Little Rogue: A thread about Roguelikes, there will be Rogues, like, innit. - The Bear and Badger

Roujin

I'd like to recommend Death Road to Canada.

A roguelike about a road trip escape from zombies in the U.S by escaping to Canada. Hence the name.

I used to play it on stream a fair amount and will go back at some point as I never finished it.

It's great. You get random generated characters with different personality traits and skills, you encounter various random events out on the road and encounter procedurally generated towns and buildings. The game plays out as 50% top down ish action and 50% text adventure for the open road travelling. Throw in the need to eat, heal injuries and scavenge fuel and you have a game that always succeeds in giving you something hilarious and many things to root for. Power tripping seems extremely difficult however unless you know exactly what to play for which I think in this case lessens the fun as I find the adventures of your hapless rag tag survivors to be really entertaining on their own.

It's all topped off with lovely pixel art if that floats your boat.

Best of all is out now on current gen as well as PC! With a bunch of new content added since I last played!

Roujin

I see Death Road was also mentioned in the OP. Soz.

Moot_Geeza

Tempy wrote:

The more I think about this as well the more it becomes obvious to me that Seeded runs or Daily/Weekly Challenges are already a thing in Roguelikes and basically fulfil what Moot wants. A fixed seed that you get a shot at, and it's always the same if you enter that same seed. It's not designed, and there's always a chance the seed is total bunk, but it's there.

It sounds like exactly what I'm after. Something I can practice at until I beat it that removes the luck element. I didn't realise these modes existed.

Roujin

Isaac has seed modes and the daily challenges which are the same thing.

Moot_Geeza

JonB wrote:

Moot_Geeza wrote:

I've always subscribed to the more options = better school of thought. If Colgate the Viking had a bolted on rogue mode I wouldn't even consider hating it, I just wouldn't bother playing it, which is essentially the flip side of what we're talking about.

But there's a reason it doesn't have that, which is that it would be a half-arsed roguelike that wouldn't really please anyone.

Exactly, this is why I was so pleased with my example. Mirror world me would be chuffed with a crappy rouguelike Colgate.

Tempy

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Tempy wrote:

The more I think about this as well the more it becomes obvious to me that Seeded runs or Daily/Weekly Challenges are already a thing in Roguelikes and basically fulfil what Moot wants. A fixed seed that you get a shot at, and it's always the same if you enter that same seed. It's not designed, and there's always a chance the seed is total bunk, but it's there.

It sounds like exactly what I'm after. Something I can practice at until I beat it that removes the luck element. I didn't realise these modes existed.

But at that point you’re learning by rote and cutting off massives swathes of the item pools because the seed is randomised anyway, it’s jsut guaranteed to be the same randomisation every time you enter it. I can’t really see the fun in a run of Isaac or Slay the Spire where you know what you’re going to get, the joy of discovering synergies and winning through skilful play that balances luck in your favour is a foundation of the genre, cutting it out seems like you’re just playing cos you want to see what everyone else likes, but you don’t actually want to play.

The fun from seeds comes from sharing them with pals, like we’re doing in the Slay the Spire weekly.

JonB

Moot_Geeza wrote:

JonB wrote:

Moot_Geeza wrote:

I've always subscribed to the more options = better school of thought. If Colgate the Viking had a bolted on rogue mode I wouldn't even consider hating it, I just wouldn't bother playing it, which is essentially the flip side of what we're talking about.

But there's a reason it doesn't have that, which is that it would be a half-arsed roguelike that wouldn't really please anyone.

Exactly, this is why I was so pleased with my example. Mirror world me would be chuffed with a crappy rouguelike Colgate.

Fair enough. I can't really argue with what you or shadow you might like. Only that I can't see why anyone would want to make it for you.

Tempy

If you got a seed in Isaac where you were guaranteed Guppy it’d just take all the fun out of getting Guppy.

Roujin

Yo those runs where you get joker on floor 1 and find 2 bits of guppy.

Them ones there are the special times.

Tempy

Knowing that would happen or never happen. Feelsbadman.

