[OT] Roguelikes?

[getter77]

How...how did I miss this thread. I hear a trumpet fanfare!

Right then folks, let's get down to business as this is my forte:

http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopme...itle=Main_Page This here is one of your best bets for discerning new releases as they exist across a variety of projects.

http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopme...ted_Roguelikes This here is good in general for those well out of the loop and wanting a big/updated list to wrap your heads around and link hunt.

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/column_at_play/ This is a column you will want to read regularly to discover forgotten gems, new developments, and generally discuss the lot of things.

http://planetrl.elderlore.com/ Another good news outlet

http://cymonsgames.retroremakes.com/7drl-reviews/ For reviews of the latest entrants in the 7DRL competition

http://www.roguetemple.com/ The best message and discussion board overall for the subject...fair amount of new things announced and monitored here.

http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?...ames.roguelike The google group where nearly everything else is mentioned, likely home for YASD/YAVP posts

Now then, as that should handle a bit of the broad end of the spectrum, allow me to nod in some specific interesting directions:

http://koti.mbnet.fi/frozend/ Frozen Depths..has a unique Cold theme

http://trianglewizard.webs.com/index.htm Triangle Wizard Unique graphical style, unorthodox gameplay, uncannily rapid development

http://sites.google.com/site/crawlvariations/ Zot Defense Very recent up and coming Crawl: Stone Soup variant that aims to make a Tower Defense game out of it.

http://keye.phk.at/ Kamyran's Eye 1 and 2. 1 being freeware, 2 being for budget sale and has a free demo. Other than Scallywag and to an extend UnRealWorld, 2 is one of the last known retail Roguelikes.

http://www.minesofmorgoth.com/ Mines of Morgoth Very ambitious and long in the making updated homage to Moria that is NOT Angband'y. Almost done, will retail soon, has a free demo currently up.

http://glistenimages.com/Lukos/lukosMageGuild.htm Mage Guild Eschews the usual Roguelike genocidal tendencies to instead reward the player with increased power upon finding an item on each level and making it from dungeon level to dungeon level. Advanced alchemy system allows for some interesting situations.

http://myweb.cableone.net/gmcnutt/nazghul.html Nazghul Graphical CRPG/Roguelike attempt that aims to draw in many a folk.

http://lambdarogue.net/index.php LambdaRogue The greatest Roguelike in regard to Trailers for each version, as well as the interesting notion that you will pretty much HAVE to play the game proper as there's intentionally next to no spoilers available for it---thus creating a bit more imperative adventure compared to many rounds of playing Nethack by the numbers.

http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=news POWDER is an interesting graphical Roguelike for the PC, GBA, DS and a host of other platforms and is good fun with some unique eccentricities.

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=4017.0 Spelunky essentially asks the question of what if you crossed a Roguelike with Indiana Jones/La Mulana/Maze of Galious---the answer will likely delight you.

http://www.kolumbus.fi/topi_ylinen/peleron/ Peleron's Brilliant Rebirth is a semi-Roguelike CRPG thing trying to wrangle a unique fantasy world and has some rather lofty aims along the way. Currently in early alpha but looking very promising.

http://buildingworlds.com/telengard/ Lastly, here's a remake of an old C64 game by the name of Telengard...oddly enough made by one of the developers behing the PC game FATE.

I'm always happy to answer and Roguelike questions if I know the answer to them!

[Endoperez]

For those not in the know, 7DRL stands out for "7-day roguelike". It's a competition where roguelike designers try to take a week's break from their absurd projects to try to make a complete game in just seven days. Some of the games are ingenious, and are later honed further. The finished projects are very interesting even when they aren't good games, and they often are. It's surprising that a fun game can be made in so little time, when you consider how hard it is to make one in a year...

[Omnirizon]

first, thanks a ton to getter77.

second, I can't help but plug the FourthAge roguelike which will soon re-enter development (after a semester long break).

My goal over the semester was to do one thing: get some sort of map generation.

Thanks to some tips my lch and a weekend spent reading up on fractal and noise generation algorithms (and the availablity of existing implementations of these things), I've got a foundation for terrain generation which I am close to getting prepped for generating the kinds of maps I want for FourthAge.

