Best roguelikes for a newcomer?

[hexagonalbolts]

Hey all,

I've had a good go at Dungeons of Dredmore and I really enjoyed it, can anyone recommend more roguelikes for me? In particular, I'd like something with a bit more variation than Dredmore. I've never progressed especially far through the game but it still feels like an endless repetition of about 10 identical rooms. I tried the adventurer mode of Dwarf Fortress (I love fortress mode) but that just felt bewildering. I've been playing through the tutorials for Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup, they're a bit dense, but I'm hoping the game afterwards will be worth it.

[Schaulustiger]

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is great as the next step after Dungeons of Dredmor. Other good choices would be the Doom Roguelike or Tales of Maj'Eyal. Both have a graphical interface, mouse support and a modest difficulty.

[jnx]

Well Ancient Domains of Mystery, or ADOM, is pretty much legend by now.

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

ToME is fairly easy to get into in its latest version: http://www.te4.org/
There's a great focus on skills you can activate, which is relatively uncommon for a roguelike but fairly close to how Dredmore works.

If you want to have a look at the far end of the complexity spectrum, there's Incursion: http://www.incursion-roguelike.net/

[FuriKuri!]

I got a solid week of enjoyment out of the Doom roguelike - http://doom.chaosforge.org/

It's definately on the simpler end of the scale but it has an entertaining progression structure regarding the 'challenge' levels.

[TailSwallower]

Yeah, if you have warm and fuzzy nostalgic feelings about the original Doom games then DoomRL will go down a treat.

There's also The Binding of Isaac which is best described as a Roguelike shooter - so, far from the traditional style of RLs, but a fantastic game nonetheless.

Slight hi-jack: Any good RLs that aren't in a traditional fantasy setting?

[hexagonalbolts]

Cheers guys, I'll get sifting through

[Kaira-]

Well Ancient Domains of Mystery, or ADOM, is pretty much legend by now.

ADoM is a fantastic roguelike, but it will absolutely destroy you in the beginning, multiple times. Maybe a hundred times even before you get the hang of things. I'd absolutely recommend it, but it's not that easy for a beginner.

DC:SS is a good choice, and I've heard good things about Brogue, so OP should also check that out.

[Kaira-]

Slight hi-jack: Any good RLs that aren't in a traditional fantasy setting?

Rogue Survivor takes place during a zombie outbreak. There's also a roguelike which takes huge amounts of inspiration from S.T.A.L.K.E.R., I'll try to get the name back in my mind, but for now it escapes me.

Anyway, a big list of roguelikes by theme here.

[DevinSmoth]

Angband is a pretty easy-ish one to get into, not to mention it's quite similar to nethack.

And Tail, there's a DOOMRL which I've heard is pretty decent, at least.

[Althea]

More Dredmor.

[Hobbes]

Dredmor, DoomRL, Slash 'EM - good start points. I'd also recommend Brogue as an opener. One of my friends has taken to Nethack scumming with scripts, he terrifies me in ways that have only been matched by the Great Old Ones.

[Bobtree]

If you have a Nintendo DS, Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer is outstanding.

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/03/..._mystery_d.php

[Kelron]

My favourite is still Nethack. You won't get anywhere without the wiki, there's a huge amount to learn, but it has the advantage of being quick to jump in to and the core game is fairly simple.

[Vandelay]

I'm quite interested in trying out some roguelikes too, although this is coming from having played The Binding of Isaac. However, I always hear that TBoI is not that much like other roguelikes. As someone who has no experience of the genre, how do they normally differ? I assume it is the combat, but how does the combat usually play out?

Also, are there any good ones on iOS? They sound like a good thing to play on an iPad.

[hexagonalbolts]

Rogue Survivor takes place during a zombie outbreak. There's also a roguelike which takes huge amounts of inspiration from S.T.A.L.K.E.R., I'll try to get the name back in my mind, but for now it escapes me.

Anyway, a big list of roguelikes by theme here.

Aaaah I remember reading about the STALKER roguelike before, I want to find it now! I really enjoyed rogue survivor as well, although it is very hard!

[Kaira-]

Aaaah I remember reading about the STALKER roguelike before, I want to find it now! I really enjoyed rogue survivor as well, although it is very hard!

Now I remember where it was mentioned - in RPS' coverage of recent 7DRL. GatewayRL was the name. Other fairly interesting roguelikes also mentioned in the article.

I'm quite interested in trying out some roguelikes too, although this is coming from having played The Binding of Isaac. However, I always hear that TBoI is not that much like other roguelikes. As someone who has no experience of the genre, how do they normally differ? I assume it is the combat, but how does the combat usually play out?

In roguelikes, the combat is traditionally turn-based. The way the turn-based is handled depends on the game. Some games utilize a rather boring way of using turn-based (I'm looking at you, Dredmor) where everyone acts once per round and that's that. Some games (such as ADoM and IIRC DC:SS) utilize a time system where each action consumes certain amount of points - if an enemy is faster than you, he will be able to do more actions than you in the same 'time' (this usually manifests as enemy doing two or more actions for every your action).

[Wolfenswan]

Brogue is great as a start too. It's fairly simple compared to some other RLs, has a few unique mechanics and has a traditional yet elegant interface.

[Wolfenswan]

ToME is fairly easy to get into in its latest version: http://www.te4.org/
There's a great focus on skills you can activate, which is relatively uncommon for a roguelike but fairly close to how Dredmore works.

maybe I'm playing it wrong, but ToME feels lacking in terms of strategy. You get swarmed by monsters constantly and can't do much about it than spam your healing abilities and fortify in a corner.

[Fumarole]

As Walter said above: