I find it's easier to do Argyve's quests at first. Scavenge around the Rust Wells for artifacts (but don't dive too deep at first). There are three of them right next to each other so it makes for easy scavenging. The scrapjaws and baboons you usually run into around there make for good starting opposition. All of Argyve's early quests happen around the Rust Wells.
Once you get a few quests into Argyve's chain you should have a several levels under your belt and a decent kit. Then you can go hunting monsters.
Yeah, if you happen to already have (or steal) two artifacts that you don't want you can get a free level right off the bat. Then go get the other things for the quest at the rust wells. I usually do that before doing the farmer quest.
did the daily challenge today (and got a positive score even!), after turning in two artifacts right away I started to head over to the rust wells but I got lost, and then encountered about 2 dozen enemies. It actually worked out surprisingly well until I got overwhelmed and couldn't put up my force wall in a way to block their chase
okay. After about 17 hours of Caves of Qud I am not 100% godawful at it. I now prefer to play mutants because holy shit some of those powers are crazy. I only realized the other day that you can spend mutant points to upgrade said abilities and that is a huge game changer.
I managed to be #1 on the scoreboard for the daily challenge yesterday! I kind of got my character murdered on purpose because I felt pretty secure in my points, I scored around 6k that round and lasted 10k turns. I think my next task is going to be to understand artifacts better and what the color letter codes actually mean, that will probably get me to the point where I can reasonably survive in the game.
I can't stop seeming to play an Artifex build I know isn't very good. Masochistic or something. One time I played this mutant build with regeneration and got twice as far in one play session than weeks of my artifex build...and then went back to playing the artifex build...
one of the hardest things I still don't know how to tackle is all the qudzu in the caves. That shit rusts your gear something fierce, whether you attack it or leave it be. I'm guessing you have to kill it with ranged attacks but the characters I have been playing haven't been super great at those haha
Mon-Fri 8:30 PM CST - 11:30 PM CST
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
Yeah ranged attacks or use Lacquered gear, that stuff is rust proof.
I'm not trying to call it a roguelike, you guys, but there is permadeath, and thoughtful deliberate decisions, and it...FEELS like a roguelike.
Duskers. So much fun.
3DS: 4098-4243-6127
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
Yeah Duskers is on my short list of must play games. It looks like it hits a lot of the high points on my list of Why I Love Roguelikes.
Also I'm totally hooked on Spriggan Assassin runs in DCSS right now. I haven't even collected a single rune yet due to the glass cannon play style of this combination but holy moley I love playing it. Sneak stab sneaky poison killy kill stabby kill.
"All the doors in this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done."
"Sorry, did I say something wrong?" said Marvin, dragging himself on regardless. "Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh God I'm so depressed. Here's another one of those self-satisfied doors. Life! Don't talk to me about life."
Doors manufactured by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation are programmed to love their simple lives; they love nothing more than to open and close for passing users, and thank them profusely for so emphatically validating their existence. Most characters in the series grow to loathe the doors, particularly Marvin (the first to explain the doors' "cheerful and sunny dispositions").
Yeah Duskers is on my short list of must play games. It looks like it hits a lot of the high points on my list of Why I Love Roguelikes.
Also I'm totally hooked on Spriggan Assassin runs in DCSS right now. I haven't even collected a single rune yet due to the glass cannon play style of this combination but holy moley I love playing it. Sneak stab sneaky poison killy kill stabby kill.
DCSS kinda overwhelmed me with how much stuff there was to do. Overwhelmed isn't even quite the right word. It just felt like one of those, "Well, I could get into this game OR I could stay married." kinda things because it just seemed a little too awesome. Not that the opposite "Oh, I've got time to play this." feeling is always accurate...HEARTHSTONE.
Tends to depend on one's approach, I think. DCSS strikes me as vaguely lovecraftian, as I've long forgotten the applicable commands and logic it rewards.
I'm sure pulling up a cheat sheet on monitor the second would see me just fine.
