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POWDER?
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➔ POWDER website
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95 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
Download Gameboy Advance emulator and then this game on it:
http://www.zincland.com/powder/?pagename=about
It's superb, freeware roguelike game with ton of fun, items, spells, weapons, lore and replayabillity. Another great thing about this game (as for pretty much every other roguelike game) is that play session can lasts both 5 minutes and 3 hours and both will be enjoyable.
Why Powder is so great? Once I played as a druid and I got surrouned by enemies, so I used a spell "grow tree" to block enemies from coming to me, but it was still dangerous so I summoned imp to help me. Imp launched a fireball, fireball caused fire in newly created forest and I died in it. Best game ever.
I'd recommend DCSS, which has a graphical tile mode. Ryly recommended Powder as well, which is available freely on PC and just about every other system you can name.
Personally, my first roguelike was Nethack, which does have a graphical tile mode although I have never used it before so I can't say how good it is.
It's possible if you install an X11 server on your work machine, eg. xming and enable X11 forwarding in putty.
Can't vouch for the performance over the internet though. You'd probably have better luck with VNC.
Or, you know, the windows version of the game.
Maybe POWDER?
Is easy to learn, the tiles are lovely, you can use the mouse and even make shortcuts to spells (almost like in Ultima Online... ahh memories...) There is a wiki but is not an obligation to read it, you can learn a lot of things just by plating the game and paying attention. There is XP leveling, with an unique class/gods system. About stealth... not so much =(
It may be a little simplistic, but you might still get a kick out of POWDER. It's usually the one I recommend as an introduction to the genre as a whole, especially due to its four-way movement (many people have trouble thinking about diagonals and optimal movement patterns when just starting out), but it's good enough I often go back to it myself... And I've been playing these games ever since discovering NetHack over a decade ago! :P
It has no races (every player is human), and technically no class either. There is a gods system that sort of acts like a class system (one god favors sneak attacks and other rogue-like conduct, another prefers his worshippers to never back down from a fight and to shun the use of magic, like a barbarian, etc), but you can switch gods in the middle of a run (beware angering them with your 'betrayal' though), or choose to follow no god and be as flexible as you want (at the expense of not getting divine gifts and other help from a god along the way). Your starting items are a bit randomized (you always get a basic armor of some sort, a weapon, a book of spells and one of non-magic knowledge like a guide to basic weapons, but you can never really be sure which ones you'll get), so they do sway how you start your run, but what you'll become by the end of the game depends entirely on what you find along the way...
Drakefire Chasm is pretty quick to beat, especially if you're min-maxing (i.e. ignoring one stat/skill type completely in order to max out the other two). Using a red dragon with a focus on will and stamina, I usually complete the game in about half and hour. It'll take longer if you're NOT min-maxing, especially since the different dragons are not very well balanced and some are WAY weaker than others, but it should still seldom take much more than 2 hours at the worst (if you can survive)...
POWDER is another to look into, but slightly longer. I've heard of people beating it in under an hour, but on average I'd say it takes 2-3 hours to make it to the end. EDIT: FYI, that's judging from videos I've seen; I haven't done it myself. Thanks to /u/justinjustin7 for making me realize my original comment made it sound like I'd done it personally (I was half-asleep at the time of writing, lol)...
All these comments and no one has mentioned POWDER? A seriously under-rated game. Its 4-directional movement is easier for new players (most people I've introduced to the genre seem to have a lot of trouble with diagonals for some reason), Its player-characters are all human, and its classes are done mid-adventure by choosing to follow a god, so it doesn't overload new players with a complex character creation system; you can really just jump right in. But it still has the common roguelike tropes such as character levels, magic, cursed/blessed gear, unidentified scrolls/potions, etc...
Homepage: http://www.zincland.com/powder/
>Android beta 3:
>One downside of not releasing is that none of the tweaks I made to the Android built made it into the wild. Since I'd rather not force people to using hex editors to fix their installs, this is a Beta 3 release of the Android. I'm also providing the current 118 source code.
>Note that you may need to do a clean install, I had to on one of my phones. And save games will not be compatible.
>I hope I have included what you need to compile the source...
>POWDER Beta 3 on Android: http://www.zincland.com/powder/release/powder118_beta3.apk
>POWDER Beta 3 Source: http://www.zincland.com/powder/release/powder118_beta3_src.tar.gz
>Remember: Press the menu button on your phone to rotate from portrait mode!
I'm running POWDER on my PSP (original, not vita) and I've logged hundreds of hours on it. It's been my favourite hand-held game for years.
If it has different attributes and behaviour than a normal rat, then that's ok.
If it's just like a normal rat with more health points, then hell no.
