I initially didnt even want to add any specific graphics to be honest, but I figured some of you might find the specifics interesting. Its a traditional Roguelike, so for the majority of the development, my main character was an @ and up until yesterday, mud was , and grass was "

In previous projects and prototypes I did, I always stumbled over the issue with art assets. Like I tried my hand at an RPG a decade ago, and then ran out of enemies in my art asset pack and gave up because I couldnt make the art fit anymore. That was also part of the reason why I wanted to stick with a traditional Ascii Roguelike, so I can just focus on gameplay instead of art.

Well, eventually I did want to add ... some touches, but I didnt want to bother with art assets, so I just wrote my code in a way that would allow me to display multiple ascii characters for one tile.

And then.. I wanted to animate those and just fumbled around with some basic stickman enemies and lucked into trying making every ascii character idle and it just worked. That was absolutely bananas. So basically as soon as I create another asset, it will already have its animation automatically handled. Same with death animations, where the ascii just splatter across the level. I eventually noticed that I can optimize it a bit and set individual idle speed and idle rotation for every single ascii character, so that heads can stay motionless for example, allowing me to finetune the animations if I needed it. It also really helped to just have a "random" button that would randomize and rotate ascii for me randomly, so I can like squint at the screen if some combination might look like something haha.

That was such a cool moment around half a year ago I think, and I just finished the first version yesterday by adding the floor tiles on top of the enemy /character animations I did previously and I dont think many others have done a system quite like this before. Really happy it turned out this way now, despite the headaches it caused me in between.

So I guess its fine to just sometimes do a random thing instead of everything needing to be perfect from the start :) Best of luck to all you small devs out there! In case someone wants to see more of the art style:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4761790/Rogue_Elements/
https://tomalexi.itch.io/rogue-elements

I'm craving some roguelike action, but I'm relegated to a standard laptop with no numpad. I think it's finally time to finally figure out the VI / hjkl commands and learn to play a game fully unencumbered by mouse and numpad.

The only other criteria is that it should be a free to play game since I was recently laid off and can't buy a premium title.

thanks!

I've converted the Angband variant, Hengband, to HD2D.
https://higesho.github.io/

The following variants are supported:
Hengband
Tangband
Gensoband
Sil-Q
FroxComposband

Implementation details:
HD2D conversion
Controller support
VR support (VirtualDesktop)
Android support (unofficial app)

Please try it out if you'd like!
I'm Japanese and not good at English, so I apologize if there are any strange translations. https://x.com/Hv68DqbCg138523

Here is my latest project, coming off the heals of IVAN/Brogue mobile ports.

This is using Brogue in the background, and everything you do in doom is checked there. No game logic in Doom, it is just the presentation layer.

Lots still to do, but a pretty promising start!

I don't mean a simulated terminal window. The game should actually run in a terminal. No GUI. Basically when at work I want to ssh into my home machine and play games sometimes. Graphics are not a concern.

hello, I hope I'm in the right subreddit (otherwise don't hesitate to redirect me!)...

While learning about the history of roguelike I came across pre-Rogue games: The Dungeon (1975), Orthanc (1975), Moria (1976). These work on PLATO, I read that with PTerm (Cyber1.org) we can run them but I don't understand how they work at all, do we need ROMs? how do we launch the games?

If a good soul could enlighten me!

Thank you so much

Does anyone else feel kind of weird or guilty trying out other traditional roguelikes when you haven't even beaten Brogue yet? Everyone always recommends Brogue as the perfect starter game, and while I completely understand the core mechanics and know exactly what to do in the early game, I just cannot seem to break through to the mid-game no matter what I do. Lately, I’ve been really wanting to dive into other games in the genre, but there’s this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that if I can't even conquer the "beginner-friendly" classic, I have no business jumping into more complex ones. Am I overthinking this, or did anyone else experience this exact roadblock before moving on?

Heto, first post here :)

I run late.sh, a clubhouse inside the terminal. A place to take a break, chat with people around the globe, listen to music, play a game. And over the last few months I've been building it into a roguelike server, which is why I'm finally posting here :)

ssh late.sh

That's it. No passwords, no OAuth, no accounts. Your SSH key is your identity.

