Favourite Roguelike Games?

[Cecilo]

Sword of the Stars: The Pit Classic/Mindgames/Gold

If you like your roguelike to have a bit more story behind it, plenty of craftables, multiple difficulty settings, corny yet sometimes funny character lines, and more enemies than you know what to do with, SOTS is for you.

 

[suitepee7]

binding of isaac is incredible, and the expansion is pretty fun as well. although on occasion you'll get runs with no hope of clearing later stages because the forces that be were against you, most of the time you have a pretty good chance.

rogue legacy is fun too, although i found i needed a good few hours before i could start attempting the bosses. because gold is not reset on death, it gives it a different feel than TBOI, so you could do a few money runs, and then attempt a boss run, whereas TBOI is just "get to the end every time"

 

[Coakle]

Binding of Isaac. Most fun I've had in a game. The only issue I had was playing in the 'casino' room was a grind.

 

[Autumnflame]

Ive been playing one ( in alpha )

Neo scavenger which isnt too bad.

there are a fair few on steam at the moment in different stages of completion.

i want some to be more finished before i can play and review them

 

[IFS]

Binding of Isaac is the one I've spent the most time on, at over 120 hours, though its started to wear out its welcome in some ways. mostly because all the random moving enemies from the expansion make going for no damage runs nearly impossible. Rogue Legacy is another one that I really enjoy, spent thirty hours beating it several times until I had all the achievements (that is before they added the new bosses) and its a lot of fun. There is also Nethack, one of the classic roguelikes out there, which can be found for free easily. Its a game I've played a fair amount of though never beaten and while it lacks graphics and has an extreme learning curve its also probably the deepest game out there in terms of what you can do.

Finally, not one of my favorites but I figured I'd give my opinion on it, I did get Spelunky recently, though I'm actually finding myself not liking the game very much, the way the game plays just feels off to me. I guess I have a love hate relationship with the game, I can only play it in very short bursts or it starts to get really frustrating.

 

[Atmos Duality]

-Nethack (w/tileset) I've Ascended a couple of times over break, and while I'll eventually get around to Ascending as every class, I'm more amused by the sheer number of ridiculous ways your character can die.

-FTL (Faster Than Light): Needs no explanation, as this should still be fairly well known. Amazingly tough and fun.
-The Binding of Isaac: This game is not well. Isaac is not well. But it's damn good.

-Risk of Rain: Very difficult and more action-based than the others listed. Though I think it's just a little too luck-driven and requires some farm-abuse to win with some characters on Monsoon difficulty. The concept of MOBA style character kits combined with roguelike elements is brilliant, and I'd love to see more of this concept expanded on. (sadly, it seems that the RoR team isn't going to add any content anytime soon, if ever)

 

[Augustine]

FTL - it was perfect in what it did. And it's getting a massive free update soon. And it's coming to iPads.

Spelunky - looks a bit cutesy and cuddly, don't you believe it! It is a brutal-brutal game which manages to keep you playing even if you are bad at it.

 

[antidonkey]

The only ones I've played are FTL and Binding of Isaac.
FTL is great but holy crap is it infuriating. I've yet to beat it even on easy. I just can't manage to take down the boss. The best I've done is get it to the final stage but I my ship was in pieces and it was only one space away from victory so I had to attack. I didn't last that long.
BoI is a very strange game and it's browser roots tend to show. Lots of fun though. I played it quite a bit while listening to podcasts. I've managed to beat it once and haven't pulled it off again as there seems to be more to it now.

 

[In Search of Username]

Yeah Rogue Legacy is great, as others have said. But it is very, very hard, at least for me, I can't get anywhere in it.

(I've never understood the appeal of Binding of Isaac whatsoever, incidentally. It's just a bunch of identical rooms that you run through endlessly, the whole visual style of it seems to be a really childish gross-out thing, and the whole shooting style of the combat just looks really shit and unengaging to me. And yet it seems to be by far the most popular roguelike out there. I don't get it at all. Can someone explain what's good about it?)

 

[RoonMian]

I'm so bad at videogames, every game is a roguelike for me.

 

[happyninja42]

Ok what is the definition of a "roguelike" game? 'Cause when I read this topic title, I thought Rogue, ie Thief ie Sneaky Bastard type games. But from the comments it seems like you are more referring to games like Rogue Legacy?

 

[Bombiz]

Surprised no one has mentioned this one yet. Risk of Rain.
Edit: Never mind. There actually are some people who recommended it. I was just to stupid to see them. Guess that's what I get for looking at the the forms at 11am while in bed and on my phone.