An example of this done well is POWDER. It has mice (very low hp, low attack, simple behavior), rats (more hp and stronger attacks, more random & aggresive behavior) and giant rats, which can even wield armor and weapons.
I think Powder makes a better roguelike 'tutorial' than most games' actual tutorials. Its cardinal-only movement is good for beginners (I've noticed that many new players have a hard time with diagonals), it's a decent introduction to the most common roguelike tropes (unidentified items, character leveling, permadeath, etc), and it doesn't overcomplicate things by presenting the player with a million races and classes to choose between.
After they learn the basics in Powder, I usually introduce my friends to DCSS as a good middle-ground; it plays similarly to Powder, but with much bigger levels, diagonal movement, and race/class selection.
And finally, after they've learned the ropes of DCSS, I ask them if they prefer the short-term tactical complexity or the long-term character development. If they like the tactics, I give them Brogue, and if they like the character development, they get ADOM.
Powder comes to mind. Cardinals only (but one class can move diagonal), I think the only hotkey I actually use is G for get, and you can use the mouse for just about anything else. You're also allowed to make shortcuts on the outer ring of the screen for things like look/examine or cast spells or pray or so on, so that's immensely helpful.
There's POWDER (http://www.zincland.com/powder/) It doesn't feature most of your requests, but it was originally intended to be played on a GBA, which means you can load it up on an emulator and play it using a few buttons. And once you see the error in your ways and come back to ascii graphics, The ground gives way (http://www.thegroundgivesway.com/) features the simplest control scheme ever seen, and it doesn't have millions of menus for you to navigate.
Seriously. It is like they are saying that no more roguelikes are being created while we have so many good roguelikes that are new and stick to the same pricipals. Even if you don't think that games like Don't Starve should count as a roguelike we have games like Dungeons of Dreadmore and Powder, (a game that I would highly recommend). These people show nothing new about the game that differentiates it from other roguelikes.
Powder is a fairly traditional roguelike, drawing inspiration from many roguelikes. The creator wanted it for his GBA, but it's freely accessible to any OS.
Have you checked out Powder? I haven't played it in a while, and it doesn't look like its been updated recently, but it is completely playable by mouse and pretty light-hearted. It has a very unique and strange leveling system, however.
Get it here:
http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about
It's a very fun roguelike in it's own right, but being able to play it on my GBA makes it awesome. It's got a very interesting religion/class system. I highly recommend it.
(Thanks to ceolceol for reminding me post a link to the site.)
Edit: Also the unofficial wiki if you're into that kind of thing.
Yeah, and even for a coffeebreak game those times are far too low. When I start up a game of Powder or Drakefire Chasm (both coffeebreak RLs), I typically play them for at least an hour...
and powder http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=release (or if you can find an old shareware copy of castle of the winds... an oldie, but it has a paperdoll for equipping, and, i believe, mouse support... a good intro RL
Edit: also pixel dungeon for... at least... android
You can check here for all the official Powder builds. The Gameboy Advance or NintendoDS versions might run via RetroArch. I can't find anything in the play store.
http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=release
Someone was making android builds, you can find some old beta apk info on reddit (like 8 years ago) but unless you wanted to deal with debugging or possibly patching/building yourself, emulation will be the way.
I miss my old Windows Mobile 6 phone. Had an amazing port of Xcom, and probably one of the best phone roguelikes I'd ever seen (Powder, if you're wondering), even if it was originally designed as a homebrew gameboy advance game...
I love POWDER, best roguelike on Android IMHO. And yes, it's not on the Google Play store, but the APK file can be downloaded straight from the game's official site (though it's not on the 'Download' page for some reason; scroll down in the 'News' page to find the post titled "Android Beta 3" instead)...
I like the Chris Lomaka set more than the others. If you didn't know, POWDER's source code is available, so you can potentially add your own tileset. I'm tempted to adapt the DawnHack NetHack tileset for use in POWDER.
Well, for those that you listed, I don't really know what you should start with either...
ADOM is my favorite roguelike out of all of them; it is very strategically deep, with many feats and long-term character growth options, but it can be pretty hard to begin with (especially because of its controls). Probably a good choice if you have some experience with Dungeons & Dragons and/or other tabletop RPGs, since it has similar character development.
ToME is easy to learn and very popular. It has a beautiful interface, very MMORPG-like abilities (with cooldown periods), and no food/hunger mechanic, plus an in-game irc client for asking the developer(s?) and other players for help. The only problem is that I personally just don't have fun with it, so I can't really recommend it.
I've never played DoD. From what I've seen in videos and screen shots, it looks like it has better animations and graphics than most modern roguelikes (including ADOM and ToME), but it seems like it has more simplistic gameplay. It might be good to start with it and then move on to the others, but it may not be designed well for beginners. I really have no idea about this one.
