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I'm guessing we all have our other games that we quietly obsess over. For me it's Super Metroid, an SNES game with a pedigree almost as old as Angband (1994 vs. 1990). If you're not familiar with the Metroid formula, you get plunked down in the middle of a planet (space station, etc.) with no abilities beyond basic run&gun, and have to explore, find powerups, fight bosses, and eventually blow the entire thing up.
It's a powerful concept, largely because of the strong level design -- the game subtly guides you by placing down barriers that you need special abilities to navigate, which abilities you later find thus unlocking new areas to explore. For example, you might fall down a long vertical shaft which has various flying enemies in it. Later you find the Ice Beam, which lets you freeze and stand on enemies. So you remember that shaft and climb back up it, and it leads to a new weapon which can be used to open a new type of door. That door opens up a route to an item that lets you swing from certain blocks, so you remember where you last saw those blocks, and so on...of course, each of these items is subtly taught to you by requiring you to navigate a simple obstacle course using the item. For example, the exit from the Ice Beam room requires you to freeze enemies so you can jump over the top of some water.
One of the really genius bits about this though is the way you can break it. The developers of the original game put in a few special techniques you can perform that get you added mobility -- in particular, you can jump off of walls to gain extra height, though the technique is a bit tricky. This completely blows open the "intended" sequence of the game -- that vertical shaft? You can just climb right on out of it. It requires some tricky jumps, but you can do it. And the game design is incredibly resilient even with all this; it is really hard to get yourself stuck even when you're in an area that you absolutely should not be in, with completely the wrong equipment. Out of the 14 key items and 86 health/ammo expansions in the game, you only theoretically need to pick up 6 key items and 8 health/ammo expansions (and three of the latter arguably count as key items since they give you the ability to fire the ammo in question). It's incredibly hard to survive with such minimalist gear but it's been done! By other people.
For awhile I spent some time trying to write my own implementation of the Metroid formula, married of course to the roguelike procedural-generation system. I never did finish Jetblade, though I got some interesting results out of the map generator, and every once in awhile I think about going back to it (Pyrel still has higher priority). Fortunately I'm not the only person still interested in that game, and some have more perseverance than I do; there's a thriving Super Metroid community and they make all kinds of mods to the game (by hacking SNES assembly code! Madness!). Of course there are limits to what you can easily change in this way, but there's still plenty of total-map-overhaul hacks.
Long story short, if you have an hour and a half to kill, I recorded a playthrough of my favorite hack, Super Metroid Eris. If you've any interest in the genre, I recommend trying to get your hands on the original game -- and if you enjoyed that, then start picking up some of the hacks. Metroid Construction will get you started.
It's a powerful concept, largely because of the strong level design -- the game subtly guides you by placing down barriers that you need special abilities to navigate, which abilities you later find thus unlocking new areas to explore. For example, you might fall down a long vertical shaft which has various flying enemies in it. Later you find the Ice Beam, which lets you freeze and stand on enemies. So you remember that shaft and climb back up it, and it leads to a new weapon which can be used to open a new type of door. That door opens up a route to an item that lets you swing from certain blocks, so you remember where you last saw those blocks, and so on...of course, each of these items is subtly taught to you by requiring you to navigate a simple obstacle course using the item. For example, the exit from the Ice Beam room requires you to freeze enemies so you can jump over the top of some water.
One of the really genius bits about this though is the way you can break it. The developers of the original game put in a few special techniques you can perform that get you added mobility -- in particular, you can jump off of walls to gain extra height, though the technique is a bit tricky. This completely blows open the "intended" sequence of the game -- that vertical shaft? You can just climb right on out of it. It requires some tricky jumps, but you can do it. And the game design is incredibly resilient even with all this; it is really hard to get yourself stuck even when you're in an area that you absolutely should not be in, with completely the wrong equipment. Out of the 14 key items and 86 health/ammo expansions in the game, you only theoretically need to pick up 6 key items and 8 health/ammo expansions (and three of the latter arguably count as key items since they give you the ability to fire the ammo in question). It's incredibly hard to survive with such minimalist gear but it's been done! By other people.
For awhile I spent some time trying to write my own implementation of the Metroid formula, married of course to the roguelike procedural-generation system. I never did finish Jetblade, though I got some interesting results out of the map generator, and every once in awhile I think about going back to it (Pyrel still has higher priority). Fortunately I'm not the only person still interested in that game, and some have more perseverance than I do; there's a thriving Super Metroid community and they make all kinds of mods to the game (by hacking SNES assembly code! Madness!). Of course there are limits to what you can easily change in this way, but there's still plenty of total-map-overhaul hacks.
Long story short, if you have an hour and a half to kill, I recorded a playthrough of my favorite hack, Super Metroid Eris. If you've any interest in the genre, I recommend trying to get your hands on the original game -- and if you enjoyed that, then start picking up some of the hacks. Metroid Construction will get you started.
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