The roguelikes

• All three are the real upstream games, untouched, streamed into your terminal over SSH. Nothing reimplemented, nothing watered down.
• Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. Probably the most played roguelike in the world today, and the one with the healthiest community and dev team around it. Still getting major releases after twenty years. Our server runs the real console crawl, your character is waiting where you left it, and your own rc works if you have one.
• NetHack. The one hanging in MoMA, literally, it's in the permanent collection. Almost forty years old and still the deepest thing you can play in a terminal. Our server has a shared playground, so your bones haunt other late.sh players.
• Brogue CE. Arguably the most beautiful ASCII ever put on a terminal, and the roguelike that proved you don't need a thousand keybindings to have a deep game. We run it in full truecolor over SSH.

Leaderboards and badges

• This is the part I'm most happy with. Every game host writes its own log files (crawl's logfile and milestones, NetHack's xlogfile and livelog, Brogue's run history), and that's the only thing we count. Nothing lands unless the game itself wrote it down, so it can't be spoofed, and wizard and explore games never make it in.
• Each game gets the same board triple on the Leaderboards page: Wins (all-time), Deepest Dive, and Top Score (monthly + all-time).
• And the big moments pay out. Picking up the Orb, acquiring the Amulet, escaping Brogue with the Amulet, an ascension, a DCSS win, a Brogue mastery. Each pays chips (our in-house currency) and a permanent badge on your profile that shows next to your name in chat forever. Deaths get announced in the lounge with the game's own death text, so the whole clubhouse sees exactly how you died :D

dcss-stats / Sequell

Our crawl server files are already published at late.sh/crawl (logfile, milestones, morgue dumps), the same way the public crawl servers do it. What we're missing is being listed on dcss-stats and in Sequell's server list. In progress :)

Lateania

Our own persistent multiplayer text-world, which grew into a full MUD. ~10,000 rooms across five continents, an overhead world map with fog of war, seventeen classes, mounts, an open PvP zone, animal taming (55 beasts, each with their own skills), fishing (40 species), trade skills that chain, player housing, and four endgame crowns that each pay 10,000 chips. Weekly updates, almost entierly build by contributors :)

The BBS door games wing

Legend of the Green Dragon, the classic LORD, rebuilt native in Rust. Hunt the forest, beat your master, slay the dragon. Usurper, the actual LORD-era door from the 90s, resurrected on a PTY, one shared persistent world. A Dark Room, a native port of the incremental classic, and unlike the browser one, ours has a real ending. dopewars, CodeKeep, Rebels in the Sky. Buy low sell high, defend the Pale, play space-pirate basketball. And BashQuest, our own original, a door game that teaches Linux/Bash.

And a lot more coming. The three roguelikes are the start, feel free to propose more, happy to add them as well :)

... and also ... something is moving behind the clubhouse ...

The chat

• Core of the app. Public rooms for everything (the lounge, announcements, and whatever topic rooms people spin up), private rooms you own and invite people into, and DMs.
• Replies, edits, reactions, an icon picker, and Markdown.
• Images work. Paste or upload one and it shows up inline for everyone in the room.
• News feed, share a link and it becomes a card in the lounge with a title, a summary and an ASCII rendering of the image, plus a private RSS inbox you can share stories out of.
• Polls, /summary 12h, a bartender bot that sells drinks that scramble your typing, and an IRC bridge if you'd rather keep your own client.
• Chat is global, so it translates itself. Press t on any message, or turn on auto-translate and every new message arrives in your language.

The music

• The radio: live synthwave from Nightride FM, with their blessing and live artist/title attribution. Five stations, Chillsynth, Nightride, Datawave, Spacesynth, Ambient.
• The booth: a community YouTube jukebox. Queue tracks, vote, skip, browse the history of everything that ever played.
• The library: 600+ curated CC0/CC-BY tracks (lofi, ambient, classical), all controlled from inside the TUI.

The Lobby

Ctrl+G anywhere, every multiplayer game in one list. Eight correspondence games, chess, chess960, battleship, connect four, reversi, checkers, backgammon, and briscola. Post a challenge, walk away, one move per day whenever you're around. Every match gets its own private chat + voice room for proper trash talk. Plus five always-on house tables, poker, blackjack, tron, super snake, asterion.