In truth, I'd recommend downloading POWDER from the developer's site; it's the game I always recommend to friends, as I feel it makes a better roguelike 'tutorial' than most other games' actual tutorials. After that, I'd say play ADOM.
I actually own it on Steam already, it's a great game! I've followed them loosely since ToME still stood for "Tales of Middle Earth", funnily enough. For whatever reason I had a hard time getting into it back then, but they've done wonders in recent years.
For me, personally, I'm past the intimidated phase but still not great at reading them. So it's more of a bewildered, slow, headache-y phase. Some of the simpler ASCII games (in terms of the visual language involved, and not necessarily simpler gameplay), I can do all right. But I still prefer tiles when I can get them.
Oh, and while we're talking roguelikes... I strongly recommend POWDER. It's another one for tileset lovers, and is kind of NetHack-like in its approach to the genre (though way scaled back in complexity, this was originally designed as a GBA game).
I stand by <em>POWDER</em> 100% as a beginners' roguelike. It plays much like a cross between <em>NetHack</em> and <em>DCSS</em>, but with a simplified class system and control scheme. Then after you get tired of that, play some DCSS and you'll be ready for anything... ;)
I'm surprised no one has mentioned POWDER yet. You can get it on iOS from the App Store, or for Android from the official site (as an apk which needs to be side-loaded. EDIT: For some reason it's not on the Download page; instead you'd have to scroll down on the Main/News page for the Ten Years of Development! post, which provides this link).
POWDER isn't the deepest you'll find, but it feels somewhat like a coffee-break NetHack. Also, it was designed with a pretty robust and minimalist control scheme, as it was originally designed for the Gameboy Advance (and later ported to other platforms). This means it doesn't have the infuriating 'virtual keyboard' problems common in ports of the bigger classic roguelikes (i.e. NetHack and Angband)...
I'd love to find an Android game similar to ADOM, but haven't found one yet. Thinking I may try the DOS version of ADOM itself in DosBox, but I fear the experience may be spoiled by the aforementioned virtual keyboard annoyingness. Plus I'd rather play it with graphics, blasphemous though that may be... ;P
POWDER is a roguelike that is built for the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS.
There are also a handful of non-indie games like Shiren The Wanderer.
Powder is my all-time favorite roguelike. The android version isn't that great so I recommend using ~~ads~~ a DS or GBA emulator. You can download here.
Lots of nice recommendations in here, but I think POWDER is missing in the list of "easier" and "shorter" roguelikes. It features nice looking retro graphics and is a hell lot of fun to play! I recommend to use "Chris Lomaka's tile set", which you can change from inside the game. Also, don't hesitate to spoil yourself using powder wiki, it makes the game even more fun to play!
I used to play POWDER a lot. It's a rougelike game. IMO one of the best HBs. Oh, and DSQuake. I also played Jewel Warehouse for a while. I also tried FPSmaker but never made anything.
Other than that I only play on emulators.
Before I got my phone, I used DSLibre and IkuReader to read eBooks. I also used DSBuff and DS2Key to use my DS as a controller but it didn't work very well.
When not playing I try to customize my flashcard. I used things like DSCovered and BAGPlug. I wanted to try DSTWOLinux as well but never did it.
I know that P.O.W.D.E.R. has mobile versions now which are basically the exact same as the P.C. version, except with full touch control s. It takes a little getting used to, but it definitely works (especially if you're looking for depth)
Made the switch last October and it's been good. It's not perfect, though neither is Android (or any OS) and it is a bit laggy at times, but it's good enough, it keeps growing and getting better. I still use my phone but not as much as i used to and i no longer feel tied to my phone, like it owns part of my soul.
Kaios isn't as expansive as Android and doesn't have nearly the number of apps or features but it provides enough functionality to keep me connected/entertained without overwhelming me with unnecessary apps & features that i'd never use.
(I do wish someone would do a port of Zincland's Powder tho)
I feel the exact same. It's a miracle if I put 10 hours into a new game these days; I'm at 250 and climbing on Noita.
If you find yourself addicted to disgustingly punishing open ended roguelikes, I might also suggest POWDER. It's more of a classic style roguelike (top down turnbased) but it has an incredible amount of variation and ridiculous ways to die. It's also free and open source. http://www.zincland.com/powder/
One that I really love that I almost never see anyone recommend is POWDER. It's kind of like a highly distilled approach to NetHack's style, such that it's much easier to grasp. There are of course other ways for roguelikes to play, but I feel like POWDER took an unapproachable style and made it approachable.
Another fun one I haven't seen anyone mention yet in this thread is UnReal World. It's basically a survival crafting game done as a roguelike and set in iron age Finland, and predates pretty much every survival crafting game you've ever heard of (the first release was in 1992!).
