Newbie to Rogue-Like Games

[dreamician]

Hello Angband Community,

I realize this your forums are primarily concerned with Angband and its variants, but I couldn't find any other forums pertaining to Rogue and Roguelike games.

If this is too off-topic for the community here, let me know, or if you know of other forums out there pertaining to the original Rogue, clue me in!

So, a few days ago, I was doing a search for free rpg games and came across a wiki about rogue and roguelike games. I did some more searching, and learned quite a bit about the history of the genre.

Years ago when I came across fallout, I found that it had a predecessor called Wasteland. So I played through that, then played fallout. My enjoyment of the game was doubly enhanced because I had played it's ancestor.

So I'm doing the same thing here. I'm going to start with the original, then work my way up through the games as they came out over the years. I found early versions of Rogue here:

http://rogue.rogueforge.net/

The earliest version I could find was 3.6.3, and I started playing it today. I have a fondness for the old DOS OS, and let me tell you, this brought back some memories! I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

So now some questions.

Does anyone else here have an interest in the original game, is anyone playing it, and if you are or if you have, would you share any tips/tricks/hints/advice you have for someone who is brand new to the genre?

[PowerDiver]

I suggest you start with one of the later versions. It seems that each game is easier than the previous. Some people have a hard enough time winning recent games even so. If you start with the original, you may never make it to any other game.

[emulord]

Unless of course, you do not mind not being able to win. Think of it as a "how far can you get" type challenge.
If you're playing the roguelikes in historical order, don't worry about not being able to win. Play them until you're bored with it, then move on.

For what its worth,
My first roguelikes were Alphaman (90s pop culture) and a early version of Zangband. Both were really fun. Alphaman allows saving, so you can die without going too far back.

[getter77]

We've a topic or so over at www.roguetemple.com on Rogue and such early ones in the pantheon.

For Rogue though, best bet by my reckoning for a good time is the work of the mysterious Donnie Russell

http://www.freewebs.com/drussell/index.htm

TileRogue was my first encounter with Rogue period.

[dreamician]

Thanks.

Yes, I'm just trying to experience the game as it was originally meant--if that means dying a lot, I don't mind.

Thanks getter--see you over at Rogue Temple!

[Nemesis]

I started with Rogue too, and it's a nice game even though one shouldn't expect to ever win it. Rogue gets downright ugly at level 12 when trolls start appearing and when you reach level 17 it gets nigh impossible due to medusas/umber hulks (same monster, different versions of the game).

It is of course possible to win, but you have to be very, very lucky. But sure, there is some skill to it as well. I got tired of the game after I finally reached level 21 and got killed by a Jabberwock. It was a game where almost everything went right and when I died I tried to use a save file I had backed up just to see if I was any close to winning. It still took lots of save scumming before I managed to get out of there alive with the Amulet of Yendor.

Should you find a Scroll of Scare Monster and two Rings of Slow Digestion things would be different, however. If you stand on your Scroll of Scare Monster, no one except for dragons can attack you (and hopefully you find the scroll before they start appearing) and with those two rings you can stand there forever, hitting the ever generating monsters with impunity, earning more and more xp! That would certainly make the game very easy and since the combination is so rare you shouldn't feel guilty when you exploit it. I never found all three things (or even two rings of slow digestion) in the same game, however.

Iron man games in Angband work a lot like Rogue, I guess. But even when playing iron man, hunger won't contantly force you to be quick as long as you have a book with the Satisfly Hunger spell and the book doesn't burn up.

[Zikke]

I first played Moria and then uMoria. Where does that fall in the pantheon? Was that after Rogue?

[JDTAY]

My first was Nethack. In my first game I died on level one from eating a kobold corpse. Good times, man, good times.

[Derakon]

I first played Moria and then uMoria. Where does that fall in the pantheon? Was that after Rogue?

Rogue is the reason why these games are called "roguelikes". It was the first. Moria descended from Rogue, and Angband descended from Moria.

[will_asher]

My first was rogue. I played it a few times from my friend's 5 1/4 inch floppy disk, but I never really got hooked on rogue. If it weren't for me finding Hack soon afterwood, I probably wouldn't have gotten into roguelikes. I played Hack for several years before hearing that Nethack existed*. Then played Nethack several years before getting into Angband. When I first tried Angband I was turned off (mainly because of lack of flavor & story of course of which Nethack has plenty), but I eventually decided that Angband was less frustrating and therefore more fun (I often got quite mad at Nethack). I also liked that it was possible to do pretty good in Angband (and maybe even win) without use of spoilers, which isn't really true of Nethack.

