RPS pointed out this one today.
I’m gonna take the plunge.
Ugh. I don’t think I like ADOM very much. I picked it up to avoid playing too much CoQ (I want to try and get into that one when it is final, if I can help it) and while it’s neat looking and seems like it has a lot of depth, I’m having a really hard time getting into it for some reason. And I’ve tried to play a wizard like three times and just can not get that to work. I finally, after some research, figured out how to learn a starting spell and it was so expensive I could only cast it two times before I was out of power points - then I was killed by the other enemies I couldn’t wipe out. Kind of a buyer’s remorse over that one, so far.
Wizards are the classic RPG characters that are weak in the early game, powerful in the late game.
I always thought archer was the easiest overall. Some light annoyance picking up arrows and stones, but it will quickly become routine. Or just play melee.
I fired it up once when I bought it on Steam last week (ADOM), but really had a hard time learning the interface at first. I will give it a good try sometime soon, but it wasn’t something I was going to just fire up and play within a few minutes. As soon as I get a bit more time in CoE4, I will probably give it another shot.
I really like the looks of CoQ, but it looks quite intimidating. If it is still cooking, though, I will wait a bit longer til release most likely.
Cardinal Quest 2 is out on Steam later today. Anyone played the iOS version already? I remember CQ1 being a bit light for my taste.
I liked it a lot more than CQ1. It’s still on the light side, but I found that it makes a pretty nice middle ground between the sprawl of a traditional roguelike and the stripped-down precision of something like Hoplite.
However, it was also a great fit to the platform. A big part of what I appreciated about it was the ability to drop in for a few minutes of engaging roguelike one-handed while standing in line at a store or something. I don’t see it competing quite as well with the other options on PC.
CQ2 is one of my favorite roguelikes on iOS. Thraeg’s comparison to Hoplite is spot on. The limited set of combat actions make every move important, but there is a nice sense of exploration (with great flavor text, even!) when out of combat.
I also think the role-playing is really well done, given the scope. It’s accomplished with an ingenious set of carrots, rather than hard and fast rules. Thieves get bonus XP when killing from stealth. Rangers have a pet and an incentive to completely explore a map. Paladins get a Righteous Fury buff that encourages fighting large groups at once and discourages tactical retreats, they dogmatically reject an entire category of spells, and they can build an uber holy weapon - but then reject any weapon they find thereafter. And so on.
ADOM is fantastic, but it’s really old school (it’s one of the Great Old Ones, so that’s expected) and I can see it being hard to get into, specially now that it has a nicer facade to trick people into playing it.
I would suggest to stick with it until you can reliably clear the small dungeon and rescue the puppy. I think the small dungeon floor one bug is fixed in the new versions, but I´m not sure (it used to not be a safe place to stand around).
I only ever made it to mid game in the old times. A successful play-through is really long.
For someone who used to spend huge amounts of time playing Nethack on the PC (Tiles version only, I just can’t get into ascii) what would you recommend as the best Nethack - like game on the iPad?
I’ve sunk a lot of time into Wazhack on Android (also available on iOS, Windows, Linux, OSX and free in your browser using Unity). It’s developed by Warwick Allison who was a member of the Nethack DevTeam and worked on the default tileset. From what I gather Wazhack is essentially Nethack, but side-on (so levitation makes for all kinds of amusing scenarios and aiming is a thing) and in 3D (with physics, lighting and gear rendering on characters and in shops). It’s probably my favourite game on Android as it’s one I keep coming back to and keep on enjoying. It’s very hard though! Some time ago I did a captioned gallery so I could quickly explain to friends why I enjoy it so much:
http://imgur.com/a/hpm80 - taken on my Nexus 7.
So: it’s a Nethack-like, it’s not ASCII, it’s ‘finished/complete’ and still being added to, it works well on touchscreens and available on iOS, and it’s not F2P or anything like that.