EDIT: Another one that's probably quite easy on newcomers would be Desktop Dungeons. It's pretty nonstandard and simplified, to the point that it's an oddity. But it's very compelling and perfect for short sessions.
Powder is my favorite mobile roguelike, but it isn't on the Google Play store and needs to be downloaded from the website (it's not actually on the 'Download' page for some reason but can be found a few posts down in the 'News' section) and manually installed, instead...
You can check out sub sidebar, there are some mobile roguelikes.
My personal favorite for android is POWDER. Nice tiles and much deeper than Pixel Dungeon variations, but you need to get used to its control system.
Powder has a little bit to learn off the start in terms of the interface, but it's not mental. Many rouglikes turn me off with their interfaces, but this keeps it under control.
Most of what I'd say has already been mentioned in the top comments here, but I'd like to suggest pretty much any traditional (turn-based) roguelike. Some of them are complex to the point of being kind of obtuse, but you can easily put hundreds of hours into just one them without exhausting all there is to see, and they'll run on a potato. My favorite one, personally, is Cogmind, which has a futuristic setting with robots and guns (don't be fooled by its 'Early Access' status; it's far more complete than most EA games), but if you want a more traditional medieval experience, I'd recommend getting Brogue Tiles Edition from here (scroll down a bit). I also think Powder makes a better introduction to the traditional roguelike genre than most games' actual tutorials, but you may get bored of that one faster.
If you get into them, check out /r/roguelikes as well; lots of awesome game suggestions in their sidebar, and there are some really cool people over there, too... :)
I'd just like to point out, the Game Boy Advance version of POWDER can be played quite well with the GBA's limited set of buttons, and if you play that version in an emulator you can set them to any keys you want to. You can also play the GBA version online here if you'd like. The controls aren't configurable in that web emulator, though, so you're stuck with these ones:
.------------.---------------. | Computer | GBA | :------------:---------------: | x key | A button | | z key | B button | | a key | L button | | s key | R button | | shift key | Select button | | enter key | Start button | | arrow keys | D-Pad | '------------'---------------'
Awesome!
Also, I forgot to mention, you can grab the artpack (all the tilesets and notes regarding the position of tiles) on POWDER's website.
Gracias! Pero las descripciones están sacadas palabra por palabra del juego en el que están basados todos los dibujos. Todo el mes va a ser temático de un juego roguelike gratuito que me encanta, POWDER
I love to play powder. its probably one of my favorite rougelikes. there is an android port as well but last i checked the gba version was much better.
it is homebrew and free to downlowad from here
Wasn't a graphics version of Powder ported to toasters with two buttons like a decade ago?
EDIT: There you go http://www.zincland.com/powder/
EDIT: Also, anything NDS/GBA emulated, like Shiren the Wanderer or the Pokemon Rescue Squad.
Yeah, Jeff Lait's games tend to always be worth playing. I swear by his <em>POWDER</em> as the absolute best 'beginners' roguelike, and I don't think I own a computer or Android device that doesn't have it installed... :P
Also. have you tried <em>You Only Live Once</em>, another 7DRL by Jeff Lait? It's another that is relatively easy and has a story. The biggest unique feature of this game is that when a character dies, you are put in control of a different character from the village (say, for example, that you are playing as the baker's husband. When you die as him, you take control of his wife to go look for him). Each character in the line is stronger than the last as well, so you should be able to play even if you're horrible at roguelikes... ;)
> it's very slow and i feel like i'm always wasting resources because i don't understand how to use them
Welcome to the world of roguelikes. Figuring this stuff out is part of the learning curve, it's just part of the genre.
If you want to try out a roguelike that's relatively easy to figure out but still extremely involving, I recommend POWDER by Zincland.
Suprised nobody suggested Powder. First roguelike I ever played and it got me into the whole of the genre. It's small, easy to play, built in tileset and everything, while still having a lot of depth to the actual adventure itself.
You can download it on a variety of platforms at zincland
The DCSS ascii port has a gamebreaking stairdance bug that hasn't been fixed AFAIK. Your best bet is to use Connectbot or DCSS Online to play online.
You can get a mostly-finished port of POWDER from the developer's blog. You'll find the link in the post labelled 'Ten Years of Development!'. http://www.zincland.com/powder/
There's an out-of-date port of Brogue (BrogueX) floating around. The dev pulled it from the play store. It runs pretty slow (on my LG G2) when you get farther into the game. Loading a saved game from floor 10 or lower takes interminably long.
Tome4's dev has hinted at a port, but no real news there.
