Friday, December 28, 2012

Episode 57: Roguelike of the Year 2012

Welcome to Roguelike Radio episode 57. This week we talk about the ASCII Dreams Roguelike of the Year 2012 poll. Talking this ep are Darren Grey, Andrew Doull and John Harris.

You can download the mp3 of the podcast, play it in the embedded player below, or you can follow us on iTunes.




We're a bit late in getting this published (it was recorded a week before the poll started) but there's still time to vote or change your vote! Topics discussed in this episode include:
- How Andrew has put the list together
- When is a game released?
- Some controversy over erotic roguelikes
- What we've covered this year on Roguelike Radio
- FPS Roguelikes and the 7DFPS challenge
- Necklace of the Eye
- Some favourites this year, including FTL, ADOM, ToME, Brogue, Dungeons of Dredmor, Red Rogue, Teleglitch, DCSS, DoomRL, AliensRL, Halls of Mist, Sil, Cataclysm, Infra Arcana, Triangle Wizard, Weird Worlds, Zaga-33, MicRogue, Cogmind, HyperRogue, Drakefire Chasm, EarlSpork, Demonhunt, HydraSlayer
- What we'll be covering in the new year


Join us in 2013 for more roguelike-y discussion, and have a happy new year!

17 comments:

  1. Thanks guys! A great countdown to the end of the poll and the year! Still listening to it, but it's definitely YAGP so far :)

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  2. I'd like an episode on Hyrda and AlienRL! Those are solid games. Alien is in my top 5 right now.

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  3. I love it guys. "Let's not talk about 'what is a roguelike'...." :-)

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  4. The most fun I had this year with roguelikes came from:

    -SIL
    -Aliens
    -Brogue
    -Random Realms
    -PRIME

    Right now, though, none of these games are doing super well. That's okay, they are fun.

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  5. Brilliant episode!!!! The polish game mentioned I am pretty sure is RRRSRoguelike - actually English/Polish http://rrrsroguelike.codeplex.com - not that it's a likely winner for RL of the year but a nice open source team effort

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  6. Roguelike Radio got me into roguelikes, gave me the foundation to appreciate them and understand them. This is my first year in roguelikes:

    POWDER:
    Downloaded it for my iPhone and was immediately sucked in. Must admit I was never any good at it, but wand of polymorph got me down to the 15th level eventually, and let me at least buy the "retail" version of it!

    Cataclysm:
    I was really hit hard by the RLR episode on Cataclysm, and had to try it out. Loved the freedom and the immersion, but after a while it got a bit gamey for me, as I was basically following the same strategy every play, and found that there were too many resources to gather. Never played on the SSH server though... will have to get back to it and try that out.

    Cult:
    I was really impressed by the ascii visuals this game represents, and the mad scope of it all. Will probably never reach a final 1.0 build, but hoping for another tech demo soon, just to marvel at the scope of the world generator and dream.

    Brogue:
    Now this has really caught my fancy the last couple months. So easy to get into, there's no complexity of character builds or anything thrown in your face the moment you start, you can just sit down and start playing. Haven't gone beyond the 12th level yet, because I always end up making silly mistakes, like teleporting myself into a fire trap instead of teleporting the monster that's killing me, etc. Love the level layouts, the interactive environments and how well balanced the game feels. The codebase is also the cleanest piece of C code I've ever had the pleasure of setting my eyes on.

    I've also tried to get into ADOM and TOME4 this year, but ADOM has that manual, and I just can't bring myself to read it, where as TOME4 throws so much information at me when I start the game, that I get bored before I even got into the game. The tutorial is pretty awesome though, so I got to grips with the basics quite fast, but with my tight schedule and lack of time, I guess a smaller, more focused game like Brogue is more up my alley :)

    I've also enjoyed Cardianl Quest on my iPhone this year, but never got as much into that as I did POWDER. It's very inspiring to hear all you great developers talk on RLR though!

    And I'd love to try In Profundis, John!

