Rogue like for Zx Spectrum

[djnzx48]

There are a few RLs for Spectrum:

Descending Dungeons
Devil's Castle
Escape From Cnossus
MysticTower
Ossuary
Rogue
Spectral Dungeons

I will create a new tag in ZXDB to group these games!

Any others?

I guess these would count:
Rogue (a different one)
Vradark's Sphere

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I'm not a fan of these kind of games either, but Dragonsbane by Quicksilva might count?

[Morkin]

I'm not a fan of these kind of games either, but Dragonsbane by Quicksilva might count?

I'd class that as a 'dungeon crawler'. First person view, moving around a map laid out as a grid.

[stupidget]

Forest of Long Shadows had a rogue-esque element as the map was randomly generated with each game.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=24421

It was type-in in Sinclair User and actually a pretty good game.

[Ralf]

Personally I was never a fan of roguelikes.

I could never understand my mate who in the late 90s played these games a lot.

At that time I haven't returned to retrogaming yet and was really keen on shining, modern, best possible
graphics in the games. And these roguelikes on PC were often made in text mode where & meant one monster
and @ another kind of monster They just looked ugly.

I also missed in roguelikes any real story, dialogues etc. It was just kill monsters, get on higher level, kill stronger monsters, repeat.

But here I promise to sit quiet and not spoil the party

[Morkin]

I will admit to being slightly addicted in the late 90s...

Weird considering everyone was marvelling at Doom, Quake etc., and I was only obsessed with watching those little ascii symbols moving around...

[akeley]

I'm not a fan of these kind of games either, but Dragonsbane by Quicksilva might count?

I'd class that as a 'dungeon crawler'. First person view, moving around a map laid out as a grid.

There's a big (mostly bitter) debate going on about what actualy classifies as a roguelike. The "purist" section argues that a real RL has to be turn-based, grid-based and has few other lesser intrinsics. To me the most important thing which defines this genre is interplay between permadeath and random generation. So if Dragonsbane has these qualities then I'd say it's a roguelike.

It was just kill monsters, get on higher level, kill stronger monsters, repeat.

Funny thing is, this description, also by proxy, actually applies to most of the "normal" games, and not roguelikes. Grind and leveling play very minor role in really good RLs. What really counts is ability to think ahead and adapt to random, emergent situations.

Personally I've spent nearly 3 decades playing normal games. I recall briefly toying with Rogue on ZX in the 90s, it was kind of addictive but I couldn't understand what it's all about and why am I not allowed to save? This was pre-internet so there was not much help around and anyway I looked forward to all the other swanky games pouring in (Amiga and DOS were at their prime then).

Then somewhere around 2012 I started to get bored of replaying the same template over and over, was looking for something different and somehow got slowly sucked into the roguelike world. First with some light JRLs, then Nethack, Crawl and then the other major RLs.

It was like taking the red pill. I've realized how stuck-up a lot of game design is and how we are not actually playing many of the games, just sort of coasting on autopilot, with minimal effort involved. My gaming mindset has changed completely and for a long time I actually could not play anything else, because it just felt boring and trite. I've slowly recovered , but only partially. I used to love classic CRPGs and strategy games but now can only play some of them. And I started getting much more into genres like arcade shoot'em ups, which require some skill and effort. Old school 8/16 bit action games also count

Long story short, RLs are not for everybody, but are definitely worth a go and are extremely rewarding, just require a change of old mindset and approach to be undertsood and enjoyed.

[Einar Saukas]

I will create a new tag in ZXDB to group these games!

Done:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... up_id=1043

If you notice any other game missing from this group, please let me know!

[Vampyre]

How about The Oracle's Cave? I think that's like a Rogue game, procedurally generated and the map revealed as you go along, but side-on rather than top-down.

[oblo]

How about The Oracle's Cave? I think that's like a Rogue game, procedurally generated and the map revealed as you go along, but side-on rather than top-down.

One of the best and very underrated ZX Spectrum games. The only caveat is the map generation takes some time -no surprise here- but the game itself was very addictive back in the day

Cheers.

[Lethargeek]

does Master of Magic count?

[Morkin]

From what I remember Master of Magic doesn't have randomly generated levels, just a fixed map, so some people might argue it's not quite the same, but as far as I'm concerned it looks and feels enough to be a Rogue-style game, so possibly.

I recall when I first played Oracle's Cave I struggled a bit as I kept getting killed, but later I realised the benefit of picking your rooms and battles carefully, getting a bit stronger, and it became quite enjoyable. I think there was a time limit on the quests though, which ultimately could be a bigger issue to deal with.

[akeley]

I'm afraid that the two key factors - randomness and permadeath - are non negotiable.

Otherwise, there are countless old RPGs which could be classifed as roguelikes (eg Ultima) but aren't really.

[Morkin]

I'm afraid that the two key factors - randomness and permadeath - are non negotiable.

Otherwise, there are countless old RPGs which could be classifed as roguelikes (eg Ultima) but aren't really.

Fair enough, if those are the aspects that defines a rogue-like then I guess games like MoM and Out of the Shadows (fixed map I think) aren't really rogue-likes.

By those definitions Oracle's Cave could be classed as one I think. I couldn't remember what happened if you 'finished' one of the quests on Oracle's Cave. I think you could move onto the next one, but I don't recall if your character retains their stats/items/possessions?