*I actually posted on some early question site asking if anyone knew how to win Hack because I had gotten to the maze levels several times, but couldn't figure out what do to from there because there was no down stairs that I could find. Along with that question I asked if there was any newer version which fixed some of Hack's many bugs. Someone answered the question by telling me about Nethack. A long time later I won Nethack (only once after a lot of help from the newgroup and spoilers), but I never did learn how to win Hack.

PS: I never noticed that "Yendor" was "Rodney" backwords until I looked at this just today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amulet_of_Yendor

[getter77]

Rogue is the reason why these games are called "roguelikes". It was the first. Moria descended from Rogue, and Angband descended from Moria.

then waaaaay later Mines of Morgoth also descended from Moria.

[Nemesis]

When I first tried Angband I was turned off (mainly because of lack of flavor & story of course of which Nethack has plenty), but I eventually decided that Angband was less frustrating and therefore more fun (I often got quite mad at Nethack). I also liked that it was possible to do pretty good in Angband (and maybe even win) without use of spoilers, which isn't really true of Nethack.

I hear you, I prefer Angband over Nethack because Nethack is so tedious, at least if you want to play the game effectivly. Stealing with your pet from shops, zapping wands at the floor to see what they do, price identifying stuff and so on. And on... And on...

And you always have to keep a notepad file and the spoilers wiki open when you play. In Angband, it can be useful to have monsters.txt open but you can do pretty fine with your monster memory too.

By the way, I don't think Angband's story is worse than Nethack's. Nethack's story is Rogue + various stuff from D&D, Zork and different mythologies, books and films thrown in for good measure. Angband, while not being exactly ADOM (another roguelike, which actually has an original story!), is all of Silmarillion + various stuff from D&D and different mythologies thrown in for good measure.

[will_asher]

By the way, I don't think Angband's story is worse than Nethack's. Nethack's story is Rogue + various stuff from D&D, Zork and different mythologies, books and films thrown in for good measure. Angband, while not being exactly ADOM (another roguelike, which actually has an original story!), is all of Silmarillion + various stuff from D&D and different mythologies thrown in for good measure.

Angband's story:
- has almost nothing to do with the works of which it is supposedly based on (storywise).
- takes place in a dungeon where you can never go to the same level twice and all levels are pretty much the same except for which monsters and objects are generated.
- has many unique characters (at least half of which have nothing to do with Tolkien)
- has boring monsters (oh look there's a large yellow snake. oh my. ..oh my gosh look at that, it's a giant silver ant!)
- has two uninteresting quests: kill Sauron, then kill Morgoth. (no subplots, puzzles, or interesting places.)
- has a journey to level 100 which is just like every other level except that Morgoth is there and there's no downstairs until you kill him.
- has an arch-nemesis who stays on his level, dissapears when you cast *destruction*, and his most interesting attacks are just summoning other monsters or mana-storming for damage
- oh yeah, there's the occational vault. whup dee doo.

Nethack's story:
- takes place in a mappable dungeon (you can go back to the level you just came from).
- has interesting unique characters (quest characters, unique demons, Rodney, killable shopkeepers, watchmen, the high priests, the oracle, the four horsemen, Vlad the Impaler, and that rich dude I forget his name.)
- has a quest with a subplot unique to each class
- has more interesting monsters (seductive nymphs, mimmics which you can actualy mistake for an object, werebeasts which can actually spread lyncanthropy, gremlins which multiply in water, long worms that can swallow you, dogs which you can tame and watch them grow, Keystone Kops with rubber hoses and cream pies, trolls which come back from the dead, shapechangers..) with edable corpses and quotes from works of Literature or monster-reference books for most of them.
- has a journey into ghennom through a castle into the valley of the dead
- has the goal artifact guarded by an evil priest in the temple of Moloch
- has other interesting side stuff: Fort Ludios, the gnome mines, Medusa's Island, smaller temples, throne rooms, fountains, elemental planes, etc..
- has an arch-nemesis who not only summons other monsters, but also follows you from level to level, comes back from the dead, clones himself, etc..

I almost want to play Nethack again now, but now I have DaJAngband.

[Nick]

I almost want to play Nethack again now

No, you just need to play FAangband

[Pete Mack]

No, you just need to play FAangband

Or NPP, tho' it still has Yellow Snakes. To make up for that, it has really scary traps and terrain.