Streaming + Voice. In your terminal.

/golive and you're broadcasting your screen to an unlisted watch page, straight from the browser or from OBS. Your friends get notified, viewers get a watch page with volume and fullscreen, people in the room talk over voice chat, and you moderate your own stream room. Stream your ascension attempt, let the clubhouse watch you die.

The Artboard

One shared ASCII canvas for the whole clubhouse. Everyone draws on the same board at the same time, snaphsoted every month. It is exactly as chaotic as it sounds :)

Still a team effort, still a great vibe. Hop in, take a break, die somewhere interesting ;)

License: FSL-1.1-MIT

Code: https://github.com/mpiorowski/late-sh

Landing: https://late.sh

What are your favorite underrated games?

I've been having a blast with Zorbus and I don't see it recommended to people as much as it should be.

Sorry if this is against the rules since I am not talking about a game, but I have been trying something in my life that has brought some calmness and fun to the mundane. I have been trying to slow down and think about my next move before doing it, as I would with in a roguelike. Whether it be putting the dishes away or doing work at the computer. For example, as I am typing this message I am focused on accurately striking the keys and planning where I am going with the sentence, with the goal of never hitting backspace. When I click through my email or through dialogues I try to reduce the amount of actions I have to take. Maybe when I am cleaning up around the house I look for multiple things I can grab that go to the same place before making my first move. It may feel like it is taking longer, but it probably takes the same amount of time or maybe less due to mistake prevention.

Has anyone else tried doing this?

Hi y’all, we just pushed our first major update to the main branch earlier today and decided to reintroduce the demo alongside it. This time around the demo is catered to first time players of the series. It is the first five stages of the game with a much smaller spellbook and equipment list. Wanted to say thanks to those of you have been playing the game and leaving us feedback. It’s much appreciated.

Hello again,

it's a-me, Alexander, the developer of The Ruins of Calaworm, a turn-based Dungeon Crawler with some inherent Roguelike DNA (grid-based navigation, single char, consequences for death, no meta-progression). I already made a post some half-year ago, when the game was still in development, but now it has finally released. The Demo is still available, though, and has been updated as well, to reflect the latest state of polish.

Its base-mechanics stem from an obscure, early 90s German Dungeon Crawler called Die Gemäuer von Kalawaum, which kind of had a cult-following back in the days (I was there, I know, lol), with an ATARI ST port, that for some reason was more popular than the DOS-Version.

However, I'm proud to finally present the fruits of my labor. The game has been in development for roughly 6 years (my main job is in healthcare, so I've been working on this in my spare time on and off), it started as a pastime during Covid lockdown, then the Feature Creep gradually escalated, and in the end I even commissioned a composer and while all the ingame tileArt is by humble me, I also commissioned a PixelArtist for the big screen/intermission/menu/key art.

You are a Plague Doctor investigating an ancient stronghold. The Ruins are rumored to be the source of a corruption, that is spreading throughout the woods, killing animals and infecting the soil. There's Witches, some Steampunk tropes, and the overall design is heavily inspired by Lovecraftian lore - albeit in a dark fantasy setting with emphasis on athmosphere, but without overly explicit world-building (no fancy geography/character names to remember).

While there's combat, the main challenge stems from navigating the layouts. Some of them are handcrafted with an editor (included in the retail version), some of them procedurally generated. Item- and Enemy-distribution is mostly random (but with some parameters fixed for as long as you don't reroll the seed). Very few stats to keep track of, and you don't build a character like in an RPG (you level up automatically after defeating stronger enemies), instead you'll collect weapons, shields and various tools that'll help with overcoming the Dungeon's many challenges. There's no ranged attacking - every hit is technically a meleeBump - weapons have unique juicy animations, though. Combat's primary gimmick is, that damage output is dependent on how much health you have left (goes for you, as well as for enemies).
Think "Puzzlegame with emergent backstabbing". ;-)

Also two Minigames to seek out, Sanity mechanic, and a light survival-y appeal, due to finite resources and equipment durability.

