Roguelikes: An introduction

If you know anyone who is fanatically into roguelikes or you’ve always wanted to try them yourself but have been intimidated by the insane control schemes and ascii graphics, this is a guide for you. The intent for this article is to provide a series of games ramping up towards the more esoteric roguelikes. Anyone who knows how to use a mouse will be able to move up this list. Each one will delve a bit deeper into what makes a roguelike tick, so it should also help you figure out whether the genre is for you without having to commit the time to learning the controls and what the symbols mean in the more complex titles. The goal is to get you to a place where you will feel comfortable picking up Nethack which is about as big, complicated and nasty as roguelikes get.

A quick bit about where I’m coming from: I have been interested in roguelikes for years, had downloaded Nethack many times only to become frustrated by the unintuitive controls. Shortly after beginning games I would get confused and feel totally lost, then would proceed to promise myself another time when I’m more patient I would revisit. These were games I found that got me to enough understanding of the genre to feel more comfortable diving into more complex games. Some people may argue that not everything on this list is a true roguelike. To them I say: fuck off.

1. Desktop Dungeons: You can bust through a game in 10-20 minutes. It’s played entirely with a mouse and is extremely easy to understand. The different race/class combos will give you a different play experience each time you start it up. The different dungeons give it even more variability. It is insanely simple which is both its biggest plus and its biggest minus, but probably the most accessible roguelike I’ve ever played.

2. Spelunky: If you are allergic to platformers, skip this one. The controls are a little difficult to take in at first, but this is still a very accessible game. The random maps bring a lot of variability to each play through. Even though it’s not an RPG, there’s still a fair amount of resource management and a surprising amount of items in the game. The permanent death, random maps, shops in the dungeon and item count makes this game feel like a lot of roguelikes feel despite the gameplay being so radically different.

3. Shiren the Wanderer: There is a DS and Wii version of this game, both of which you can get on amazon. I personally prefer the DS version because this game is a great portable experience and also because it’s stays closer to traditional roguelike conventions. The Wii version has a series of dungeons you play through and no permanent death. These changes hurt it more than help it. The DS version will give you a fantastic roguelike experience with a simple interface and controls as well as great graphics. At this stage, the aspect most likely to turn you off is the permanent death. Let me stress that roguelikes require a different style of play then most games. When things start getting tough, slow down. Look over all your options before acting. There’s almost always some interesting trick with your items you hadn’t noticed before. And when you do die, instead of becoming frustrated, try and figure out how you could have survived. I think most people don’t end up beating this game. It’s pretty tough, so don’t beat yourself up if you feel like you’re dying a lot. I still haven’t quite gotten to the end.

4. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup: DCSS has the easiest interface and controls to understand in any of the more traditional roguelikes I’ve played so far. It’s quite a bit tougher over here, but you should know enough about playing roguelikes at this point to not feel too intimidated. Plus, you’ll have a tileset to work with, no reason to play with ascii. Remember to play the tutorial. You can play a few games using almost nothing but the mouse. Once you start wondering how to do certain actions you can’t with the mouse (like standing in one position for a turn), press ? and follow the simple instructions to find out the button you’re looking for. The next intimidating factor is the race and class selection. While both are important, you’ll find from repeated plays that they’re probably not as important as you thought they were. For a great write-up and introduction to some of the complexities, I suggest reading this article by John Harris. It’s the third in a series of great articles on DCSS strategies. This one focuses on race and class selection. If you want to get deeper into the experience, just keep playing. There’s a huge amount of information to learn.

5. Nethack: This is as big and nasty as it gets. Nethack is huge. People say all the time you can play it for ten years and still not have explored all its depth. DCSS should have given you the hang of using the keyboard for controlling all your various actions. Nethack should be a lot easier to handle now. It’s also got lots of various tilesets you can play the game with so you don’t have to play it in ascii. There’s a huge number of places with strategy guides. I suggest playing some yourself and then reading some tips and trying again. There’s a lot to this game, but at this point you’ve tackled enough games that you should be able to warm to Nethack quickly.