DCSS isn't all that bad, it's actually quite approachable compared to CoQ.
Yeah, it's mostly the character creation screen which makes it seem daunting. If you pick a couple of builds and stick to them until you get the hang of things it's not bad. They tend to go out of their way to avoid obscure rules or hidden interactions. "Don't use bladed weapons against hydras (unless it's fire-enchanted)" is kind of the only one and even that is probably in the monster description.
I was always partial to Merfolk Ice Elementalists, although magic means needing to learn some menuing for skills. Berserkers are the easiest background to get off the ground (Troll for early on or Minotaur/Orc if you have aspirations of getting further).
EDIT: I could totally write up a Beginner's Guide to Crawl if that's a thing anyone would be interested in. Would be a few versions out of date, though.
I'm a sucker for melee-types, so I just hit "viable random" until I stumble across a berserker, fighter, anything that primarily hits stuff. Troll Berserkers are fun, though the farthest I got was some sort of anti-magic fighter if I recall correctly. The play pattern is somewhat predictable (there's an auto-explore key, and most combat is "find a bottleneck then deal with any crazy shit"), but in general it's a lot of fun. I sank a crazy number of hours into it about six years ago.
One of the weird little pitfalls of Crawl is that the Fighter background kind of sucks even if you want to build your character as a fighter. I always found it preferable to start as a Gladiator (for nets) or an Artificer (for wands), instantly abandon any unwanted starting skills, and just grab the first piece of metal armor I found. Although I think they might have finally wised up and given a Potion of Might to Fighters as a starting item.
I know it's not a full-blooded proper oldskool Roguelike, but Monster Slayer has been scratching my roguelike itch lately. Biggest deviation from the proper roguelike formula is of course the deck-based combat but other than that I feel it captures well that "just one more run" feeling I had as a kid when playing Nethack. It even has spooky stone altars, even if you can't sacrifice people on them for fun and profit.
Has anyone played Dungeonmans? It seems pretty good and actually has some pretty funny dialogue bits in it
No, but please report back if you try it out. I've passed it up so far because the $15 price seems very high for a roguelike with bog-standard graphics and setting. Also, I disliked Dredmor 's humor and randomness, and the reviews I read seemed to kind of lump Dungeonmans in with Dredmor. On the other hand, the devs are still active, they got a shout out from the Sproggiwood/Caves of Qud devs, and none of my other complaints are very serious or substantiated. I've been hoping to snag it on a deal, but it doesn't go on sale too often.
Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite SpaceWeird Worlds is a hybrid Roguelike game of space exploration, adventure and starship combat set within a peculiar as yet unvisited region of the galaxy known as the Purple Void. Each time you play the game, a new and different “instant space opera” is generated. From the locations of stars and nebulae to plot-twisting quest events, nothing stays the same.
Unlike many other games of its kind that go on for dozens of hours, Weird Worlds plays to its conclusion in less than thirty minutes – It’s the perfect lunch break game! Features also include a fully animated star map, a unique turn-based movement system, real-time starship battles, succulent graphics and award-winning music and sound. Weird Worlds also supports user-made mods that can change any and all aspects of the game and keep the universe expanding indefinitely.
Since the other three roguelikes on the list are DCSS, DoomRL, and ToME, I am intrigued.
Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite SpaceWeird Worlds is a hybrid Roguelike game of space exploration, adventure and starship combat set within a peculiar as yet unvisited region of the galaxy known as the Purple Void. Each time you play the game, a new and different “instant space opera” is generated. From the locations of stars and nebulae to plot-twisting quest events, nothing stays the same.
Unlike many other games of its kind that go on for dozens of hours, Weird Worlds plays to its conclusion in less than thirty minutes – It’s the perfect lunch break game! Features also include a fully animated star map, a unique turn-based movement system, real-time starship battles, succulent graphics and award-winning music and sound. Weird Worlds also supports user-made mods that can change any and all aspects of the game and keep the universe expanding indefinitely.
