It's been pretty refreshing over the last few years to see the success of the Indie game industry with quite lot of well made and innovative games finding success, some hugely so (Hello Minecraft) showing that its possible to develop and find success outside the confines of the traditional publishing system.
One of the most interesting developments for me is the rise to virtual mainstream of the rouguelike game. This is a genre that has always been pretty close to my heart, I remember many moons ago downloading Nethack and this was back when you needed to connect to a Bulletin Board Service with a 2400 baud modem and godamn grimoire. I instantly fell in love with the randomly generated dungeons, brutal difficulty and permadeath. I played a lot of others since but they always remained a kind of niche game due to steep learning curves and primitive graphics. So it with a good deal of surprise and delight to see them finally flourish into something a much larger audience can get into. Goodness its almost so prevalent at the moment that every second indie game is slapping "rougelike elements" in the features list. But it doesn't over shadow that there have been some real gems. For me some favourites are FTL, Dungeons of Dredmor, Don't Starve, Rouge Legacy and Tales of Maj'Eyal.
So, what do you think of roguelikes and what are your favourites?
One of the most interesting developments for me is the rise to virtual mainstream of the rouguelike game. This is a genre that has always been pretty close to my heart, I remember many moons ago downloading Nethack and this was back when you needed to connect to a Bulletin Board Service with a 2400 baud modem and godamn grimoire. I instantly fell in love with the randomly generated dungeons, brutal difficulty and permadeath. I played a lot of others since but they always remained a kind of niche game due to steep learning curves and primitive graphics. So it with a good deal of surprise and delight to see them finally flourish into something a much larger audience can get into. Goodness its almost so prevalent at the moment that every second indie game is slapping "rougelike elements" in the features list. But it doesn't over shadow that there have been some real gems. For me some favourites are FTL, Dungeons of Dredmor, Don't Starve, Rouge Legacy and Tales of Maj'Eyal.
So, what do you think of roguelikes and what are your favourites?