Hey everyone,
Brogue isn't a 'variant' of Angband, clearly, but I have been playing it lately and it's really neat. If this doesn't belong here, let me know.
This is just a list of things it does differently from most *bands I know. This is not a statement that ANY of these things should be in Angband; this is mostly just an exercise in "that's pretty cool."
Things I liked:
- The look and feel. Holy crap is this thing pretty for a roguelike. There are lighting effects, fairly complex animations, and a weiiiird charset that looks great.
- Some of the help/convenience functions. My favorite is if you type '>', it will show you the most optimal route to the down staircase. If you type it again, you will auto-walk there.
- The variety of terrain. This is something that I feel e.g. Halls of Mist does well, but Brogue has these really cool chasms that span the level. You can dive into a chasm to escape to the next level.
- They also reused the chasm mechanic for escapes -- there's a "potion of descent" that opens a chasm underneath you, dropping you to the level below. However, any monsters standing closeby may also be dropped into that chasm.
- Gas / explosion effects. These are neat -- many potions or monsters will blow up, and emit flames / noxious gas / other nasty things that spread outwards in a cloud.
- Machine rooms / puzzle rooms -- often times there are rooms with multiple treasures, but you are forced to pick a subset of them as your reward.
- Visible countdown meters on buffs/conditions. I can see exactly when my invisibility will run out, when poison will run its course, etc.
- Recall windows are done quite well. I feel like this is a result of Brogue's mechanics (which involve very little randomness) but they give very concise information about how a weapon or a battle may go. (E.g. "at your current strength, you will defeat this monster as few as 2 turns")
- The quality of generated items is completely independent of floor depth. So, that +3 Warhammer of Holy Shit you just found on DL16 could just has easily have been found on DL1. This is really fun as it rewards exploration at the earlier depths.
- Things are simple. It feels less like an RPG and more like a normal board game. There's no XP, everything is really down to the items you find.
- Each monster has a pretty cute new mechanic that you have to deal with.
- The overarching theme of "everything is overpowered". This means you'll always have a few dimensions in which you are very strong, and a few dimensions in which you are barely scraping by. (Same goes for the monsters.)
- The fact that floors persist once created, and the determinism of the game based on the dungeon seed in general. They've even nailed down the monster generation to the point that two players playing the same game seed will find _exactly_ the same floors, _exactly_ the same items, etc. which is great for comps.
- The recordings. Once you die, instead of producing a chardump, you instead dump a replay of your entire game which you can walk through step-by-step. If you just let it play in movie mode, it will actually _slow down_ the playback at the parts where your character got himself into interesting situations. So cool!
- ID by use is quite manageable in this game. It's annoying but really not that bad to quaff a 'bad' potion or wear some bad equipment. Anyone who is curious about / annoyed by the id-by-use system in Vanilla or other *bands (I saw this was a hot topic a little while ago) might want to explore this. IMO this is done even better here than it is done in Sil (it's not quite as anguish-inducing) but then again the number and the complexity of the effects is quite a bit more limited, so it's sort of a mixed bag
Things I don't like:
- Things are too simple. I think I've become addicted to the statgain/ability stuff in *bands. If I had to make a comparison, the spectrum of character strength feels more finely-grained in *bands than it does in Brogue. (This is a bit true of Nethack as well, but at least that one had XP and character level.) Angband feels like a continuous system, while Brogue feels more discrete. I'm already sort of bored of it for that reason.
- Monsters. Really, now that you don't get any discernible reward for killing them, it feels like they're shepherding me into an avoidance-style of play. Which I normally like, but I'd like to feel rewarded for thwacking that Kobold. They removed the XP system to encourage exploration -- I wish they'd gone the Sil route of _awarding_ XP for exploration / discovering new things, instead. (Although this does have the disadvantage that a kill-everything build that also explores a lot will get more XP than one who just avoids everything. Maybe there could be some sort of balance there.)
- Autoexplore. Seriously wtf, I hate games that try to play themselves for me. (I know, I don't have to use it.)
- The mouse. I know, it's 2012, but I hate having to hover over monsters or items to get their recall information when they're sitting on the floor.
- The simplicity of the stealth mechanic. I'm biased here, since Sil also has reasonably simple system that IMO manages to create a lot more tension / interest. In Brogue, there's a 2-part LOS check that depends on your stealth. If you hit an unwary/sleeping monster, you do 3x damage. That's it. The fact that you can hide in shadows etc. is nice, but not super useful since a Ring of Light is more or less required to survive later on and dispels all shadows. (I'm very glad Sil decided to ignore the light-effect in the stealth system. Unrealistic, yes -- but way more fun.)
- Being chased across floors. The mechanics of how this works are quite simple and understandable, but this is just a personal preference of mine. I like stairs to be safe haven
- The supposed lack of fanfare at endgame. No, I haven't made it to the end yet, but it sounds like the Amulet of Yendor is just dumped somewhere, you pick it up, and you leave. Of course, I haven't looked into this it all, so it's entirely possible that there's some more interesting thing that happens when you have it. (I kept looking for Rodney in the monster list before I realized that he's not in this game ) I would kind of like there to be a "special" final floor though. (Yes, I'm aware that Vanilla doesn't have this either.)
Whew, OK. I think I've officially spent more time writing about the game than I have playing it. I'd encourage you all to give it a whirl, it's a breeze to install on any platform and is at the very least worth playing a few floors to see how it looks!
Then again, I suppose it is very possible that you have all played it already and I am preaching to a disinterested choir That just happens to be a hobby of mine.
