Roguelike With Psionics?

[XavierIII]

I am currently looking for a roguelike with psionics. I enjoy ADOM and TOME4 ,but am in the mood for a bit more variety. I have also tried SOTS: The Pit, but didn't really enjoy it too much. Thanks you in advance for the help!

[Bear]

In many roguelikes, there are effects called "Magic." 

Every developer of such a game decides how "Magic" in that game ought to work.  And whatever mechanics someone proposes for "Magic" would work equally well for "Psionics."  From a game designer's point of view, there's really no distinction between them beyond whatever distinction you choose to make.

In effect you're asking us here whether there's an example out there that suits your idea of the game mechanics you'd choose to call "Psionics" but you haven't told us what set of game mechanics those are.  Whatever game you find an example of those mechanics in, that game is more likely to call it "Magic" than to call it "Psionics" but that's fairly irrelevant.

The serious question then, is what set of game mechanics are you talking about?  Is this just a re-branding of "spellcasting" into "psychic disciplines" so you can fit the same game mechanics into a different genre, (like "The Force" in Star  Wars)? Do you want to have both Magic and Psionics as things that work by completely different rules and offer a very different set of gameplay decisions for players to make?  If so what are the differences? 

Or are you going with the seriously old-skool original definition of "Psionics" as high-tech electronic devices that are worn or implanted and do things, or control other devices, based on directly sensing the neural firings inside the user's head -- like the Predator's shoulder gun that can tell where he's looking and when he wants it to fire based on a direct neural interface? 

[XavierIII]

What I am asking for is magic set in a soft science fiction setting rather than standard high fantasy that most games are set in. I kindof thought that was what most people think of when they hear psionics. Sorry if my original post was unclear. I prefer my magic systems to be consistantly useable in combat, not just reserved for bosses and other difficult mobs.

[getter77]

PRIME perhaps.

[Bear]

Sorry if I was being dense.  For me game design (mechanics) questions are entirely separate from setting, etc, so I was wondering (in terms of game mechanics, because I'm a wingnut who doesn't really see anything else) what you meant. 

So are you mainly looking for good flavor text? Art assets?

[Samildanach]

PRIME perhaps.

Yes, PRIME seems like the logical suggestion. Caves of Qud perhaps. Maybe AlphaMan if you can get hold of it.

[mushroom patch]

Actually, you can write your own roguelike game with "psionics" pretty easily. All you have to do is take a roguelike game you like, maybe nethack, and do a search and replace on words in the source code related to "magic" and "spells." It may help avoid trouble if you can restrict the find and replace to string literals, but if you don't know what that is, it'll probably work anyway.

Now if you really need a sci-fi setting, which isn't at all what "psionics" suggests or implies, you've got more work ahead of you. The first thing you need to do is fix item and monster names. For example:

Code: [Select]

"saber" --> "light saber"
"bow" --> "raygun"
"X arrows" --> "energy module with X charges"
"orc" --> "space orc"

And of course "magic wand" --> "psionic wand."

Now just alter the intro text, if any, to reflect your new, immersive science fiction game setting. Happy hacking!

[Paul Jeffries]

X@Com?