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[shipwreck]

foo-bans, play shiren the wanderer and all shall be explained.

Thanks for the rec! Cool Wii games always seem to fly under my radar, so the poor white box is oft-neglected, save for the ol' Netflix.

And Hexrogue makes me hate life.

And I think Spelunky is a great, "soft" introduction to Roguelikes.

[s0]

Thanks for the rec! Cool Wii games always seem to fly under my radar, so the poor white box is oft-neglected, save for the ol' Netflix.

It's not (just) a Wii game, it's an entire series that goes back as far as the SNES.  

Also, Spelunky is good, but it's not a good introduction to roguelikes because it has very little in common with roguelikes. Try DoomRL or Desktop Dungeons instead

[Widget]

Also, Spelunky is good, but it's not a good introduction to roguelikes because it has very little in common with roguelikes. Try DoomRL or Desktop Dungeons instead

I'm not sure DD is great as an intro to roguelikes as I think it has more in common with a puzzle game than a "traditional" roguelike. DoomRL is a great coffee break RL, though, and I quite like some of Slashie's creations for a quick game aswell.

[Fallsburg]

Also, Spelunky is good, but it's not a good introduction to roguelikes because it has very little in common with roguelikes. Try DoomRL or Desktop Dungeons instead

I'm not sure DD is great as an intro to roguelikes as I think it has more in common with a puzzle game than a "traditional" roguelike. DoomRL is a great coffee break RL, though, and I quite like some of Slashie's creations for a quick game aswell.

I disagree about DD, because I think that you won't be successful at most roguelikes unless you can be successful at DD. e.g. In most roguelikes it definitely pays off to think carefully before doing any nontrivial action and that is definitely true in DD. 
While the mechanical skills you learn playing DD won't transfer, the general skills (patience, careful consideration of actions, grokking of underlying systems) do, and the ones in DD are relatively simple compared to those in most roguelikes making it a good game for learning.

That being said, I would say that DD isn't a roguelike (although it has similar trappings to a lot of roguelikes).

[rszrama]

Another easy to get into Roguelike with simplified controls and character progression is Brogue. It also has the prettiest ASCII graphics of any game I've seen... period.  Highly recommended, a good example of libtcod usage, too.  It's cross-platform but originally for Mac OS X.

I've got some screenies / description of an earlier version in my blog or you can just dive in here: http://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/

[Widget]

I disagree about DD, because I think that you won't be successful at most roguelikes unless you can be successful at DD. e.g. In most roguelikes it definitely pays off to think carefully before doing any nontrivial action and that is definitely true in DD.  
While the mechanical skills you learn playing DD won't transfer, the general skills (patience, careful consideration of actions, grokking of underlying systems) do, and the ones in DD are relatively simple compared to those in most roguelikes making it a good game for learning.

That being said, I would say that DD isn't a roguelike (although it has similar trappings to a lot of roguelikes).

Okay, I can see your point and I think I agree with it. Less of an introduction and more of a bootcamp maybe, but I'd agree that there's a tranferrable skill base.

Maybe I'm just guilty of excessively pingeon-holing DD. I treat it as a I would other fast puzzle games (minecraft*, primarily) and sometimes assume that's how everyone plays it.

* Minesweeper 
Some Freudian slippage..

[Fallsburg]

No, the minesweeper comparison is apt, but I would also say that minesweeper rewards the same abilities that roguelikes and DD rewards, i.e. being deliberate in your actions and thinking things through.

[deathtotheweird]

i really didnt read most of these posts but ill say it anyway

if you want a great intro to roguelikes check out doomrl and powder. also, sword of fargoal. there's a freeware pc version lingering around somewhere..also check out wayfarer, which you can play in your browser http://benhem.com/games/wayfarer/

a more heavy rl i would recommend is dungeon crawl stone soup, nethack, or perhaps ancient domains of mystery

lambdarogue is a good choice if you want to play a rl with an actual story-story.

also some people REALLY enjoy elona. i personally think it's dum but some like it because it's japanesey (more like japancheesy)

[s0]

Stone Soup is the best "traditional" roguelike IMO. If you're looking for something slightly more left-field, try IVAN.

[deathtotheweird]

i agree. perhaps i should have said traditional instead of heavy.

[Kuppo]

As a programmer, Roguelikes are funner to make.
No need to make art for every little thing the game does = more things the game does.

[Skofo]

Primitive ASCII allows for much richer game environment than you could get with top-notch art. ... Roguelikes allow you much more "behind the scenes" freedom, because the display is abstracted - you don't have to make new assets for new features. You can just designate this and that symbol, paint it differently and that is that. Which is why roguelikes have by far the greatest gameplay depth compared to AAA games, where gameplay is constrained by availability of assets.

Game art quality has nothing to do with gameplay depth or quality. Plenty of popular good looking games' graphics could be refitted to use in a game with traditional roguelike gameplay (e.g. Chrono Trigger, Baldur's Gate series, Diablo series, Zelda series).

I'm guessing that the reason roguelikes have become a fad in the indie gaming scene is because they indeed usually don't have good graphics, so the genre is more approachable to the hobbyist game programmer. That probably explains the NES-style game fad as well.

