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[Kinimod]

I would love to get into games like Nethack and Angband but I found the controls way to complicated and kept forgetting them when I stopped playing for a few weaks. Are there any rogue-likes with simpler controls that you could recommend?

[s0]

There are probably more roguelikes with simple controls than roguelikes with complex controls

DoomRL
Brogue
Powder
Shiren the Wanderer
TOME4
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (mouse controls!)
Dungeons of Dredmor

[crowe]

Shiren the Wanderer is great, and actually how I first got into Roguelikes (my deepest secret). Definitely worth a try, if you're not comfortable with roguelikes yet -- the more complex aspects of it only show up later on, as opposed to Nethack where you can have crazy stuff appear immediately and kill you if you're unlucky.


Incidentally, I've never played the Wii Shiren -- is it good?

[Trevor Dunbar]

Chocobos dungeon 2 for psx

[s0]

only played the ds port of the first(?) and the n64 one very briefly on an emulator. heard bad things about shiren wii though.

imo shiren is vastly underrated by roguelike players. it does a bunch of shit with "permadeath" + keeping some things intact and gradual story progression that no other roguelike (i know of) does.

also nethack isnt a very good game imo.

[Quarry]

[viral]Mine, when it's released[/viral]

[Schoq]

Definitely Shiren. It controls like other menu based console games except ten times better. (seriously why do JRPGs all have terrible and clumsy menus when it's such a big part of the game?)

I recommend picking up the DS version. It has a bit prettier sprites, makes use of the top screen for status, is portable, and that way you'll have money guilted yourself into playing it. Plus it's dirt cheap.

[RunawayDev]

I dont know if anyone here has played it, but Elona is an absolutely fantastic indie Roguelike. Relativly nice graphics, simple controlls (pretty much everything can be done with the z, x and c keys) and a ton of things to do outside of crawling dungeons (like farming, gene splicing your pets, cooking and playing music for tips). I really just can't say enough good things about it. The only thing is it had some quirks, so you may want to consult the wiki first ( http://elona.wikia.com/wiki/Elona_Wiki ). Cheers!  

[s0]

i could never really get into elona tbh

[Aidando]

I definitely second Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.  The mouse controls are a breeze but the gameplay still has the amazing depth and is quite challenging.

[Yougiedeggs]

Shiren Wii is a travesty.You're always controlling a party of 3 characters, and you keep your experience levels when you die, making it not a roguelike at all.

Brogue is currently my favorite, and the controls may be the simplest I've seen without sacrificing too much of the complexity roguelikes are known for

[IzzyReggie]

it had some quirks

some

Elona was like, nothing but quirks. I'm pretty sure the design doc for the game was just QUIRKS scribbled hastily onto a sticky note and posted onto the corner of the developer's monitor (I can't remember if it's open source/had a team)

i could never really get into elona tbh

Same here. Shit's got all the quirks.

Shiren Wii is a travesty.You're always controlling a party of 3 characters, and you keep your experience levels when you die, making it not a roguelike at all.

Isn't this par for the course with Japanese roguelikes (I think they're called "mystery dungeons", aren't they?)

I think pretty much any 7drl (7 day roguelike) product should be simple enough, though. http://7drl.org/roguelikes/

[s0]

Nah Mystery Dungeon is a series/franchise. There are other Japanese roguelikes as well (Azure Dreams, Z.H.P., Cave Noir and Baroque are couple) but none of them are all that great imo. Also you don't keep your levels in most of them.

[baconman]

http://trystans.blogspot.com/2012/03/i-rule-you-rule-we-all-rule-old-school_16.html

[JasonPickering]

you can probably look at most of the games from the 7DRL competitions. they are usually smaller and easier to learn. there is always Shiren as everyone has suggested and I found an old one for the gameboy called Cave Noir. its a Roguelike-like, but very close. its only Japanese, but there are English patches if you wish to try it on an emulator.

[baconman]

MicRogue (see Jason's Siggy) may qualify as one too, but it strikes me more as a Turn Based Strategy... at least for now... but controls don't get any simpler or more straightforward!

[JimmyJ]

I had trouble getting into Elona, but I still had fun messing around. I wouldn't call it very simple though. IIRC it's not being developed anymore, either, which stinks.

[JasonPickering]

yeah the thing in my sig is sort of a roguelike. Chess as a Roguelike is probably a more apt description.

[Waltorious]

I just want to second the recommendation of Brogue.  It's simplified in many ways but this works to its benefit.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is probably the easiest to control of the "hardcore" roguelikes, so it you're looking for something of similar complexity to Nethack or Angband but without so many commands to memorize, you should give it a try.  Given the depth of the game, the controls are still more complex than most simpler roguelikes, but it's far more streamlined than Nethack or Angband.

Both of these games feature an auto-explore function, which you will probably decide you can't live without after you've tried it.

[s0]

not only that, stone soup is better designed than nethack and angband as well.