–|>——- O.O imm
You would think that in playing muds and IF I naturally would play a lot of roguelike games too, but this isn’t the case (unless you count Dwarf Fortress I guess). It is one of those things I’ve been meaning to check out — with full awareness of the rabbit hole I could then slip down, but never mind that…
The thing is, while I like graphical RPGs, a lot of times the interface isn’t very satisfying. The characters are clumsy looking, it’s hard to get them to move in a natural way, the buildings and landscapes are just that side of pretty where they aren’t very pretty at all. It’s like a cross between Zelda and Virtua Fighter, and not appealing. On the other hand, while roguelikes are (obviously) stripped down to the barest of graphical representation, I can totally get into it and let my imagination do the work.
Thanks to RAIF and TIGSource I found my first roguelike, and it’s called Legerdemain. Coincidentally, according to the developer it’s a cross between IF and roguelikes — the site is even called roguelikefiction. Maybe this is the roguelike I was meant to play first?
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How’s the game so far? I’m looking for indie/retro games to review for my blog - I’ve played the basics (nethack, ADOM, Angband), and am a big fan of IF.
I’m having fun with it so far. There are a few gameplay things that take getting used to — such as reordering items in order to equip something not in the first four slots of inventory. Is that a standard roguelike convention? At first I was like, what the hell?!
Also if your character dies before you reach the first savepoint, you need to start over at the beginning of the level. It’s not such a huge deal though. Again, is this normal in roguelikes?
There is a fun character creation process, cool bits of story as you progress in a level, and the game looks pretty too.
With the game still in beta I think there are still a few interface issues that could be ironed out but it’s definitely worth playing.
Most roguelikes don’t have savepoints. At all. Once you die, that’s it - you have to start over.
So, yes, you have to beat the entire game without getting killed at all - a tricky feat, given how every level is random.
That’s why beating them is such a big deal.
Of course, you can cheat - they autosave when you quit, and you can make a backup of the autosave (which is deleted when you die).
The inventory systems usually aren’t so limited.