I can't reply the the guy above you on mobile for some reason, but I wanted to add the link to the Android port since it's tricky to find on the page:
From official site, you just need to scroll a bit lower: http://www.zincland.com/powder/release/powder118_beta3.apk
My advice on android Powder experience: https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/nw3sw8/how_do_i_download_this_on_android/h17f1mh/
probably Powder, a great homebrew roguelike. no game is the same. first tried it 9 or 10yrs ago and i'm still playing it. It's free and available on multiple systems but is best played (imo) on a DS/DSi/3DS with a flashcard
Powder, an amazing (&free) roguelike homebrew available on many systems but best played on a DS/DSi/3DS with a flashcard. 12yrs after i first tried it and i'm still going back to it; think i've only made it halfway though. http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about
Ah, I forgot that other game existed with the same name. So it looks like the Android version has not been released to the Play Store but exists as a beta version on the developer's website(http://www.zincland.com/powder/release/powder118_beta3.apk).
I've seen Android players popup from time to time on this subreddit and in the google results, so that version appears playable.
You want a roguelike that have good interface but still have all the features of classic roguelikes.
Many roguelikes have multiple controls, you'll have to get use to them slowly, as "what's going on the screen / turn" there are probably roguelikes that does it better than Nethack.
I'd recommend Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (DCSS), Tales of Maj'Eyal (ToME4), <strong>POWDER</strong>, Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, Brogue.
It has many elements of the genre, but I wouldn't say Diablo is "primarily" a roguelike. For starters, it's way too forgiving!
I think the author of POWDER summed up the concept pretty well:
POWDER has quite simple interface as it was designed for Gameboy advanced and Nintendo DS.
IIRC it uses 4 cardinal directions (not 8, there are no player diagonal movement) and very few other buttons. I'm pretty sure it could be controlled with a mouse/pointer too. Also the UI and menues can be traversed with the keys if needed.
Not sure about the "eternal replay value", but I'm pretty sure you'll have a lot of content to enjoy. Pretty good underated RL.
It's an old dungeon-crawler roguelike that I still have yet to beat legitimately. If you're interested in that sort of genre, I recommend one of my favorite roguelikes, which can be found here.
http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about
Should've specified how to search for it. if you google "powder game" it usually comes up with the 2d physics sim powdertoy and some other stuff. Googling "powder roguelike" or "powder by jeff liat" usually works. My bad.
http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=release
This page should have a download for version 118 for Linux. As for my tileset, the process should be similar to Windows, which is to put the gfx folder inside your POWDER installation.
Apologies for the late reply.
Funny to see this post not too far away from one about RogueLikes, the whole genre of which is largely about how to figure out how to use the (often quite random) selection of abilities you've got (equipment-based, skill-based, and/or otherwise) to come up with (often unorthodox) solutions to all sorts of problems.
"Optimal play" of such games involves knowing how every ability works before you get it, and learning generally consists of playing, dying, and restarting over and over again until you're familiar with many mechanics each game offers.
To present a random suggestion from the genre: POWDER. It's available on quite a few platforms.
Thanks for your answer! I just watched the part of the video you linked. I think until some kind of story AI is invented, everything you will see in a game is scripted. It is either intended, or you can't do it. At least with games like RDR2, where there are dialogs and typical human interactions.
A game that came to my mind was Civilization 5. It is a set of rules. Each rule is simple on its own, but the whole thing together is complex and fun. As Sid Meier said: "A game is a series of interesting choices." And that definitely hits the nail on the head with Civilization. How other (AI) players react to what you do is always interesting to me.
Another game, and that might be more the kind you're looking for, is Rogue. I didn't play a lot of them, but I played a fair share of Powder. I think it is a typical rogue-like game. The levels are semi-randomly put together, and every start is different, but the general rules are always the same. The rules are also quite simple on their own, but there are complex interactions of these rules possible. If I remember right, a player found a magical wand that lets you use the magic spell to slip your mind into a foe and control it. You become the foe, have different stats, different strength and so on. He was able to pick up the magic wand and continued to search for ever better bodies to slip in. He played the game like that until he got quite strong and was able to reach the end.
Anyway, I think if one starts to take a look at it and its rules, one can see how diverse (I think I could use that word in this context more often) each round can be. Maybe you want to try it out. It's free!
Speaking of roguelikes & the like, I mentioned [Powder](http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about0, if you've never played Powder, jump on that - might be a wee bit of an overlooked classic. It's free & it's great.
Are you talking about the Powder game? I don't know why the android version is not included in the Downloads section, but if you scroll down a bit on the main page (http://www.zincland.com/powder/) you will see an article called Android Beta 3 and there is an apk link in it.
I liked Swords and Sworcery ("#sworcery"?), though that might have been cross-platform. I got it years ago during a sale on the iOS app store.