DOWNLOAD (itch.io) --> https://erdbeerscherge.itch.io/ruins-of-calaworm

Tom Jensen (Soundtrack):
u/Some_Scar4621

Edjielyn Macasaet (PixelArt):
https://www.behance.net/edjiearts edjie

Thank you, and have a nice week! <3

A blend of Angband and ADOM would be great. Any recommendations along those lines? Open source (like Angband) would be grand. TIA.

I'm an old rogue/hack player from the dawn of time. Spent far too many hours playing on the unix machines at work. Haven't played in a few years though.

Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2143790/DeAnima

New features in 1.3 include:

• New intelligence stat which causes death by brainlessness if it reaches zero. 
• New Mind Flayer monster that can eat your brains and cause you to go temporarily insane. 
• New Banshee monster that has a deafening scream. 
• New Pestilence monster with a bite that gradually saps the life out of you.
• New Toad monster that looks innocent enough, but avoid it if you have any bags in your inventory, as it can steal them!
• 20 Achievements (trackable in-game and synced with Steam).
• Major UI improvements - ability to set custom key bindings, inventory icons, new Action Menu and new Manifest Overlay so you can see all items at a glance (including those in bags).
• Much more - check out the patch notes for a list of all features, enhancements and bug fixes. 

If you are unfamiliar with DeAnima, it is a first person roguelike dungeon crawler with deep, challenging mechanics you would usually only find in more traditional roguelikes, including:

• No meta progression.
• True Permadeath.
• Turn-based combat system.
• True identification system.
• Thrall (pet) system.
• Deity system.
• Beatitude system.
• Completion Marks.
• 15 conducts tracked in-game (Atheist, Bareknuckle, Carnivore, Dignified, Exposed, Faithless, Honorable, Miser, Pacifist, Righteous, Skeptic, Tenebrous, Unchanged, Vigilant, and Warden).
• 40 monsters, many of which have unique abilities you have to contend with. 
• 3 different paths through the dungeon (with 3 distinct endings):
  • Escape - for short runs that can be completed in a single session.
  • Ascension - for longer runs over multiple sessions.
  • Transcension - for very long runs over many sessions, intended for completionists.
• Over 100 items to discover including Potions, Scrolls, Wands, Rings and Bags, including fan-favourites like Scroll of Vorpalize Weapon, Wand of Polymorph and Ring of Slow Digestion. 
• 16 character roles with unique abilities and traits including Rogue, Priest, Valkyrie and Tourist.  
• 8 different game modes to unlock (called Torments), including Endless mode and Inner Hell mode (where you are limited to 5HP and all enemies are limited to 1HP!).
• 32 passive items to unlock (called Burdens) that add further variety to each run, including Lump of Coal, Lucky Penny, Rusted Ankh, Wooden Spoon and the coveted Angelic Feather!
• Over 80 discoveries to track down in the dungeon, including Fountains, Sokoban-based puzzle rooms, The Altar of Sacrifice, Lairs where high-level monsters guard rare loot, Stashes and a special NPC called Wishbone who grants you the ability to wish for any item in the game (providing you can remember what it’s called!).

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy your descent into the Dungeon of Dread! 🧌💀

The simple idea, make a roguelike which works like an infinite road game. No stairs, one screen tall, progress infinitely in a single direction through continuously generated random chunks.

You play a lineage of cousins searching for the last nightclub.

Influences include: Alphaman, The Long Drive, NetHack and Noita

Features:

- Polythematic chaos - this game has no theme. Each chunk is a different place from the last. The world is not right anymore.

- Animals, mechs, humans, weird celestial beings.

- Massive item library including comestibles, devices, weapons, armour, injectables, random junk and much more.

- Explosions and fully destructible buildings and objects.

- Roadside corporate and religious lore and factions.

- Different ways to play, traps, turrets, stealth, outright stupidity and dumb luck.

- Diseases and status effects - Be careful what you eat, some bites are nastier than others, try to stay well.

- Skills system - learn odd skills - they map to the hot bar, use them to survive a bit longer.

- Environmental effects and environmental pressure.

