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Messages - jim

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376
Early Dev / Peleron’s Brilliant Rebirth
« on: April 19, 2009, 08:57:12 PM »
Hey everyone.

So is anyone talking about this game? I'm trying to play it, but I'm having a hard time getting through the basics. Even character creation is a bit difficult... it's hard to make a robust party that doesn't get killed right away.

I'm not seeing a thread on the forum about this ambitious project. Did I just miss it? If not, is anyone interested in a discussion?

377
Traditional Roguelikes (Turn-based) / Re: Mage Guild
« on: April 19, 2009, 08:42:19 PM »
Little bit of threadomancy here. Forgive me.

I've been playing Mageguild quite a bit over the last couple months. It's one of the best put-together roguelikes I've seen in quite some time. Everything about it fits into a pleasing aesthetic, from the intro screen, to the selection of mentors, to the layout of the dungeon, to the actual gameplay. It's really excellent.

But I've discovered that I don't find it all that satisfying to play. The overall experience isn't very gratifying, and I think I know why. Though I believe most people agree that grinding is a bit of a bore, its fruits can be the best part of a roguelike - or any RPG. When you finally come across that holy longsword so that you can take on the undead crypts, you feel stoked. It's in almost every successful roguelike, from DF's civilization or architectural milestones to Crawl's randarts. It's an awesome feeling to get to these points in a game - like great things are to come.

Overall, most roguelikes bring with them the implicit assurance that, with prudence, luck, and balls-out asskickery, you can turn your little @ into a formula-one symbol of coolness. Mageguild, with its intentional limitations on power, lacks this. I understand why the choices were made in this direction, but part of what I want in a roguelike is to sometimes get turned to stone and sometimes find that perfect item. Mageguild trades volatility for stability - difficulty is perfectly linear and items are fairly consistent.

There are SO MANY things about Mageguild that I like. In particular, the alchemy aspect of the game is just short of astonishing in its cleverness. I just have a hard time playing a game that I know ends just at the point where I'd really be excited about playing - at the point where my @ becomes !!@!!.

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Hi everyone. New user, longtime rogueliker. Since rogue came on my used IBM 286 back in the eighties, in fact.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm allowed to do piracy-as-shareware where iffy purchases are concerned. If I find myself playing the game frequently, I'll buy it. And I'm not just some cheapass hypocrite, for the record -- I registered Legerdemain and donated more to Toady One's mad quest over the years than I care to remember.

So I've played Scallywag a bit and I think it's a fun little game, but it's not worth the cost. What bugs me most, although I appreciate the light aspect of the game, is that I don't enjoy having to walk around in the dark all the time out of resourcey circumspection. That and I just don't think there's enough "game" to warrant the price. Deleted, conscience clear.

379
Other Announcements / Re: Roguelike with a "world"?
« on: April 19, 2009, 08:16:33 PM »
The most world-having roguelike I've played so far is Legerdemain. It's entirely about storytelling and world-development. One of the cool aspects of this game is that the world is revealed by bite-sized degrees, through the perceptions of a (half-mad? hallucinating?) amnesiac as he climbs out from a labyrinthine prison and into the sickened world above. Legerdemain has its problems (I kinda got stuck mid-game and gave up on it), but as far as immersion into an actual world goes, it can't be beaten. I should also add that the storytelling aspect is fricken top-notch for a video game.

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