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  7. Missed voting, but I love Pixel Dungeon on android. Just a shame it won't stay zoomed in (on my phone at least, it's awesome on the tablet.)

    Would love a Desktop Dungeons clone for android. Maybe it's time to download the SDK.

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  8. Just FYI, there's also a German RL on the list. ;-)

    The Japanese RL community seems to be very reclusive in regards to the rest of the world. For example I've seen more glimpses of Russian people than for Japanese.

    Even though we know that the Japanese NetHack community must be sizable, judging by the downloads on the Japanese sourceforge of the many NetHack forks that have been translated into Japanese.

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  9. The "Doom variant" you speak of is the Oblige level generator, which creates random maps and campaigns; its still in development and it actually works for other games (Doom 2, Heretic, Hexen, and sort of for Quake and Quake 2). If you mix it with the Aeons of Death mod (which is a compilation of stuff from a lot of old first person shooters: enemies, weapons, items, etc) you can enjoy maximum randomization. Its kind of rogue-like-ish, if a bit chaotic.

    http://oblige.sourceforge.net/
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9ip7d7S-fk

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  10. A late listen as usual, but a nice wrap. I should think unless there is a major stumbling going forward in the dev pace that Rogue's Tale is also fated for eventual 2013 coverage alongside the resurrected Dungeonmans.

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  11. YAGP, guys! :D Looking forward to what 2013 holds for the genre and the podcast.

    If you're looking for someone to talk to about Legend of Dungeon who isn't a developer, Pickselate on Youtube and Twitter has been covering it fairly thoroughly. It's a game I'm intrigued by and did back on Kickstarter, but I'm not nearly good enough at it to talk about it in any sort of detail. Also, have any other roguelike(-like)s been announced for the upcoming Ouya console? The Western roguelike focus has always been on the PC, but would a console straddling the PC and Android markets make a dent in that? Will we see more "Mystery Dungeon-likes" since those seem to have console success (at least in Japan)?

    Regarding Minecraft as procedural: are you aware of its custom mapmaking community? I'm never going to argue that it's a roguelike, but some of those maps get close to the "think before you act" and "learn through death" ideal, and a few of them experiment with procedurally generated dungeons in a very roguelike-like way. One of the most prominent Minecraft mapmakers, Vechs, is also a big roguelike fan - he's reviewed DoomRL on his Youtube channel, and I think has mentioned other roguelike influences on his mapmaking. If you're looking to include interesting and prominent players of roguelikes on your channel (much like the past talk of Robin Walker), perhaps that's something to consider?

    Speaking of Youtube and players to consider, I'd also LOVE to see you guys contact TheUberHunter, because of his exclusive focus on roguelike content. He's not my favorite commentator just for personal stylistic reasons, but I think he contributes something unique and valuable to the player/LPer landscape.

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  12. Please do an episode on Sil! For all the discussion about what is or what is not a roguelike, here's a great new game for which there is no ambiguity. Although "technically" a Angband variant, it is, mechanically, about as different from being like Angband as you can imagine. (as well as being unique for its authors being fanatically devoted to Tolkien canon lore). It has become incredibly popular within the DCSS community for its tactically interesting stealth-centric game play and tight balance. Please check it out!

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    1. Okay, you really sold that to me :) I'm a huge Tolkien fan, but find the normal Angband merging of lore together to be a bit distasteful. We'll give it a spin!

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  13. Rock Paper Shotgun covering TOME4, with the title TOME is where the heart is: Happy new roguelike.

    http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/01/07/tome-is-where-the-heart-is-happy-new-roguelike/

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  14. And I've also enjoyed Uber Hunter's many roguelike let's play videos. So much fun watching him fiddling around in the start of a few of those games, trying to figure out how to play and what the games are about. He does seem to have great insight too though, would be great to have him on :)

    I'd also like to hear you guys talk about mid- and end-game in roguelikes. You've mentioned this in many episodes, but never really spoken of what it is, and what makes mid- and end-game gameplay good or bad, or which games to look at for inspiration. I'd like an episode on that :)

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  15. Did someone mention erotic roguelikes?

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