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« 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 !!@!!.