Aside from that, yeah, I haven't seen much good in a while. My favorite game for a long time was a roguelike called "powder" originally developed for the DS, but which is also for just about every platform. Unfortunately, it has not been update in a while, and the creator makes a post each year about how he hasn't updated anything.
> Another year of roguelikes has come and gone, and still POWDER remains un-updated!
"Really Bad Chess" is good, though it doesn't take advantage of any mobile features. #Sworcery is really the only good game I know of that takes advantage of the phone being a phone. From using the orientation center to suggesting use with social media, and headphones, it seems very aware of its status as a mobile game.
Powder 117 (now 118). Free to download, but I've definitely sunk hundreds of hours into it since first finding it.
There's stuff like Minecraft, Halo, Dark Age of Camelot, Total War and Football Manager that I've definitely put thousands of hours into, but with Powder being free originally I can't really justify going with anything else.
http://www.zincland.com/powder/release/powder118_beta3.apk
It's on the main page. If you don't want a direct link, look down to the beta 3 message here http://www.zincland.com/powder/
Btw strongly recommend playing in landscape view. You can get to those options with the phone's general menu button.
If you liked Nethack but found Sokoban and (assuming you got there) Gehennom really tedious, you'll love POWDER. Same stuff with interesting item interactions, having to read spoilers to have a chance of winning, etc, etc, but there's less stuff you need to keep track of and the game's condensed into 25 levels.
Still pretty difficult, though; it's pretty easy to die on the first level if you aren't playing a melee class, especially for necromancers and priests. Also, remember that to shoot up you aim two spaces north, and for down two spaces south.
There was a recent update that might have fixed this issue for me, as I'm not having that problem with this build in either orientation. It's the red arrow button at the bottom right. I think this solves your problem.
To be fair, though, Pixel Dungeon also has very little content. After doing some digging, I think POWDER has more monsters, at least. According to the PD wiki, the game has 18 different standard enemies, 10 special ones, and 5 bosses. POWDER has 18 monsters listed in its bestiary, but that list is incomplete and I haven't found another list, so I counted them on the actual tile sheet: there are 66 different regular monster tiles, and 5 extra quad-sized 'big monster' tiles that don't seem to be used in-game. In addition to that, most of those 66 regular monsters in POWDER can spawn (rarely) as a 'named' monster which is significantly more powerful.
POWDER also does a much better job at varying those monster spawns per dungeon level (PD seems to have about 3-4 different kinds of monster on each level, while POWDER is more wild), its inventory size makes item management much less finicky than PD's, starvation is rarely ever a problem unless you're polymorphed into something that can't eat corpses, and its religion system basically functions as a very flexible class system that lets you change classes during a run. It is a better game, I feel, but still very short-term tactically focused and is therefore not really what I'd call 'deep' (to me, a 'deep' roguelike is one with a long-term character development focus, like ADOM or ToME, and POWDER doesn't quite scratch that itch)...
Yeah, I don't really like 'em either, but it's one of the only other mono-color tiled games I know of, lol. I may try and make a tileset for powder based on Quale's Scroll-o-Sprites after I finish my powder adaptation of Dawnhack, though I'd need to manually assign a color to each of the Scroll-o-Sprite tiles since POWDER doesn't have support for programatically coloring a monochrome tileset... :P
look at the other end of the game but seeing as how it's on RL Radio I'm almost certain to get it the length you want, ask the hair stylist how to keep it like that before and now, unless you really want to spend. And you will, if that's an option (especially for "hardcore" rouge-like fans). And a lot of money into this car. You'd have then one-hit away from death, they'd pop the combo and win. Or just kill them all with a buzzard. It doesn't even make sense at face value. Why do they deserve another shot. It was dark for the sake of happiness and giving the guys a far different personality than what we see in Fate, where anyone who has ever used to Dark Side apparently goes. Again, rape is the Crown Court. There is almost always more expensive. Maybe this isn't the Heist Finale, so it usually recommend POWDER as a better roguelike 'tutorial' than most games' actual tutorials (not to mention the gunplay just felt more solid there. You can't throw thousands of people who deal with majority of the game while playing.
I second the Shiren vote, as well as The Dark Spire for Wizardry-style old school kick-your-butt. Also Mazes of Fate is good, and you can get Rogue and Nethack ports on the DS as well. Donnie Russell did some good work on his ports: https://sites.google.com/site/donnierussellii/nds-games
And the nethack port is here: http://gamebrew.org/wiki/NetHackDS
You should also try Powder, it is great: http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about
Good luck!