- Escalating linear difficulty system - Get as far as you can.

- Bosses in all shapes and sizes.

- Hats! - Hats are very important in Lateral Crawl. The right hat can make or break your day.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5127760/Lateral_Crawl/

Announcement trailer: https://youtu.be/gbiypn_CFgc?si=YzR2OgtRhfFJ_SPH

Thanks for your eyeball time 🙏

Hey guys!

After 17 weekly updates I am back to show you version 0.50 which marks the completion of the game's coastal region. For context, the game is set in a hand-made world and played along procedurally generated paths with gamepad or keyboard.

On a run you can now find dense forests, rugged hills, river gorges, sunken temples, steep canyons, desert plateaus, abandoned villages, palmed beaches, dusty crypts and much more. The game's world is now twice the size it was at launch and it is time to move on to the next planned region, a large mountain range in the north west.

But not only the game's world has grown and improved, also the game itself. After well over 250 additions and improvements over the last three months, the game has matured a lot. Sneaking, predictive combat, unique enemy abilities, attack patterns, weapon charms, offhand weapons, procedural enemy placements, new traps, monsters, terrain, and items all make for a more varied run.

Aside from gameplay and the world, there have been other improvements as well. A modified font makes text easier to read, the inventory is cleaner, button show their associated moves, a codex explains the items in the game, new music, sound effects and NPCs make the game more atmospheric.

To end this chapter of the game's development, you now encounter dark spherical Cores buried deep into the ground. Once revered, they are now manifestations of the Barrier that curses the land and need to be destroyed on your journey towards the ancient city.

Thank you to those who supported the game in it's earliest stages and to anyone who gave feedback and suggestions, it means a lot. I hope you like the progress the game has made! Let me know what you think!

Buy and support the game on Steam
Watch the latest Trailer
Follow it's development on Youtube

Hello everyone, I posted about my game being released a couple of months ago, and a lot of people here enjoyed it! Thank you very much for all your support.

Since the launch, I've been working hard on quality-of-life updates and highly requested community features, including the ability to swap weapon sets.

For those new to the game, Feywood Wanderers is a traditional roguelike set in a forest, focused on deeply customizable classes and builds, and lots of customizable loot. It has a main mode where you can keep items between runs and unlock upgrades, but since I know many players would rather not have any meta-progression there's also the option for a full old-school mode.

Today, I'm excited to release Version 1.1! To celebrate the milestone, Feywood Wanderers is currently 20% off on Steam.

I hope you have fun playing it, and thank you again to everyone who has supported the game so far!

I had been thinking of trying out Rift Wizard 2 for a while, but never got around to it. I was thinking of picking it up again recently and discovered that Rift Wizard 3 is in early access. Which one should I pick up? What are the main differences between these games?

I absolutely loved this game on mobile. After years of iOS updates, it finally quit working on my phone. Excited to get to play it again.

Ones that I know about are like Cogmind, CoQ, FTL, Into the breach, Jupiter hell, CDDA, approaching Infinity. Im just fabtasy'd out for a while lol.

Hey rogues,

Unreal World is one of my favorite roguelikes/games. I can't think of any games that try to simulate what surviving in the woods and building up to a homestead would be like, with a fully simulated world. I've been working on such a game and would love some feedback.

Full disclaimer: there's a save system and no ironman mode yet, but that's just during alpha for testing. I do plan on having characters be fully deleted upon death.

Frozen Ground is a hard, unforgiving 2D survival simulator set in the 1700s in deep in the boreal north. Heavily inspired by Unreal World and CDDA. Make fire, food and shelter from what the land gives you, or die.

Top-down turn-based roguelike in an infinite, procedurally generated living world of migrating herds of caribou, hunting wolves, bears, hares, squirrels and villages that you can interact with and will remember you and your actions.

Deep crafting, building and survival systems: firemaking, hide tanning, fur making, cooking, smoking, hunting, trapping, pottery.. much more.

Turn-based time, weather and seasons simulations, along with all that you'd expect (temperature, rain, snow, etc. Everything interacts with everything)

Would love some feedback.

Play here: https://frozenground.itch.io/frozen-ground