I'm using Perlin Noise. It seems like a simple way to model terrain, providing a one-number-per-pixel representation. In its simplest form, the number is mapped to greyscale (higher being whiter and lower black, or vice-versa) and produces these 'plasma cloud' images. The noise can be smoothed, and multiple layers (called octaves) can even be blended together, it can even produce noise in multiple dimensions (1D, 2D, 3D, even 4D for time variable noise in 3D). These values can be mapped to discrete colors, or even objects (for example, a city scape can be made by assigning each number to a particular building, since Perlin noise tends to clump but also can look diluted, you simply place buildings that are likely to be built next to each other together in the range of numbers. This will produce cities with industrial areas, downtowns, suburbs, ect.) It seems like a very simply baseline, and to my understanding is used as base noise in other fractal algorithms.

The only issue I am wrestling with now is understanding base noise and 'permutation' tables. I've read that Perlin Noise takes base noise and applies it to the algorithm. An entire grid of base noise is memory intensive and slow, instead a lookup table (permutation table) is used. I just don't understand the relationship between the length of the table, the values (and repeated values), and what kind of base noise is provided. I understand the table cannot have a value higher than its (length - 1). What about repeated values in the table? I also understand the lookup will 'wrap-around' the table. Does this mean that it goes through cells, assigning each cell a value out of the table until it reaches the end of the table, then starts at the beginning of the table again? Doesn't this make some sort of too obvious pattern in the noise? Does my table need to be as long as the number of cells I have to prevent this? Doesn't this leave me back at the memory problem that lookup tables were originally meant to ameliorate? I just don't know.

Once I've completely grasped these issues, I'll begin working with the implementation and getting some maps out of it. I've already produced some greyscale stuff, but am not moving on until I understand the issues of base noise.

Any experts on the issue feel free to contact me

[getter77]

If you've not already Omnirizon, I highly recommend you submit your technical queries to the Google Group and/or the Roguetemple board...as there are technical minded folk there that would surely take a gander and weigh in.

I also forgot some earlier, oops. Furthermore then:

http://roguelikefiction.com/ Legerdemain Combines Roguelike with Advtenture game to a nifty result. Had an old school cluebook version of the game you could get awhile back, well made and in journal form sitting on my dresser---free in general though.

http://www.zincland.com/7drl/letterhunt/ Letterhunt is an older 7DRL project that falls into the "so nifty" category alluded to above. Conquer the alphabet in an entirely different manner all over again.

http://egoboo.sourceforge.net/ Egoboo is a long developed Roguelikeish thing that is graphical and has an interesting, if whimsical, style to it.

http://slashie.net/news.php Many interesting projects here, including the newfound Expedition and older projects that we all dream of further completion on like CastlevaniaRL

http://hokuto-no-rogue.sourceforge.net/ Hokuto no Rogue is something the classical 80's anime fans will immediately recognize and salivate over. Still early but the Java and graphical implementations are very promising and does some appropriate, yet nifty, things like locational damage targetting.

http://homepage3.nifty.com/rfish/index_e.html
http://elona.wikia.com/wiki/Elona_Wiki

Elona is a hyper feature packed graphical Roguelike that is potentially downright creepy depending on how one plays it. Perhaps the most outlandish Sandbox of a Roguelike out there yet.

http://www.freewebs.com/drussell/index.htm Feeling like some classics like never before? This man has you covered with a classic Rogue, graphical Rogue, graphical Hack(predecessor to Nethack), and various other projects.

http://scourge.wikia.com/wiki/S.C.O.U.R.G.E.
http://scourgeweb.org/tiki-index.php

SCOURGE, while the main site is down right now, is a graphical 3/4'ish perspective up and coming party based Roguelike that is bursting with ambition and graphical flare attempts. In dev for quite awhile now and chugging along thusly with their newfound wiki helping to keep it all together.

Hmm...that'll do until some other stuff comes to mind that I might've forgotten these times around.

[getter77]

http://www.asceai.net/meritous/ Meritous was another good, distilled one I forgot about---a nicely different style it has going for it.

[getter77]

It finally happened. v1.0 of Mines of Morgoth, www.minesofmorgoth.com , is at last available for digital purchase. Development will continue to add and such as time goes on. Not since the local Scallywag has anything like this happened to my knowledge on the PC front---so I see this as a pretty big deal. Refresh the site a couple times if you don't see the purchase section.

Cost seems to be 19 Euros.