I agree with this to some extent. I still say POWDER should be on that list, but Shiren is great (if you can afford to buy it) and D**mRL is very straightforward. Brogue I don't agree with though; people always recommend it, but I personally think it's a bit too complex to be a good introduction (that said, I came into this genre with NetHack -- which is terribly complex -- and still managed to be interested in the genre, so I suppose Brogue isn't the worst introduction)...
> 1) Is moving northeast faster than moving north then east?
Depends on the game, but generally speaking, moving northeast takes 1 turn, where moving north and then east takes 2 turns. That means you're giving the enemies an extra turn to move and/or attack you, which can be important in a big fight.
> 2) What's up with Vikeys? Doesn't wasdqzce make more sense?
I prefer the numpad (on computers that actually have one), and never really liked Vi-keys either, but it's something to do with typing -- keys from the 'home row' (where your right hand naturally sits while typing) are used for movement, so it's apparently an easier control scheme to learn for people who type a lot (i.e. programmers). Regarding wasdqzce, though, I think it'd make more sense to use qwedcxza for movement, with s being the 'wait' key (or possibly 'search'). In fact, I've thought about making a hex game that controls with wedxza (and s to wait), since it's an actual hex pattern on the keyboard that way (well, mostly a hex pattern, anyway).
> 3) What does 8-directional movement actually add to the game? Why can't they just have 4-directional
Well, I kind of answered this in #1 anyway, but 8-directional movement takes less time (turns) to move diagonally, so you can maneuver around the enemies, etc. and not give them extra opportunity to attack you. It also makes it harder to become totally surrounded by enemies -- if there are 4 surrounding you (north, south, east, and west), you can still move diagonally to make a run for the closest hallway so you can fight them one-by-one. It's just a tactics thing. There are a few roguelikes that only use 4-directional movement though (for example, POWDER).
I fail to see how Castle of the Winds is anything like Pixel Dungeon, but I second <em>POWDER</em> and <em>Brogue Tiles</em> (scroll down). Also, <em>Shattered</em> is probably my favorite PD variant (and CAN be played on PC, if you have Java).
^Edit: ^Fixed ^the ^Shattered ^link ^to ^point ^to ^the ^desktop/Java ^version
Also, guys, there are actual homebrew titles. AFAIK the homebrew starter kit ships with homebrew titles for the emulators.
(I'd personally recommend you check out POWDER btw.
Oh, sorry, I forgot that the apk isn't in the download section for some reason (maybe the creator just forgot?). If you scroll down the 'news' page, it's in the Ten Years of Development! article. Here's a direct link if you don't feel like searching...
I don't have a Vita yet, but I still have my old PSP, so if it's a PSP game, I may be able to get it anyway (that is, if the PSP can still connect to PSN; it's been a very long time since I've tried). Edit: by 'Z.H.P', were you referring to the game Zettai Hero Project: Unlosing Ranger VS Darkdeath Evilman, mentioned by /u/Urist_McGamer?
Also, I don't game on iOS (don't have an Apple device), but I use my nVidia Shield Portable Android console all the time (it's what I bought instead of a Vita, which is why I don't have one yet, lol)...
And I have played POWDER, just forgot to put it on the list as I was originally going for official releases only. The iOS version is the only one that is pay-to-unlock, all other ports are free (I've got the Android one installed currently -- it's not on the Play store, but here's a direct link to the apk, for those interested).
Just so you know, there is a completely legal free version of Caves of Qud: the developers (Freehold Games) provide a link to a free ascii version on their site, right under the Steam button (the link says "Download the .exe and play in ASCII for free.").
This free ascii version is Windows-only (which sucks for me as a Linux user but probably won't bother you), but I assume you would personally rather play it in ascii anyway, since you mention wanting to let your imagination go wild... ;)
Edit: Also, I personally recommend playing <em>POWDER</em> before any of these others; it's a graphical roguelike with not much character development, so it's definitely not what you're looking for, but it's also a concentrated set of the major roguelike tropes and elements. As such, I feel it makes a better general roguelike 'tutorial' than most games' actual tutorials; it'll get boring quite soon, but it should give you a decent understanding of how to play a roguelike (including which items are relatively safe to try wearing without knowing what they are, and which ones are dangerous to equip without identifying first)...
Ah, yes, I forgot it isn't on the downloads page for some strange reason (maybe because it's labeled as a 'beta'?)...
If you scrolled down the main/news page for the Ten Years of Development! post, you'd find a link to a powder 118 beta apk...
Anyways, I've been enjoying it on my nVidia Shield (running Android 4.4.4) for over a year now with no bugs, so I know it works well. The controls might be a little odd on a touch screen, though (since the up, down, left, and right buttons are all in a vertical line on the side instead of being arranged like normal arrows)...