Brogue isn't a 'variant' of Angband, clearly, but I have been playing it lately and it's really neat. If this doesn't belong here, let me know.
This is just a list of things it does differently from most *bands I know. This is not a statement that ANY of these things should be in Angband; this is mostly just an exercise in "that's pretty cool."
Things I liked:
- The look and feel. Holy crap is this thing pretty for a roguelike. There are lighting effects, fairly complex animations, and a weiiiird charset that looks great.
- Some of the help/convenience functions. My favorite is if you type '>', it will show you the most optimal route to the down staircase. If you type it again, you will auto-walk there.
- The variety of terrain. This is something that I feel e.g. Halls of Mist does well, but Brogue has these really cool chasms that span the level. You can dive into a chasm to escape to the next level.
- They also reused the chasm mechanic for escapes -- there's a "potion of descent" that opens a chasm underneath you, dropping you to the level below. However, any monsters standing closeby may also be dropped into that chasm.
- Gas / explosion effects. These are neat -- many potions or monsters will blow up, and emit flames / noxious gas / other nasty things that spread outwards in a cloud.
- Machine rooms / puzzle rooms -- often times there are rooms with multiple treasures, but you are forced to pick a subset of them as your reward.
- Visible countdown meters on buffs/conditions. I can see exactly when my invisibility will run out, when poison will run its course, etc.
- Recall windows are done quite well. I feel like this is a result of Brogue's mechanics (which involve very little randomness) but they give very concise information about how a weapon or a battle may go. (E.g. "at your current strength, you will defeat this monster as few as 2 turns")
- The quality of generated items is completely independent of floor depth. So, that +3 Warhammer of Holy Shit you just found on DL16 could just has easily have been found on DL1. This is really fun as it rewards exploration at the earlier depths.
- Things are simple. It feels less like an RPG and more like a normal board game. There's no XP, everything is really down to the items you find.
- Each monster has a pretty cute new mechanic that you have to deal with.
- The overarching theme of "everything is overpowered". This means you'll always have a few dimensions in which you are very strong, and a few dimensions in which you are barely scraping by. (Same goes for the monsters.)
- The fact that floors persist once created, and the determinism of the game based on the dungeon seed in general. They've even nailed down the monster generation to the point that two players playing the same game seed will find _exactly_ the same floors, _exactly_ the same items, etc. which is great for comps.
- The recordings. Once you die, instead of producing a chardump, you instead dump a replay of your entire game which you can walk through step-by-step. If you just let it play in movie mode, it will actually _slow down_ the playback at the parts where your character got himself into interesting situations. So cool!
- ID by use is quite manageable in this game. It's annoying but really not that bad to quaff a 'bad' potion or wear some bad equipment. Anyone who is curious about / annoyed by the id-by-use system in Vanilla or other *bands (I saw this was a hot topic a little while ago) might want to explore this. IMO this is done even better here than it is done in Sil (it's not quite as anguish-inducing) but then again the number and the complexity of the effects is quite a bit more limited, so it's sort of a mixed bag
Things I don't like:
- Things are too simple. I think I've become addicted to the statgain/ability stuff in *bands. If I had to make a comparison, the spectrum of character strength feels more finely-grained in *bands than it does in Brogue. (This is a bit true of Nethack as well, but at least that one had XP and character level.) Angband feels like a continuous system, while Brogue feels more discrete. I'm already sort of bored of it for that reason.
- Monsters. Really, now that you don't get any discernible reward for killing them, it feels like they're shepherding me into an avoidance-style of play. Which I normally like, but I'd like to feel rewarded for thwacking that Kobold. They removed the XP system to encourage exploration -- I wish they'd gone the Sil route of _awarding_ XP for exploration / discovering new things, instead. (Although this does have the disadvantage that a kill-everything build that also explores a lot will get more XP than one who just avoids everything. Maybe there could be some sort of balance there.)
- Autoexplore. Seriously wtf, I hate games that try to play themselves for me. (I know, I don't have to use it.)
- The mouse. I know, it's 2012, but I hate having to hover over monsters or items to get their recall information when they're sitting on the floor.
- The simplicity of the stealth mechanic. I'm biased here, since Sil also has reasonably simple system that IMO manages to create a lot more tension / interest. In Brogue, there's a 2-part LOS check that depends on your stealth. If you hit an unwary/sleeping monster, you do 3x damage. That's it. The fact that you can hide in shadows etc. is nice, but not super useful since a Ring of Light is more or less required to survive later on and dispels all shadows. (I'm very glad Sil decided to ignore the light-effect in the stealth system. Unrealistic, yes -- but way more fun.)
- Being chased across floors. The mechanics of how this works are quite simple and understandable, but this is just a personal preference of mine. I like stairs to be safe haven
- The supposed lack of fanfare at endgame. No, I haven't made it to the end yet, but it sounds like the Amulet of Yendor is just dumped somewhere, you pick it up, and you leave. Of course, I haven't looked into this it all, so it's entirely possible that there's some more interesting thing that happens when you have it. (I kept looking for Rodney in the monster list before I realized that he's not in this game ) I would kind of like there to be a "special" final floor though. (Yes, I'm aware that Vanilla doesn't have this either.)
Whew, OK. I think I've officially spent more time writing about the game than I have playing it. I'd encourage you all to give it a whirl, it's a breeze to install on any platform and is at the very least worth playing a few floors to see how it looks!
Then again, I suppose it is very possible that you have all played it already and I am preaching to a disinterested choir That just happens to be a hobby of mine.
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