[Jbizzel]

Interestingly, compared to many of the earlier Rogue-likes - written on machines with lots more memory than our ZX - the Speccy attempts seem to have larger and more detailed graphics/sprites (e.g. 16x16 pixel). Personally, if I were attempting to write one (which I won't!) I'd be putting as many spare bytes towards getting as much variety of item types, monsters, combat etc. I'd be perfectly happy with 8x8 pixel UDG-style characters and character movement.

[mention]Morkin[/mention] I know you are a true fan (like me) from this comment.

variety of item types, monsters, combat is exactly what a RLs offer. And why so many so called spectrum RLs aren't RLs at all!

Many have 1!!! Potion. And it's a healing potion. And about 5 baddies in total. This is not rouge.

"You find a blue potion"
Drink potion.
"You are positioned"
"Jbizzel, level 1 warrior died"

Or

"The door is locked"
Open the door.
"It breaths on you. You died"

The original rouge game was something like 45k surely it could be made for the zx spectrum. Even if 128 only.

I want to try. But the amount of stuff in the game is daunting!

PS I'm not saying these other games aren't good. I'm just saying they are NOT rouge like.

UMoria is probably the game I have spent more time playing than any other. These games are insanely good if you are able to get past the impossible learning curve.

You are supposed to die, that is how you learn. But a game that tells you nothing, has no graphics, where every single key on the keyboard is a different action, and where you repeatedly die instantly, is off putting to most people.

Dark souls / Bloodborne are the heirs to the rouge like legacy. The game play is always risk management and the strategic use of death.

[Jbizzel]

Just to add to this...

Playing Umoria with a high level, powerful character.

You have spent weeks keeping this guy alive. Leveling him up, de coding the secrets of the dungeon.

You get comfortable, feel invincible. You have a few jet out of jail tricks up your sleeve.

You get to a door, do I open it? You might find a named sword. Or all hell could break loose.

I suppose Umoria is 1meg, so maybe a game like that is too big.

But we are brain storming here

[Jbizzel]

I thought about this quite a bit last night.

The questions I have are:

Is the monster AL for Rouge well described anywhere?

The starting point might be to build a database of the items within the game. Are these listed anywhere?

I have never played the original rouge, the game must be about 1/2 the size of Umoria, with half the stuff.

[Jbizzel]

https://github.com/Davidslv/rogue

source code in c

z88dk?

[catmeows]

Well, I used to play Pixel Dungeon. It is far from complex RL like Nethack oř Umoria but it still fits in genre.
One concept I'm not sure is food. It is used to stop player grinding on easy levels. Fact is, in some runs, you already know that you are dead simply because you did not get suitable weapon and armor in early levels and you take too much damage. You can mitigate increased damage by potions but that Is just prolongating unevitable agony. I prefer when player is killed by own mistake than by statistic.

[TomD]

My The Order of Mazes game https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/3 ... r_of_Mazes is loosely a Rogue-Like as the maze is procedurally generated each time you play with random loot locations etc...

TomD

[arjun]

What about the Warrior Mage? Granted it's a BASIC type-in, but it's a very good one IMO.

Also, does Maziacs count?

[catmeows]

Also, does Maziacs count?

IMHO it is kind of proto RL. Question is if there is enough RL elements to distinguish Maziacs as RL. It is always hard to find clear line.
There was discussion if Skool series is open world. Personally, I see metroidvania elements in Starquake. And yes, I see elements of RL in Maziacs.
For my own sanity, I think about these games as proto-XXXX. Proto-metroidvania, proto-open world, proto-RL. Clearly, they are heading towards specific genre but maybe (and that is very subjective thing) they are not there yet.

[Jbizzel]

Well, I used to play Pixel Dungeon. It is far from complex RL like Nethack oř Umoria but it still fits in genre.
One concept I'm not sure is food. It is used to stop player grinding on easy levels. Fact is, in some runs, you already know that you are dead simply because you did not get suitable weapon and armor in early levels and you take too much damage. You can mitigate increased damage by potions but that Is just prolongating unevitable agony. I prefer when player is killed by own mistake than by statistic.

This is another good point. Same issue with end of level bosses in so called rouge likes. They player needs to be able to select their own risk level. So they must never be forced in to some kind of end point. As you say, the player should be able to make their own preparations and decide when they are ready to 'go for it'

[Morkin]

They player needs to be able to select their own risk level. So they must never be forced in to some kind of end point. As you say, the player should be able to make their own preparations and decide when they are ready to 'go for it'

...I think it's probably a difficult (read: impossible!) task to get definitive agreement on what 'Roguelike' means, but this is quite an important element for me.

The idea that if you're finding things hard-going you can hang around in a place with mostly low-level enemies until you gain experience/strength/equipment and feel comfortable about trying to progress further.

...Though if you've experienced 'permadeath' (another potential 'roguelike' element) you normally have good reason to grind a bit...

[worcestersource]

I thought the same, so am having a go at writing one.

So far, the levels generate randomly and you can move around the dungeon, collect a key and exit to the next level. The levels get bigger as the game goes. So much more to add! Next on the list is the contents of crates and barrels.



Not really sure where I'm going with this, so would appreciate some ideas to make it fun. Monsters are clearly on the list.

Steve