Something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere: POWDER
Powder is a very simple but deep tile-based roguelike, originally developed as a homebrew GBA game and ported to a variety of platforms since. It's incredibly stable in all of its supported versions (and even the unsupported, unfinished Android version isn't too bad... just clunky). I've spent countless hours playing it. If the seemingly-arbitrary games of item identification turn you off of more Nethack-style roguelikes, then you might find this game more approachable while not throwing out that element completely or neutering it to the point of removing any challenge.
As a more advanced (complex) alternative to the Binding of Isaac, I would recommend Powder (http://www.zincland.com/powder/). Powder is a procedurally generated dungeon crawler with a great amount of replayability. (It's permadeath and super easy to die, so you become very good at the first part of a save.)
I just never found the Binding of Isaac all that fun. It seems too mindless, and I want the parts where you find new stuff and do strategy to be the entire game.
Edit: Powder is super-low-end, and is on all platforms from DS to Windows to OSX and Linux.
Powder is pretty good. Set the options to let you pick a class on gaining a level to take out the mystery.
The real beauty behind Powder is the number of platforms it'll run on. I bought a homebrew cart for my Nintendo DS specifically for it. I also have it on my iPhone, my Vita... I'm about to see if I can put it on my PS3. Seriously, look at all the options.
Powder. Don't even ask me how to accomplish anything in that game though, it's fucking nuts. Also people have mentioned Spelunky and I second this, adding that Spelunky "classic" is also really good! (and free).
Not roguelikes, but certainly have the "death comes quick" and "maybe next run" feeling are the Megaman games. By these I mean Megaman 1-7 for NES, but also Megaman 9-10 for Wii (surprisingly really damn good).
Whoops we've miscommunicated!!!
I did not make Seven Day Band! That was the overall #1 winner, made by Jeff Lait, developer of the famous roguelike POWDER.
What I said was I made the "top" Unity 7DRL, which is kind of a joke because it was not very highly rated, there just weren't any top-placing Unity games.
So if you go to the 2015 7DRL results, and you scroll down a bit, and then maybe a bit more, and look for a unity icon in the "Runs on" column, you will find a game called Second Stepper by me.
And if you try that instead of Jeff's game, you will see what I mean about "not very roguelike at all."
Geeze if I was so loose as to be misunderstood as claiming to have made Jeff's game, I need to watch it.
Minecraft has the official forums, which has a forum dedicated to modding. Depends on what you mean by pirated if there is a difference, but if you enjoyed that version you should definitely support the game! If you haven't played modded Minecraft yet you are missing out on a lot of fun :)
You might want to look at the Sacred games, they pretty faithfully follow the Diablo formula.
Maybe not your cup of tea, but maybe it is if you like Banished, try Gnomoria or Dwarf Fortress depending on hardcore you are. If you do try Gnomoria and like it a lot, then try DF. These are both 2D, with more simple graphics.
You might like some of the rougelikes, too - try Powder for a good representative.
POWDER is free, though it depends what you want out of your RPG, and whether or not you feel like dealing with homebrew. It's a Berlin roguelike, which is as close to the antithesis of a JRPG as I can find.
A really great roguelike is free. POWDER. http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=news
The second news item has the download for the android version.
It's a great RL and got me back into playing them when I was playing it on my DS. It is well suited to keyboard free play. Has a lot of depth and complexity (not as much as nethack or DCSS, but more than any I've seen on mobile platforms).
It's been in development forever but has also been very playable for almost as long. Jeff Lait just keeps adding more to it over time. The updates are sporadic but you could play the current version for years.
I would suggest Powder There is a learning mountain as far as starting out but this game has an amazing amount of depth for customization. The game has also been in development for 11 years and is still being developed. There is no end to the nooks and cranies you will find while playing it
I'm definitely going to check this out. I was playing powder before, but this one looks like it's ui is less clunky (on the android version, that is. Powder has been ported to almost everything.).
It looks almost the same as another rogue like called Powder. You can download it here for free: http://www.zincland.com/powder/?pagename=about . I really recommend it because it was the first game that got me into roguelikes.
and I'll cut you some slack for android, since it's still in beta and the link is buried in the official site updates, but still, just go to the main site and search for 'android.'
Seems pretty cool.
Guess we might as well add some more options to this thread.
For people who want a free roguelike dungeoncrawler
I present : POWDER
it's a pretty fun dungeon crawler with a lot of stuff to learn in.
Great game! From what I remember this takes very little of your resources. Wish they had this on mobile.
For a more pure roguelike, I would also suggest Powder
POWDER is a popular easy-to-learn graphical roguelike. There isn't as much to learn, but is still plenty fun. It's available for almost every imaginable platform (although the iOS version is not entirely free; you can play roughly 60% of the game without paying).