Moot_Geeza

I've decided to push Dead Cells all the way up my to play list, as roguelike as its makers intended. I'm 3/4 of the way through Slime-San, hoping to have it done by the weekend, then I'll lock myself away with Dead Cells for a few hours and see what happens.

Moot_Geeza

mistercrayon wrote:

Moot_Geeza wrote:

I've always subscribed to the more options = better school of thought. If Colgate the Viking had a bolted on rogue mode I wouldn't even consider hating it, I just wouldn't bother playing it, which is essentially the flip side of what we're talking about.

Does the Mona Lisa need a toaster?

Would it make you unhappy if it made her happy?

mistercrayon

Going away from a less facetious example, there is a good reason why we have editors or we complain of bloat. Even when there are sparks of things that work well, that get smothered by other crap (hello Jane Eyre).

Moot_Geeza

I do agree, of course. More options to tinker within a game always being a good thing, rather than adding more and more eggs to the pudding. Initially I did think whacking a few sliders up and down would spit out the gametype I mentioned on p.1, like the duel mode in the MD version of Golden Axe, but's become apparent there would be far more to it.

I wouldn't want 200 weapons in Worms, but I would like to be able to set everything to my liking from the available offerings (everyone starts with double health and 3 banana bombs only etc). Deep options never hurt anyone is what I was aiming for up there (becore I muddied the waters with the genre switcheroo talk again), rather than more is more.

acemuzzy

I think I don't like roguelikes. Or at least I've never had one grab me. Too open. Too much random. Needs more tightness.

Roujin

Yeah they're pretty divisive. The randomness and the chance for kerazy, borderline unique experiences in game is the main draw for me.

The TLJ of gaemz genres.

mistercrayon

acemuzzy wrote:

I think I don't like roguelikes. Or at least I've never had one grab me. Too open. Too much random. Needs more tightness.

I’m finding with into the breach it does the thing I want in advance wars which is I can almost always optimise a solution. In advanced wars the levels are much tighter and so you need to be planning waaaay farther than my brain can cope, so I’m digging the series of loosely connected micro puzzles.

Tempy

Something like Slay the Spire is tightly designed, despite the randomness. That’s why people can do win streaks on the hardest difficulty. If it was pure randomness, it wouldn’t be possible.

Paul the sparky

I agree with Mootsy's general gist, it's a shame if he's got to miss out on a game for want of a few options, but yeah there's only going to be a handful of games where that's going to be possible. I'm all for more options available to tailor the game to your playstyle though.

Deffo check out Dead Cells Moot, like Tempo said the dailies should be right up your street.

Moot_Geeza

Will do, I pre-ordered the bastard due to all the fuss on here. It's time (almost).

Dark Soldier

And then play Slay the Spire and sign the next three months away.

Slay is the tightest, most precise and satisfying rogue I've played even though it's clearly pretty much RNG.

Isaac
Slay
Cells

In that order for me, Isaac top as it introduced me to the genre even though I think Slay is a better game.

Facewon

Roujin wrote:

I see Death Road was also mentioned in the OP. Soz.

Only added as people mentioned it. Don't stress. Write ups of ones folks have missed is the point!

mistercrayon

Is Tetris a roguelike?

(Specifically: Type B in GB Tetris, as opposed to marathon/unlimited mode)

Facewon

I don't know.

Meanwhile. I bought Kingdom two thrones.

It counts.

Facewon

Worth keeping an eye on?

Tempy

Mark Brown basically did mine and Jon's article as a video

JonB

Yeah, the Rogue Legacy bit is almost weirdly familiar. But I guess it's quite a common take anyway.

mistercrayon

Seeing the clip of blops made me wonder if battle royale games are defacto roguelikes.

acemuzzy

Any views on Cryptark?

Facewon

It's pretty good. I played it, never finished though.

I mean I guess it is in this genre, but there's no synergy stuff really, so it just feels like a (good) twin stick shooter.

The focus on speed wasn't my favourite mechanic though.

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