Unrelated does any on else think the escapist needs a mobile app?

 

[IFS]

Yeah Rogue Legacy is great, as others have said. But it is very, very hard, at least for me, I can't get anywhere in it.

(I've never understood the appeal of Binding of Isaac whatsoever, incidentally. It's just a bunch of identical rooms that you run through endlessly, the whole visual style of it seems to be a really childish gross-out thing, and the whole shooting style of the combat just looks really shit and unengaging to me. And yet it seems to be by far the most popular roguelike out there. I don't get it at all. Can someone explain what's good about it?)

Binding of Isaac is a bit hard to explain, but I guess I'll try. The game is hard and very random so no two playthroughs are alike, there are always new things to find and through playing you're bound to unlock more as you go. This combined with how powerful you can become by the end gives the game a weird but very enjoyable difficulty curve, where you can go from fighting flies with your tears to shooting blasts of blood/hellfire at satan himself. Basically its the same sort of rewarding difficulty a lot of the best roguelikes have, its hard but you can master it and emerge victorious, Binding of Isaac is one of the few games that has actually left me shaking after a close victory.

The combat itself is simple but can take a lot of skill to master, and is something that can change drastically depending on your items. Going back to the random nature of the game, Isaac is a game with a lot of stuff, especially with the expansion (though the expansion does add some things I don't like) and with all the different items out there you'll never have two runs with exactly the same build. it also doesn't tell you what they do outside of small bits of text when you pick them up, so there is a sense of discovery when you find new stuff, and of experimentation when you combine different item powers and learn what happens. The random nature of the game makes it so that one part of the game is learning the actual nuances of combat, dodging, shooting, angling your shots, learning enemy patterns, etc. While the other part is risk management and knowing the games systems well enough to use them. Gambling, spawning arcades, pills, secret rooms, etc. Some of that you won't learn without a wiki but even so there is still a lot you can work out or at least get a feel for.

The visual design is intentionally gross yes but given that you're running through the nightmares of an abused kid that sort of makes sense. The whole story/design is intentionally very symbolic, weird, and nightmarish but also done in a sort of wacky style, so it comes across a bit like dead baby comedy. Its certainly not something that will appeal to everyone but I for one think that the style really showing that you're in Isaac's nightmares adds to the game. There are plenty of breakdowns/interpretations of what all the symbolism means, and what the games story is out there as well if you're at all curious.

 

[Lawnmooer]

Ok what is the definition of a "roguelike" game?

Games that are similar to the game Rogue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(computer_game)

They usually feature, randomly generated rooms/levels, randomly generated enemies and items and permanent death.

On Topic:

I've spent plenty of time playing Binding of Isaac (I'm Platinum God on it), Spelunky, FTL, Brogue, Dungeons of Dredmor (Until I figured out the easy way to beat the game on any difficulty and ran out of interesting mods to try) and Risk of Rain.

My favourite is Binding of Isaac, mostly because of the factors that can minimize the chance to be completely screwed over gained through having unlocked a lot of features (The D6 can turn crappy items into good ones when playing Isaac, Blue Baby/Cain/Judas' increased damage modifiers can make a run workable with fewer damage items and the increased amount of damage/health ups increasing the chance at potentially game winning items (Unlocking the Relic made so many runs incredibly easy for example))

I find it hard to really play roguelikes for long times, due to getting frustrated at RNG's being really awful for me. Some more interesting ones are those that skill can help get you through the game despite not being lucky and having items to carry you (I still haven't completed FTL, Brogue or Risk of Rain due to a large portion of the game being luck dependent with skill being either a non-factor or not enough of a factor (In the case of RoR))

(I've never understood the appeal of Binding of Isaac whatsoever, incidentally. It's just a bunch of identical rooms that you run through endlessly, the whole visual style of it seems to be a really childish gross-out thing, and the whole shooting style of the combat just looks really shit and unengaging to me. And yet it seems to be by far the most popular roguelike out there. I don't get it at all. Can someone explain what's good about it?)

The main points are:

- It's simple, yet effective. Combat is rather simple (4 directions to shoot, 4 directional keys, bombs, item and spacebar item) but it's engaging enough, it can seem a bit like a bullet hell game when put against certain enemy types, there's shot angling (Since you can't fire in diagonals normally, using side-stepping while shooting can allow this) and various items that have massive effects on how combat works.
- Both skill and RNG can affect a run, it's possible to get amazing RNG and be carried by item and it's also possible to beat the game DESPITE having really bad items.
- The art style may not be amazing, but it's different and it's quite clear on what every thing is, what attacks are being used etc. It's unique.

