In space, nobody can hear @ scream

April 13, 2007 10:17 AM

Download munkey points out rougelike magazine and AliensRL, nice a roguelike shooter based on the Aliens movies.
posted by boo_radley (20 comments total)

Joy!
posted by cortex at 10:26 AM on April 13, 2007

1. d
2. da
3. a
4. @
5. A@
6. @
7. a@
8. You have died. Would you like your possessions identified?

(Alien 3, Roguelike)
posted by kid ichorous at 10:49 AM on April 13, 2007 [2 favorites]

SLASHEM. That is all.
posted by grytpype at 11:00 AM on April 13, 2007

You're not kidding grytpype, Slash'em has lightsabers in it, in addition to assault weapons.

I've been researching these quickie roguelikes (for some nefarious purpose), and I have to say that DoomRL, for what it is, is fairly cool. It's no Nethack, ADOM or Rogue, but then it doesn't try to be. And there's something about putting the original game's soundtrack and sound effects and tying them to a turn-based ASCII game that brings a silly grin to my face.
posted by JHarris at 11:13 AM on April 13, 2007

The great thing about DoomRL is the special levels. The downside is that, like the boardgame Frag, a solid grasp of FPS tactics does not translate to skill.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:18 AM on April 13, 2007

Pope Guilty, I remember being impressed with the idea behind the "The Wall" level.

And what you consider to be a downside I consider an advantage. Those of us who paid our dues to the original Rogue (an incredibly difficult game, especially in its PC incarnation) should be able to use those skills for something, right?
posted by JHarris at 11:23 AM on April 13, 2007

Heh, Rogue was great. I found that and Hack and Nethack on a free games disc and probably lost several weeks of playtime to it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:32 AM on April 13, 2007

Whenever I play rouge-like games I end up getting killed by Mascara Fiends.
posted by gurple at 11:50 AM on April 13, 2007

Years ago, I spent hours playing alphaman, taking detailed notes on the various berries.
posted by The White Hat at 12:09 PM on April 13, 2007

Mascara Fiends.
You found eyeliner --more-- Apply the eyeliner now?
y
The eyeliner was cursed! Tears stream from your eyes! --more--
Your eyeliner continues running! You are blinded!
--more--
Janice Dickenson hits! Janice Dickenson mocks your eyeliner disaster! You are paralyzed!
--more--
Janice Dickenson hits! You, like, totally die.

posted by boo_radley at 12:17 PM on April 13, 2007 [3 favorites]

Hey, cool, they made a roguelike version of Progress Quest.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 12:45 PM on April 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

As someone who's played a lot of rogue-likes, Dungeon Crawl is the best one I've played. It does a really good job of removing all the boring stuff (not a la progress quest!).
posted by Alex404 at 1:12 PM on April 13, 2007

I dig DC quite a bit, but it's too dang easy. I can routinely get to lv 9-12 before being mercilessly killed.
posted by boo_radley at 1:16 PM on April 13, 2007

I dig DC quite a bit, but it's too dang easy.

I know it's not that hard, at least on the rogue-like scale. I can pretty consistently beat it now. The gameplay and balance on it though is what gets me - it's just very well designed.

But anyway... good lord. Browsing through that rogue-like magazine caused my life to flash before my eyes. There are even more rogue-likes than I was aware of. I must purge this zine from my mind.
posted by Alex404 at 1:24 PM on April 13, 2007

boo_radley: You don't get to call a roguelike easy until you've won a game. At least with Crawl, it is possible to do that without being heavily spoiled (unlike Nethack and ADOM).

Alex404: I've played a lot of roguelikes myself. My favorite roguelike is probably still Nethack, although that may be because I've just read so MUCH on the game over the years. Crawl is very nice though, its niche is in trying to be more like Rogue than Nethack (which, paradoxically, has many more features that are holdovers from that game).
posted by JHarris at 2:13 PM on April 13, 2007

Zangband. Not really a knockoff, but definitely rekindled my NetHack addiction in a big way.
posted by spiderwire at 2:33 PM on April 13, 2007

Ah spiderwire, I've been meaning to give some quality time to ol' Zangband. But does it still have enough to recommend itself after the likes of ToME has been seen?
posted by JHarris at 2:45 PM on April 13, 2007

Ummmm... my opinion is this: any game that lets you

(a) fight and kill pretty much every villain conceived by Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, Zelazny, et. al. (not to mention Barney, Fafnir, Santa Claus, a vaguely Marxist Robin Hood, and a demented Hobbes the Tiger)

(b) wield every cool artifact ever imagined, from the Stormbringer to the One Ring, to the fucking Sword of Groo

(c) play as a Sprite, Golem, a Vampire (who can't go to town in sunlight), a Zombie, or even a Yeek (which is really, really hard)

is, as far as I'm concerned, the Best. Game. Ever.
posted by spiderwire at 3:47 PM on April 13, 2007

This is the definitive MeFi roguelike thread, I believe. Not to be missed, unless you have, like, other things you'd like to accomplish in the next decade or so.
posted by spiderwire at 3:49 PM on April 13, 2007

I found that and Hack and Nethack on a free games disc and probably lost several weeks of playtime to it.

A few weeks? Slacker.
posted by Mitheral at 9:34 PM on April 14, 2007