[Triplefox]

I think there's probably too much association between roguelikes and the ASCII art. Right from the get-go with games like Sword of Fargoal or Telengard, you had the "randomized dungeon crawl" but with an overtly graphical look+feel.

But one of the reasons why roguelikes remain a popular, but not world-conquering "underground genre" is because most of them are basically cutting corners on accessibility in a way that makes development easy but can't be smoothed over later. It's not actually a graphical problem. Tilesets, which are a popular accommodation, make the game look less like line noise, but they don't really solve accessibility, which has to be considered from the beginning - it's things like using a huge set of hotkeys, special commands for everything, and a sprawling array of mechanics that cause the biggest problems.

And at the same time, uncertainty of information remains one of the major thrusts of the gameplay - unknown level layouts, item identity, monster populations, etc. This encourages a sprawl of randomized mechanics to be included, and as a result the difficulty ramping converges towards one of two conclusions. Depending on the variant, success is found either by playing very conservatively(grinding is rewarded) or probabilistically(take only worthwhile risks).

Highly aggressive play is almost never possible, which cuts out players like me who always want to push the limits. As well, if the game is very probabilistic, it's great for geeky fanboy types who are willing to put in the effort to memorize the massive quantity of mechanics and estimate the exact risks of any given situation, but it's difficult to play in a conservative(and thus more casual) way.

It's noteworthy that the first game that really cleaned the genre up into a more casual experience - without entirely destroying the depth - was also a huge hit: Diablo.

[rszrama]

Great observations, Triplefox. 

... but they don't really solve accessibility, which has to be considered from the beginning - it's things like using a huge set of hotkeys, special commands for everything, and a sprawling array of mechanics that cause the biggest problems.

At the risk of sounding like a paid shill, this is what I love about Brogue. There's no (z)apping, (e)eating, (q)uaffing, or (r)eading... you just (a)pply anything that isn't equipped. Pender actually did work in the Roguelike newsgroup to trim down the amount of keys users must memorize, and his spartan usage allows for additional accommodations like vim movement keys for users without numpads.

He also trimmed down character customization to a single mechanic - enchantment scrolls.  What you choose to enchant once you've identified said scroll affects the type of character you play. Enchant sturdy weapons or armor? You're a tank against all but the most powerful monsters. Enchant a ring of stealth? You can hide in the shadows and even lose aggressive monsters in pursuit. Enchant a staff? You're now a magic user with a rockin' staff of firebolt.

I understand accessibility involves other aspects as well (use of color, language / character localization, etc.), but these make the game a continued joy to play.  I do like the deeper, more complex games, but the simplicity of Brogue is one of the main reasons I recommend it to even my family and friends who have no clue what a Roguelike is.

[Skofo]

Wow, that's very clever design, there. You just convinced me to try Brogue.

[phubans]

Oops, I nearly forgot about this thread... There's too much to reply to, so I'll just say thanks to everyone who posted.

Here's what I learned/sorta knew about roguelikes:

- They are procedurally-generated dungeon crawls
- Not all are ASCII art games
- The genre name comes from a game called "Rogue"
- Not Dwarf Fortress
- I've played Desktop Dungeons, it's cool but not really my cup of tea. It feels more like a table top or earlier Windows game
- I looked up Shiren the Wanderer since I have a Wii, but I was put off by the poor reviews

Cool!

[mcc]

A lot of people I know loved the DS version of Shiren.

Phubans play Toe Jam and Earl!

[Dustin Smith]

PHUBNs- download shiren 2 for snes; just download the aeon genesis english patch and the genre's interlocking mechanics should be apparant to you. that or download doorl.

[Xion]

Another easy to get into Roguelike with simplified controls and character progression is Brogue. It also has the prettiest ASCII graphics of any game I've seen... period.  Highly recommended, a good example of libtcod usage, too.  It's cross-platform but originally for Mac OS X.

I've got some screenies / description of an earlier version in my blog or you can just dive in here: http://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/

Ah yeah, brogue is a favorite of mine as well...though it seems a bit too simple to me, at times.

[s0]

- I looked up Shiren the Wanderer since I have a Wii, but I was put off by the poor reviews

Don't bother with the Wii version. Get the DS port of the SNES original. Should be dirt cheap too.

About accesibility: I think a lot of roguelikes would benefit from some context sensitivity in the controls and a more "graphical" to UI design. That's why I like Stone Soup so much. You can control the entire thing using the mouse and there's no need to memorize button layouts. Each object responds context sensitively to clicking or a combination of clicking and Shift or Ctrl. Hovering the mouse over an object gives you a tooltip explaining what does what, as well as the associated keyboard commands. Also your stats, an interactive inventory and an (also interactive) minimap of the current dungeon level are displayed at all time. And then there's of the auto explore feature that automatically takes you to parts of the current level you haven't visited yet, stopping whenever an enemy, item, or anything else of importance comes into view.

Basically, it makes the interface as accessible as humanly possible for a traditional "hardcore" roguelike without sacrificing depth or complexity.