Is Darkest Dungeon a game for me? Any other game recommendations?

[Mirroga]

I love FTL, XCOM, and Frozen Synapse. All of them are heavily strategic games with roguelike elements. I love FTL's overall journey, XCOM's base and team management, and Frozen Synapse's tactical combat.

Right now these 3 offer me the same gameplay elements but different overall experiences that keep me from replaying all 3 everytime.

I've seen Darkest Dungeon. I know it's still not released. But the early access playthroughs looks very promising. Is it a game worthy of the ranks of FTL, XCOM, and Frozen Synapse? Are there any other games you might recommend?

 

[Zhukov]

I guess.

Darkest Dungeon could be described as FTL with old school JRPG combat.

It has the randomized approach to levels from FTL and a rather similar upgrade system. Then when it's time to fight you line up opposite the enemy and take turns bopping each other on the head. Its only real innovation in that area is that the position of a character in the lineup actually matters and many abilities alter those positions.

Its signature mechanic is the stress thing. Your adventurers get gradually stressed out by, well, tons of things. Stepping on traps, taking a crit, many enemy abilities, walking in the dark and lots more. When they get to the 50% stress point they either snap, taking negative actions beyond your control and stressing out the rest of the party or, occasionally, become "virtuous" which has the opposite effect, causing them to bolster the rest of the party. If they get to 100% stress the have a heart attack and die.

Stress is reduced by favourable encounters, some combat abilities, many camp abilities and a whole bunch of recovery options between dungeon crawls.

It's kind of an odd mechanic since your main interaction with it is trying to avoid and mitigate it.

Don't let the early access dissuade you. While the content is not complete, what is in the game is very polished and I haven't found a single bug or crash.

The only real problem with it is that there is very little variation. One dungeon crawl starts to feel much like another, with only the occasional boss to break things up, and there isn't anything else to do. I eventually stopped playing due to the inevitable monotony.

 

[Mirroga]

How about This War of Mine. Is it another game I might enjoy? Or does it get predictable or repetitive very fast?

 

[Hieronymusgoa]

This War of Mine is more an experience than a classical game even with the roguelike stuff and everything.
I loved it but I wouldn't recommend it as a game in the classical sense.
It is repetitive, too.

 

[SquidVicious]

Yahtzee's new game, The Consuming Shadow is pretty similar to Darkest Dungeon and Yahtzee said that FTL was a major inspiration for the game. I haven't played Darkest Dungeon since that corpse wall update thing happened and I was pretty turned off by it as it made a game I was already pretty terrible at, incredibly hard. Apparently you have the option to turn them off though, so I might have another crack at it tonight. The game is set to be released in January 2016 and I'd actually advise you wait, not because the incomplete nature of the game detracts from the experience, but rather you don't get burned out before the thing is actually released. If you can't wait though and just want to play it now, the game is well worth the money and is a shining example of what Early Access is supposed to be.

 

[MeatMachine]

Crypt of the Necrodancer is pretty cool. It's a combination of a dungeon-crawling roguelike and a rhythm game, set to great music by Danny Baranowsky (of Super Meat Boy and Binding of Isaac fame).

It's not strategic game though, at least by your definitions, but it's an excellent roguelike. So... a half-recommendation?

 

[Redryhno]

How about This War of Mine. Is it another game I might enjoy? Or does it get predictable or repetitive very fast?

This War of Mine isn't a gamer's game. Its not a mechanical toybox, its a game that intends to deliever on a particular sort of experience, heavily utilizing narrative elements. Its not a bad game but its not a game like XCOM or FTL where its easy to dump hundreds of hours into it. Well, imo anyways. I've played a hundred hours of FTL and 500 hours of XCOM so take my rather apparent tastes into consideration before you take what I say at face value.

I dunno, it's got alot of resource management, finding out optimal build paths, and luck pushing. Sounds pretty much like a standard roguelite honestly. The narrative part of it is honestly just a nice little bit of icing on the cake(even though I don't particularly like most cake).

I mean, guitar's a good thing to rush for if you can, but depending on who you have(Mathematics professor and what's-her-name are so completely useless if you decide to torture yourself with that setup), you might actually need to go and rush your kitchen because they can't go five minutes without bitching about food.