nethack?

There are some IRC channels you could ask in. #angband on irc.WorldIRC.org might have some info, but #nethack on irc.freenode.org more likely to have information, as I know a large number of people there play Crawl.

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BDR
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calamarain wrote:

Beef Row wrote:

b0rsuk wrote:
If you want some information about Linley's Dungeon Crawl, there's an old thread about Crawl. Crawl development has progressed quite a bit, so it's a bit outdated. But it's still a good start.

http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=13164&page=0

Is the Stone Soup version the only Crawl in active dev? Or is it a branch-off like Slash-Em for Nethack?

There are some IRC channels you could ask in. #angband on irc.WorldIRC.org might have some info, but #nethack on irc.freenode.org more likely to have information, as I know a large number of people there play Crawl.

Actually, for IRC channels you can skip those and go to ##crawl on irc.freenode.org, since that's the official crawl.akrasiac.org IRC channel. However, since I'm here and the question is simple, I can easily answer it: *technically* speaking neither Crawl nor Nethack vanilla are in active development, because both of the teams responsible for making, changing, and improving the vanilla branches have abandoned them for other real-life concerns. So, yes, it's a fork as the Stone Soup team calls it. I don't know if it's the *only* fork/branch/version in development, but it's the one with the most fanfare.

calamarain
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BDR wrote:
However, since I'm here and the question is simple, I can easily answer it: *technically* speaking neither Crawl nor Nethack vanilla are in active development, because both of the teams responsible for making, changing, and improving the vanilla branches have abandoned them for other real-life concerns.

Really? Have the NH lot made an official announcement about this, and if so, do you have a link?

I thought the list of bugs fixed was still being updated.

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BeefontheBone
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Zangband (with tiles) FTW. I've been playing the TK variant for a few years, need to switch to the most recent Zangband really, now that my most successful character has been killed off. I like a dose of silliness in an RL. DoomRL is also awesome, mainly for the music and sound's nostalgia value. I'm not as big a fan of ADoM as a number of people I know; the lack of flavoured items gives player meta-knowledge a big advantage, and the learning curve is a little steep. There's lots of fun in it though. JADE is shaping up (slowly) to being great.

Dwarf Fortress must have its own thread round here somewhere; it's a brilliant management game with an excellent RL thrown in in the same enormous, randomly generated worlds - highly recommended.

I'd also like to take this opportunity for a little plugging - it's not an RL but Mordor often appeals to the same old-school RPG players, and we're hard at work on a remake at the location in my sig.

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Braindead's Mordor Site - Dungeon crawling having nothing whatsoever to do with LotR. Plus a freeware remake in-progress, featuring descriptive text written by yours truly!

Beef Row wrote: Actually, it doesn't really matter because the soap is a lye.

zonhin
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Does Dwarf Fortress count?

____________________________
I looked at the world through apple eyes
And cut myself a slice of sunshine pie
I danced with the peanut butterflies
Till time went and told me to say hello but wave goodbye

AtkinsSJ
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BeefontheBone wrote:
Zangband (with tiles) FTW. I've been playing the TK variant for a few years, need to switch to the most recent Zangband really, now that my most successful character has been killed off. I like a dose of silliness in an RL.

ZangbandTK is great! Unfortunately, I've got an error it mine that makes it crash on a regular basis, so I've stopped playing. The newer versions have quests and things, which are cool.

calamarain
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AtkinsSJ wrote:

BeefontheBone wrote:
Zangband (with tiles) FTW. I've been playing the TK variant for a few years, need to switch to the most recent Zangband really, now that my most successful character has been killed off. I like a dose of silliness in an RL.

ZangbandTK is great! Unfortunately, I've got an error it mine that makes it crash on a regular basis, so I've stopped playing. The newer versions have quests and things, which are cool.

The newer version of Zangband have the major flaw of the Wilderness though.

It means lots of tedious trekking around to towns to find the shops you need, and more importantly, to find the dungeons you need. It just... lacks punch.

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zonhin
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I had a knight named Sir Popolan who died on level 1 after slipping off of his pony.

15 85 Sir Popola-Kni-Hum-Mal-Law died in The Dungeons of
Doom on level 1. Slipped while mounting a saddled
pony. - [16]

____________________________
I looked at the world through apple eyes
And cut myself a slice of sunshine pie
I danced with the peanut butterflies
Till time went and told me to say hello but wave goodbye

---

[Last edited by zonhin at 12-23-2007 02:04 AM]

calamarain
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zonhin wrote:
I had a knight named Sir Popolan who died on level 1 after slipping off of his pony.

15 85 Sir Popola-Kni-Hum-Mal-Law died in The Dungeons of
Doom on level 1. Slipped while mounting a saddled
pony. - [16]

Knights are good, but don't try and mount your pony at the start. Gain a few levels first, so you're stronger.

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