 

[Exhuminator]

Am I the only person who plays roguelikes that aren't on PC? There's lots of great ones on consoles and portables.

 

[Foitzoik]

Iter Vehemens Ad Necem (IVAN) is one of the best roguelikes i ever played. Sadly it is not very well known.
It is a classic roguelike in every sense of the word. It has classic dungeoncrawling and a huge variety of commands and actions and high difficulty (I haven't beaten it once). There is a big pantheon of gods to worship: f you find the corresponding altar and if you pray to them they cam give you a variety of gifts, for example if you lost your arm in an explosion the goddess of mutations can give you a mutated arm or tentacle as substitute.
Apart from that it has really good graphical design for a roguelike, so you can even see the details on your character like armorpieces or your bleeding head which also means it doesn`t use ASCII symbols like rogue or other classic roguelikes.
And it also has some great tongue-in-cheek humor.
The downside is a little lack of variety, since the whole game's progression doesn't really change much with each playthrough, the order of each dungeon and the bossmonsters are always the same, also i never got past the second dungeon because there is also a huge spike in the difficulty from the first to the second dungeon. Nevertheless becauso of the depth and charm of the game no playthrough feels the same.
Since this game never comes up in discussions and the recent popularity of roguelikes i thought this game deserved some attention. And best of all it is completely free.

Here is the Review that made me aware of it a long time ago

http://homeoftheunderdogs.net/game.php?id=5175

And you can get it here (The version is 0.50 an the development seems to have stopped which is kind of a shame, but the game is complete, seemingly bug-free and perfectly playable):

http://ivan.sourceforge.net/download.html

 

[suitepee7]

well i'll try to explain it from my point of view, although i predict i'll sound like a massive fanboy...

It's just a bunch of identical rooms that you run through endlessly

the room layouts are randomised. there are a set number of patterns they may take, but the randomisation comes from the obstacles, the layout of the whole floor, the enemies within the rooms and the potential items within the rooms. then there are bonus challenge rooms, gambling rooms, sacrifice rooms, treasure rooms, item rooms and hidden rooms. each of these can contain one or several different things, and you weigh up the pros and cons of each room (do i run straight to the boss, or find the item room to get the map to help me later?)

the whole visual style of it seems to be a really childish gross-out thing

yeah, i can't argue here. personally i don't mind it, it makes it a little more disturbing, but i fully get how some people would be uncomfortable about playing a naked baby killing abortions with tears... each to their own

the whole shooting style of the combat just looks really shit and unengaging to me

it's not as simple as it first looks. quite early on you'll learn how to curve shots, predict enemy paths, and learn the pros and cons of each item and how it affects your shots (one shot turns enemies to stone, one turns it into lasers that go through rocks, one passes through enemies but no longer knocks them back, one shoots bombs... you get the point). i won't lie and say it's anything other than simple, but it serves its purpose well enough imo

another 2 points as to why i like it so much

-the music is really, really awesome!
-the boss fights (especially later ones) get really hard, but always seem fair (with exception to ungodly lame chest levels... so unfair)

 

[Coakle]

(I've never understood the appeal of Binding of Isaac whatsoever, incidentally. It's just a bunch of identical rooms that you run through endlessly, the whole visual style of it seems to be a really childish gross-out thing, and the whole shooting style of the combat just looks really shit and unengaging to me. And yet it seems to be by far the most popular roguelike out there. I don't get it at all. Can someone explain what's good about it?)

Other people seem to have you covered. Personally, after a while, I stopped noticing the art and sound design altogether. Everything just breaks down into objects that hurt and sounds that telegraph attacks. This may be a good or bad thing depending on your perspective.

If you're a fan of rogue-like games I would give it a try. It's five bucks on steam.

 

[Oroboros]

Personally, I'd say that anyone who likes Roguelikes should give Nethack and Rogue itself. Both are loads of fun. (play Rogue before nethack).

 

[In Search of Username]

Thanks for the responses, various people who replied to me! I guess I'm just put off by finding the whole visual style of it offputting, and the combat seems less enjoyable than, say, Spelunky, where you've got a variety of things you can do like whip people, throw them around, use various guns, etc. And also the fact that every area, other than layout changes, seems to have the same colour scheme and general look to it, unlike in Spelunky or Rogue Legacy. I guess what appeals to people is the replay value, and how technically well-put-together it is as a roguelike, but that's not really enough to appeal to me personally.