Since the other three roguelikes on the list are DCSS, DoomRL, and ToME, I am intrigued.
Weird Worlds is okay. There aren't a ton of different items and events, and it's kind of like if Starflight were a 99 cent mobile game. I always do a quick mod to put the score for each item right in the name, because I never saw any appeal in trial and erroring it out.
I liked the first one a lot more than the sequels, since I never figured out how you're supposed to handle combat in 2 & 3. The first game has status screens for you and the target on the side, but then they moved this information to mouseover popups. I'd pause to check whether shields had been breached and then when I went to unpause I'd have lost track of how fast and in what direction everything was moving. I found it completely disastrous, but maybe I missed a key feature somewhere.
I just started playing Hoplite again, got around to turning on fat finger mode and got a perfect no damage run. Currently working on an atheist, no prayer/upgrade run.
I love this game and 868-HACK for some portable, on the phone roguelike action. Any other good phone games?
I just started playing Hoplite again, got around to turning on fat finger mode and got a perfect no damage run. Currently working on an atheist, no prayer/upgrade run.
I love this game and 868-HACK for some portable, on the phone roguelike action. Any other good phone games?
Hoplite is the only game where I've ever completed all the accomplishments (or even cared to look at them). It really is great.
I've only been able to really get into a few other phone games, although I've tried a LOT of them:
Pixel Dungeon, or, if you've got Android, the branched version Shattered Pixel Dungeon;
Guild of Dungeoneering;
Dungelot: Shattered Lands;
You Must Build a Boat (not even remotely a roguelike).
Also, Cavern was a guilty pleasure. It's shit, but someone put some love into that shit, and so long as you play a cheap-ass ranged mage and play very conservatively, it's an enjoyable one-off plow-through. And Tales of the Adventure Company is like Dungelot but more of a strict rules-set and so even closer to Minesweeper.
Other games I've tried but just haven't really gotten into, but I have hopes for... someday: Enyo (Hoplite inspired but complicated enough that I just haven't pushed through the learning stage), Lamp and Vamp (dumbed down, messier Hoplite clone), Siralim, The Shadow Sun (surprisingly good UI for a phone, just happens to be pretty dull, at least in the first 30 minutes). And I keep trying Powder, but, I don't know why I haven't gotten more into it; maybe because it's not portrait-screen style, so it's obvious I'm fucking around at work? Anyway, Powder is free until level 15, so definitely download it.
And games I've tried but can't recommend: Reigns, Imbroglio, Out There: X Edition (too small on phone), Wazhack (ditto), Heroes of Steel (ditto), Goat Simulator (ditto), SW:KOTOR (ditto), Severed (ditto), Card City Nights (mostly ditto, also just didn't click), Ancient Legacy, Solitairica, Five Card Quest, 1-bit rogue, Downwell, Quest of Dungeons (fucking soulless cash-in), Punch Club, Sonny (too simpleminded), the Enchanted Cave, and Galactic Keep. I also got partway through the Sorcery series and one playthrough of 80 days, but they're just not my thing. I can explain my problems with each of these but it might just boil down to me being a princess with a pea under her mattress.
There are also games I've got on my wishlist but haven't tried yet because my disappointment rate is so high and I've got a wife and cat to feed: Yodanji The Roguelike; Dungeon Rushers; Mysterious Castle; Sword of Fargoal; Voyageur; Lost Frontier (probably too small on phone?); Swap Sword; Crush Your Enemies; Transistor; RPG - Symphony of Eternity (? how did this get on my wishlist ?); Crystal Siege; and Ending.
I'm gonna be contrary and leave a strong conditional recommendation for Imbroglio. It's very weird, and you kinda have to figure out some of the rules as you go, but there's a ton of depth. The non-spoiler TLDR version is that you level up the dungeon instead of your character. Kind of. There's also a specific out-of-game aspect that almost adds too much complexity; you can ignore it safely, but if you want a global high score you're going to end up spending a bunch of time optimizing and not actually "playing," akin to building a deck in a collectible card game. If that's your kind of thing, you'll probably love it. If it's not, run the other way. Either way, the mechanics are genius; there's nothing else like it.
