By Adam Smith on December 4th, 2012 at 7:00 pm.
Hack, slash, splatter. Red Rogue first attracted my attention with its striking colour scheme, espied while playing a work-in-progress build entered into IGF 2012. Everything is teetering on the greyscale, except for blood and blood is as red as Rudolph’s nose. Bump into anything and the dungeon is spattered with that lovely redness, even if your victim is the tiniest of spiders, innocently dangling from the ceiling. Now complete and available for absolutely no money whatsoever, the game is a side-scrolling roguelike, packed with monsters and potentially lethal unidentified trinkets. There are two modes – a realtime ARPG type hack and slash, or a turn-based voyage downward for the those who like their roguelikes to be more like rogue. Jolly good.
The turn-based mode doesn’t divide the dungeon into big blocks for movement. Instead, it’s like a strobing display of violence that pauses whenever the player chooses to sit back for a moment and admire their handiwork. Or to ponder the tactical situation, although I’ll admit that I’ve mostly just been running around like a headless chicken until some nasty beast actually cuts my head off, at which point I briefly lament and then start again.
I only just learned that this is an actual sequel to Rogue, set in the same world. That’s neat.
It’s a splendid freebie that everybody should try, even your cousin Horatio who still hates computer games because you bought him Superman 64 for his birthday all those years ago. Your friends Jimmy Linux and Frederick Macintosh won’t argue though because Red Rogue is available on their favourite operating systems as well as Windows. Hurrah.
04/12/2012 at 19:10 Snids says:
Lovely!
04/12/2012 at 19:10 Dervish says:
To be clear: turn-based mode isn’t turn-based, it’s real-time that automatically pauses when you let go of the movement keys or use the menus.
I’m not going to touch the “roguelike” term but I am thinking things very hard.
04/12/2012 at 19:52 Solomon Grundy says:
I tore out a kobold’s heart and fed it to my minion!
I tore off another one’s face and wore it as my own!
Heads rolled! Blood spattered!
You people need to try this thing.
04/12/2012 at 20:15 Hoaxfish says:
I found a shrine, which opened a portal to the overworld with a literal “grind stone” that levelled me twice until I gave up on it … promptly died in a fight to some big red monster thing when I returned to the dungeon.
I think the minimalist controls and UI is really smooth, but I kinda wish the actual game (player character, monster, etc) was visually larger & more detailed.
04/12/2012 at 20:21 Exkaiser says:
I think it’s worth mentioning that this is a game wherein you play the widow of the @ from Rogue, and the skeletal minion that follows you around is his undead body.
It’s kind of pretty cool.
04/12/2012 at 20:38 The Army of None says:
That is the /best/ plot I have ever heard.
05/12/2012 at 07:16 MrUnimport says:
I like that this is possibly the one sequel this year to a beloved game with prettied-up graphics and entirely altered gameplay mechanics that RPS ISN’T going to hate on.
05/12/2012 at 11:51 Esteis says:
She dreams when she sleeps. “Are you snoring again, @?” but @ is dead, of course. Poor dears…
04/12/2012 at 20:47 Ross Angus says:
I’m not speaking to Jimmy Linux. He tried to grep me in the lift this morning.
04/12/2012 at 21:21 Jimmy Linux says:
Oh please. You were into it.
04/12/2012 at 21:14 Frank says:
nitrome?
04/12/2012 at 23:24 ribobura osserotto says:
>its striking colour scheme
Do you mean its ugly pixel graphics?
05/12/2012 at 01:52 bjohndooh says:
They announced yesterday that all taste was subjective.
You didn’t get the memo? ALL graphics are ugly.
05/12/2012 at 11:36 ribobura osserotto says:
Really?! Hold on then. I’m gonna hang my stick drawings at the Louvre.
05/12/2012 at 01:38 Caiman says:
According to Chrome “redrogue.exe.zip is not commonly downloaded and could be dangerous.”
Subversive!
05/12/2012 at 06:04 Garret says:
The source code is available on their site too, which is cool.
07/12/2012 at 10:36 Shepardus says:
I quite like the background music/ambiance. I wish each region felt more distinct in terms of graphics and level structure, but perhaps I just haven’t gotten far enough in the game yet.