You live, you run around in a bunch of ASCII dungeons, you die stupidly, you live again (from level one)! My taste in games is perhaps best described as "masochistic" so I really love these motherfuckers. I've played and beat Angband, which I liked, but the real love of my roguelike heart is Sil, an Angband spin-off (although it's pretty fucking different at this point) that's focused more on the First Age Tolkien aspect, with no offensive magic or teleportation, really well designed morale and stealth, magic song and ability to create your own legendary artifacts. It is fucking murderous. I really, really love the flavor and the gameplay of it (and anyone playing dnd with me who tries it will, uh, recognize a lot of stuff) and I will aggressively try to get anyone here who will listen to play it (psst hey @Aondueg hey) Also, I'm currently trying to run a character built as Utena Tenjou through it. I'm dying a lot, though, because humans are definitely Hard Mode in an already very difficult game. So what are y'all's poisons of choice? I'm sure there's some people around here who've played Rogue proper.
I've played significant amounts of Moria and Nethack in the past; I ascended once in the latter. No Rogue or Angband or Sil, yet.
Remember the first Diablo game? That was Moria done in isometric 3D. Much of the gameplay was identical. Gigantic big scrolling dungeons rather than screen-sized ones.
Never managed to ascend in Nethack, but I beat Omega a couple of times (and missed half the jokes in it because it was my first roguelike).
I have now downloaded Sil; seems interesting. A lot of thought has been put into it. Apparently Moria is Angband's ancestor / inspiration, and was in turn inspired by the original Rogue which would not run on the computer Moria's original authors had access to (Rogue was UNIX; Moria was originally developed on VMS).
Five! Five lifetime Nethack acensions! Ah ah ah! (Valk, Wiz, Valk, Arch, Valk) I've been enjoying Dungeons of Dredmor a lot. It's a very silly game, but it has surprising depth.
Damn, Sil's enemy AI is murderous. Those damn orcs gang up on you and coordinate parties coming at you from multiple directions! Very easy to get deaded.
I started playing Nethack in 3.1.0. I think I read about it in a newspaper not long after I first got online. (obligatory "get off my cyber-lawn") I stuck to particular versions of each class and had names for them based on Anime characters (and one Pratchett). Spoiler Setsuna the Valkyrie Ami the Archeologist Haruka the Barbarian Esk the Wizard Sylia the Samurai Akane the Monk Kasumi the Healer and Meagen the Ranger because I always name my Rangers Meagen. (Sadly, Rangers are hard so I stopped playing them and focused on easier classes.) I played in ASCII early on but eventually switched to tiles. I still have the 3.4.3 install of NethackW. Actually, I might as well get back into it! I'll do some name reassignment and then jump back into playing. I want the whole core five Senshi represented ths time, instead of only my favorite Inner, favorite Outer, and least favorite overall. Spoiler Usagi the Healer Ami the Archeologist Rei the Samurai Mako the Valkyrie Minako the Rogue Nigel the Barbarian Twilight the Wizard Laura the Priest Arturia the Knight Meagen the Ranger That looks good. I'll try a Mako first to get the hand of playing again.
Valkyries are I think my favorite early-game class. Later one some others get to be more powerful IMO, but a valkyrie is more likely to get past those easy-to-die early and mid stages.
Oh wow, I haven't thought about Nethack and roguelikes in ages! I recall being most fond of Healers and Wizards in Nethack. Healers were named White, and Wizards were named Blue. I never did ascend, but I was never that hardcore about it either. This one time my Healer found a legit Wand of Wishing and I recall just putting the game down for a long time, because clearly I had reached the high point of my roguelike career. I'll have to pick that back up sometime. And also try that Sil one, it sounds cool. Is there a tileset for Sil? I've never managed to penetrate an ascii interface.
alas, there is not. You might be able to get one from Angband to work, if you've got the technical chops, but I've honestly got no idea. Also, in today's edition of "I cannot believe I fucking survived this" I got down to 2hp before i managed to break free and bolt for the stairs.
SO MUCH TOLKIEN. Though roguelike wise I have yet to play Sil and such. I do like to play nethack at times or crawl because they're very Buddhist game design wise. It's like Samsara condensed into game form and it is up to you to learn how to become Guanyin. Though I do wish I could find one that like...Actually makes use of that in terms of plot and theming? Like actually addressing the game mechanics in terms of the plot and themes. MAKING IT BUDDHIST WOULD JUST MAKE ME LOVE IT ALL THE MORE. I do like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky more than nethack or crawl though because...Adorable pokemons and a plot and characters that I actually care about. I would put more effort into beating nethack if I could actually give a fuck about the game's world.
Damn you Wiwaxia. Sil is addictive. Though I have not managed to get lower than 150ft before dying. Though this last time I encountered an Orc named boss with about 10 followers so at least I didn't die to a mold or something.
ehehehehehe, you're welcome. >:3 Yeah, gorgol's a nasty motherfucker and invariably shows up before you're prepared to deal with him. Out of curiosity, what are you playing? I managed to get a couple iterations of Utena (including one who found a mithril corslet and helm within the first 200 feet!) down to 500 feet recently, before stupid deaths involving spiderwebs and giants, respectively.
500 seems to be the hard floor to beat for Utena. Giants are real menaces if you don't have a lot of HP. Also I'm feeling like bragging, so have a character dump of my old Sil winner. (lookit that con!)
I downloaded Sil the other day and I haven't had a chance to play it for more than about ten minutes, but I like it so far.