Card Thief is also great, sort of on the very edge between "roguelike" and "electronic card game." It's a turn-based stealth game inspired by the classic Thief series played on a 3x3 grid of cards. Stealth is a resource, and sneaking around guard and lamp cards expends it. There's a constant tension between score and survival; it's remarkable how much it feel like a full blown stealth game.
I'm lazy, so here's a picture of my games screen. The second and third rows are all roguelikes; some of the best I've found, none of them very traditional. I recommend everything. I play on an iPhone SE, so your phone's screen is almost certainly bigger than mine.
I also really like KOTOR and Vainglory, and they're playable on this device, but they'd be much better on an iPad.
Has anyone played Dungeonmans? It seems pretty good and actually has some pretty funny dialogue bits in it
No, but please report back if you try it out. I've passed it up so far because the $15 price seems very high for a roguelike with bog-standard graphics and setting. Also, I disliked Dredmor 's humor and randomness, and the reviews I read seemed to kind of lump Dungeonmans in with Dredmor. On the other hand, the devs are still active, they got a shout out from the Sproggiwood/Caves of Qud devs, and none of my other complaints are very serious or substantiated. I've been hoping to snag it on a deal, but it doesn't go on sale too often.
I mean, I did! That's why I asked. It plays a lot like ToM but just has really funny terms for the classes and spells. It seems real good but I'm no expert at these games at all and was wondering if anyone else had tried it.
It's not as wacky as dredmore tho
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WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
Man, that Card Thief shit is my new jam. Thanks for the recommendation, it's incredible.
Man, that Card Thief shit is my new jam. Thanks for the recommendation, it's incredible.
I'm having issues with this game. Only on the first real level, and im finding it very easy to dip below 0 stealth then never be able to get it positive again.
Man, that Card Thief shit is my new jam. Thanks for the recommendation, it's incredible.
I'm having issues with this game. Only on the first real level, and im finding it very easy to dip below 0 stealth then never be able to get it positive again.
So first, you're probably getting too greedy; that was a huge problem when I started. Avoid lit objects, they'll eat tons of stealth. Try to only move onto guards if you're taking them out from behind, which doesn't cost stealth. Chaining lots of movements on one turn seems to take more stealth then moving a little bit. Also, if you can clear out all the cards on a single turn, you'll go back up to full stealth.
Some of this seems to boil down to pattern recognition; I kinda get Tetris vision after playing for a while, haha.
Man, that Card Thief shit is my new jam. Thanks for the recommendation, it's incredible.
I'm having issues with this game. Only on the first real level, and im finding it very easy to dip below 0 stealth then never be able to get it positive again.
So first, you're probably getting too greedy; that was a huge problem when I started. Avoid lit objects, they'll eat tons of stealth. Try to only move onto guards if you're taking them out from behind, which doesn't cost stealth. Chaining lots of movements on one turn seems to take more stealth then moving a little bit. Also, if you can clear out all the cards on a single turn, you'll go back up to full stealth.
Some of this seems to boil down to pattern recognition; I kinda get Tetris vision after playing for a while, haha.
Another key is to pay attention to the path multiplier. The multiplier ups the value of all cards, not just the guards, so it's sometimes worth hitting those before you pick up one of the cards that ups your stealth. With cards that don't lower your stealth at all, like treasure pickups, you can sometimes boost yourself above 10 if you end a good path on a stealth increase.
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
DCSS version 0.20 has been out for about a week. I missed the launch because I am used to apt-get just grabbing new updates from the repository as they become available. With this new version they updated their ppa so if you are on a Debian based Linux system you need to update the repository before apt-get will work its magic and update your DCSS installation.