Wazhack, it turns out, is fabulous. That image gallery really, really intrigued me, geggis. Enough that I tried it on my phone and immediately loved it. I tried the free version out on the Unity plug-in with Firefox and it works pretty well, though you can only play to a certain point. I went to add it to my wishlist in Steam and see I already DID, so I must have at some point seen enough to wishlist it, but not enough to buy it. Well, I’d have bought it out right for $10 last night if today wasn’t the day of the Steam sales, so I expect to be tackling this more tonight.
What a crazy, cool game.
Cool! Glad you’re enjoying it Scott. The visuals have put off a lot of people I’ve recommended it to, hence the captions! Although fairly rudimentary, they’re a damn sight more accessible than ASCII, and kind of charming in their own non-traditional sort of way. Who plays a roguelike for the visuals though, eh?
Honestly, few games have made me giggle so much as Wazhack (as my girlfriend will tell you) just because of the things that can happen and the situations you can find yourself. I’m sure it’s mostly standard roguelike fare, but it still tickles me silly.
Correction on my previous statement: Wazhack on Android and probably iOS is ‘F2P’ in that you can play with any class till 300ft down before you have to make a one-time payment to go further. It’s a demo, essentially. This unlocks all the base classes (Knight/Valkyrie, Wizard/Witch, Evil Sorcerers, and Hunters). Fairly recently Waz released some new classes (Bards, Druids, Rogue/Thief, and Barbarian/Vandal) that got added to the higher price computer version for free. To keep the cost down on mobile however, he’s kept the base game at the same price ($2 or £1.69, I think) but allowed players to purchase the additional classes at $1 or 69p each (four to buy in total). Seems reasonable to me.
Downloading Wazhack, the only thing that gives me pause is the side view vs. the top down view I’m so used to.
So on the sale I just snagged this roguelike platformer thing that I’d never really heard of but looked great and has tons of positive reviews, called Towerclimb.
It’s, so far, god damned amazing. I failed the tutorial several times just getting the hang of the controls (fell to my death, blew myself up, that sort of thing) and died pretty quickly upon reaching the first real level, but I LOVED it. The controls are precise, the potions you get to help you out (one to double jump, one to blow things like walls and such up, and one to teleport) really adds interesting choices and challenges, and the inventory system is fascinating (many things can be picked up and thrown or used).
I can’t wait to fail more and get better at it, reminds me of Spelunky in that regard, but even more awesome.
Man, this sounds freaking amaz-
I say that with full Spelunky love.
A friend recently told me to check out Vagante. He said it was a lot like Spelunky, but with classes and a crazy magic system. I haven’t played it yet but the video on their website does look pretty intriguing: http://store.steampowered.com/app/323220/
Vagante looks great but sadly I need a deeper price cut before diving in.
I picked it up and do NOT get it. I think the first problem is I assumed it was a controller game, so I keep having to set it up one button at a time as I learn what I need to do (like, hey, you have to set a button for inventory and now don’t forget to set a button to pick up an item). It’s confusing to me there isn’t a default controller scheme. Is this really better with a keyboard/mouse?
Also, in the tutorial I get a sword. I’m told to press and hold the jump button to swing it, but that just makes me jump and attack in mid-air. What am I missing? I also can’t tell what the inventory items are - in the tutorial you can pick up two things. One is a crate, which I only figured out when the tutorial told me to drop it so get extra height by jumping off it to proceed, but the other one is… some sort of meat? Everything is kinda pixelated, I’m having a hard time distinguishing what I’m looking at, I think.
Is there a video I can watch that might have some tips or “how to play” type stuff?
I basically set up the gamepad a couple of times, as the two triggers can’t be set to both run and jump, or only one will work, which is weird, so I set one of the bumpers to run and the right trigger to jump. I also think with the sword, that’s what they mean, throw it at the rat at the end of the hall.
The crate needs to be put near the end of the cave so you can leap to the upper wall beyond it. It took a bit of trying for me too.
Are we friends on Steam? If so I’d be happy to stream if for you via Steam so you can watch.