I'm not sure if you guys would call it a Roguelike in the traditional sense, but I was watching a stream yesterday, and the game Starship Theory was mentioned.
It's basically "Rimworld In Space," but it also includes ship-to-ship combat, and has the aesthetic of FTL. The game is only in Alpha atm, but it's worth keeping an eye on.
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Yeah, if you happen to already have (or steal) two artifacts that you don't want you can get a free level right off the bat. Then go get the other things for the quest at the rust wells. I usually do that before doing the farmer quest.
I managed to be #1 on the scoreboard for the daily challenge yesterday! I kind of got my character murdered on purpose because I felt pretty secure in my points, I scored around 6k that round and lasted 10k turns. I think my next task is going to be to understand artifacts better and what the color letter codes actually mean, that will probably get me to the point where I can reasonably survive in the game.
Duskers. So much fun.
Also I'm totally hooked on Spriggan Assassin runs in DCSS right now. I haven't even collected a single rune yet due to the glass cannon play style of this combination but holy moley I love playing it. Sneak stab sneaky poison killy kill stabby kill.
We added... well, just read below.
I don't even know where to start.
"All the doors in this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done."
"Sorry, did I say something wrong?" said Marvin, dragging himself on regardless. "Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh God I'm so depressed. Here's another one of those self-satisfied doors. Life! Don't talk to me about life."
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
"You open and close."
"...Oh my god."
Have no fear, Rincewind! The Luggage is very reliable.
DCSS kinda overwhelmed me with how much stuff there was to do. Overwhelmed isn't even quite the right word. It just felt like one of those, "Well, I could get into this game OR I could stay married." kinda things because it just seemed a little too awesome. Not that the opposite "Oh, I've got time to play this." feeling is always accurate...HEARTHSTONE.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
CoQ seemed easy to me. I mean, not easy to not die...but easy to play. People do tell me I'm crazy a lot, though.
I'm sure pulling up a cheat sheet on monitor the second would see me just fine.
I was always partial to Merfolk Ice Elementalists, although magic means needing to learn some menuing for skills. Berserkers are the easiest background to get off the ground (Troll for early on or Minotaur/Orc if you have aspirations of getting further).
EDIT: I could totally write up a Beginner's Guide to Crawl if that's a thing anyone would be interested in. Would be a few versions out of date, though.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
It's a LOT lighter than UnReal World.
No, but please report back if you try it out. I've passed it up so far because the $15 price seems very high for a roguelike with bog-standard graphics and setting. Also, I disliked Dredmor 's humor and randomness, and the reviews I read seemed to kind of lump Dungeonmans in with Dredmor. On the other hand, the devs are still active, they got a shout out from the Sproggiwood/Caves of Qud devs, and none of my other complaints are very serious or substantiated. I've been hoping to snag it on a deal, but it doesn't go on sale too often.
Since the other three roguelikes on the list are DCSS, DoomRL, and ToME, I am intrigued.
Weird Worlds is okay. There aren't a ton of different items and events, and it's kind of like if Starflight were a 99 cent mobile game. I always do a quick mod to put the score for each item right in the name, because I never saw any appeal in trial and erroring it out.
I liked the first one a lot more than the sequels, since I never figured out how you're supposed to handle combat in 2 & 3. The first game has status screens for you and the target on the side, but then they moved this information to mouseover popups. I'd pause to check whether shields had been breached and then when I went to unpause I'd have lost track of how fast and in what direction everything was moving. I found it completely disastrous, but maybe I missed a key feature somewhere.
I love this game and 868-HACK for some portable, on the phone roguelike action. Any other good phone games?
Hoplite is the only game where I've ever completed all the accomplishments (or even cared to look at them). It really is great.
I've only been able to really get into a few other phone games, although I've tried a LOT of them:
- Pixel Dungeon, or, if you've got Android, the branched version Shattered Pixel Dungeon;
- Guild of Dungeoneering;
- Dungelot: Shattered Lands;
- You Must Build a Boat (not even remotely a roguelike).
Also, Cavern was a guilty pleasure. It's shit, but someone put some love into that shit, and so long as you play a cheap-ass ranged mage and play very conservatively, it's an enjoyable one-off plow-through. And Tales of the Adventure Company is like Dungelot but more of a strict rules-set and so even closer to Minesweeper.Other games I've tried but just haven't really gotten into, but I have hopes for... someday: Enyo (Hoplite inspired but complicated enough that I just haven't pushed through the learning stage), Lamp and Vamp (dumbed down, messier Hoplite clone), Siralim, The Shadow Sun (surprisingly good UI for a phone, just happens to be pretty dull, at least in the first 30 minutes). And I keep trying Powder, but, I don't know why I haven't gotten more into it; maybe because it's not portrait-screen style, so it's obvious I'm fucking around at work? Anyway, Powder is free until level 15, so definitely download it.
And games I've tried but can't recommend: Reigns, Imbroglio, Out There: X Edition (too small on phone), Wazhack (ditto), Heroes of Steel (ditto), Goat Simulator (ditto), SW:KOTOR (ditto), Severed (ditto), Card City Nights (mostly ditto, also just didn't click), Ancient Legacy, Solitairica, Five Card Quest, 1-bit rogue, Downwell, Quest of Dungeons (fucking soulless cash-in), Punch Club, Sonny (too simpleminded), the Enchanted Cave, and Galactic Keep. I also got partway through the Sorcery series and one playthrough of 80 days, but they're just not my thing. I can explain my problems with each of these but it might just boil down to me being a princess with a pea under her mattress.
There are also games I've got on my wishlist but haven't tried yet because my disappointment rate is so high and I've got a wife and cat to feed: Yodanji The Roguelike; Dungeon Rushers; Mysterious Castle; Sword of Fargoal; Voyageur; Lost Frontier (probably too small on phone?); Swap Sword; Crush Your Enemies; Transistor; RPG - Symphony of Eternity (? how did this get on my wishlist ?); Crystal Siege; and Ending.
Card Thief is also great, sort of on the very edge between "roguelike" and "electronic card game." It's a turn-based stealth game inspired by the classic Thief series played on a 3x3 grid of cards. Stealth is a resource, and sneaking around guard and lamp cards expends it. There's a constant tension between score and survival; it's remarkable how much it feel like a full blown stealth game.
I'm lazy, so here's a picture of my games screen. The second and third rows are all roguelikes; some of the best I've found, none of them very traditional. I recommend everything. I play on an iPhone SE, so your phone's screen is almost certainly bigger than mine.
I also really like KOTOR and Vainglory, and they're playable on this device, but they'd be much better on an iPad.
I mean, I did! That's why I asked. It plays a lot like ToM but just has really funny terms for the classes and spells. It seems real good but I'm no expert at these games at all and was wondering if anyone else had tried it.
It's not as wacky as dredmore tho
I'm having issues with this game. Only on the first real level, and im finding it very easy to dip below 0 stealth then never be able to get it positive again.
So first, you're probably getting too greedy; that was a huge problem when I started. Avoid lit objects, they'll eat tons of stealth. Try to only move onto guards if you're taking them out from behind, which doesn't cost stealth. Chaining lots of movements on one turn seems to take more stealth then moving a little bit. Also, if you can clear out all the cards on a single turn, you'll go back up to full stealth.
Some of this seems to boil down to pattern recognition; I kinda get Tetris vision after playing for a while, haha.
The new version has some neat new stuff to check out and you can see a full changelog here.
And finally a tournament celebrating the new build started on May 26th and runs to June 11th.
Happy crawling y'all.
Also holy shit tome. The spellblaze is over! Steam powered orcs are a thing! wtf this is amazing.
It's basically "Rimworld In Space," but it also includes ship-to-ship combat, and has the aesthetic of FTL. The game is only in Alpha atm, but it's worth keeping an eye on.