Rogue - let's beat it

[Squeeealer]

Died in a stupid way last night with a chance to go deep.  I had a two handed sword with two enchants and a STR of 18, slow monster, and light. Quagga took me from 50-something to 6. I was in a maze so I ran until I had 24 HP and tried again. Again he took me to 6. Checked my inventory and I had a bow equipped the whole time.  EFF.

[Vanguard]

So after I wrote that response...

Wow, congratulations!

[Vanguard]

I'm gonna take another crack at this.

I'm currently playing the IBM port of 1.1.  Is there any particular reason to prefer another version over this one?

By the way, Squeeealer, if you want to get into other games in the genre, I recommend Brogue, Sil, and the original Shiren the Wanderer.

Brogue, as you probably know, is essentially a more refined and complex version of Rogue.

Sil has what I consider to be the best tactical combat in the genre, as well as a solid and unique character building system.  It's based on JRR Tolkien's "The Silmarillion" and is very faithful to the source material.

Shiren the best consumable-based strategic gameplay I've ever seen.    Very high frequency of dangerous enemies, but it gives you the tools you need to deal with them.  Make sure to avoid the item warehouse, as it makes the game too easy.  The SNES version is slightly preferable over the DS port, but both are good.

[Squeeealer]

I'm gonna take another crack at this.

I'm currently playing the IBM port of 1.1.  Is there any particular reason to prefer another version over this one?

By the way, Squeeealer, if you want to get into other games in the genre, I recommend Brogue, Sil, and the original Shiren the Wanderer.

Brogue, as you probably know, is essentially a more refined and complex version of Rogue.

Sil has what I consider to be the best tactical combat in the genre, as well as a solid and unique character building system.  It's based on JRR Tolkien's "The Silmarillion" and is very faithful to the source material.

Shiren the best consumable-based strategic gameplay I've ever seen.    Very high frequency of dangerous enemies, but it gives you the tools you need to deal with them.  Make sure to avoid the item warehouse, as it makes the game too easy.  The SNES version is slightly preferable over the DS port, but both are good.

Thanks!

I have been playing Brogue now for a little over a week. I am still learning and making tons of dumb mistakes. Part of it is that I'm stumped every time I encounter something new. Last night I finally put my efforts into an elite weapon (war hammer) and boy what an eye opener that was. But I still managed to screw it up and I died about Floor 13.

I bought Shiren for Wii last year and haven't played it yet. Is the SNES version in English? For some reason I thought it was Japanese language only.

[Vanguard]

The SNES version is JP only, but there's a fan translation.  The Wii game is actually one of the sequels.  I haven't played it but I hear it's pretty different from the original.  The DS version is a slightly modified port of the SNES version, and it has an official English release.

[Squeeealer]

Okay, so the fan translation rom is floating around out there?

[Vanguard]

I assume Slash doesn't want any talk about how to obtain roms in here.

The patch itself is perfectly legal though, and it can be found here.  You can use Lunar IPS to apply it.

[LazyCat]

I'm currently playing the IBM port of 1.1.  Is there any particular reason to prefer another version over this one?

You have Elwin's Roguelike Gallery: http://rlgallery.org/

The reason to play there, version 5.4.5 over Epyx version is because everyone else is playing that, and also the scoreboard is online, so your efforts will get recorded for everyone to see, if sufficiently good, which makes playing the game more meaningful.


And there is Rogue+: http://52.42.113.72:9999/

It's 5.4.5 with fully mouse driven interface. The reason to play that one is because it's more enjoyable and relaxed, also much faster to play with mouse. Plus the scoreboard is online as well, so you can compete with the rest of the world.

[Vanguard]

You have Elwin's Roguelike Gallery: http://rlgallery.org/

Cool, thanks.

This is surprisingly different from the IBM port.  From what I've seen I like this one better mechanically.

Is there a way to fast move with the arrow keys?  I don't like hjkl.

[Squeeealer]

You can play very fast with the keyboard, maybe even faster than with the mouse version. Looks like you are playing now and playing quite quickly, so you may already have the hang of it.

CTRL+directional is the way to go. Using F to fight makes fights go much faster. I key an 8 before each search - helps searches go faster.

[Vanguard]

Yeah I've got all that.  The problem is that the ctrl + direction functionality only works for me when the direction key is one of hjklyubn.  I'm much more used to moving around with numpad but ctrl doesn't do anything when I use that.

[LazyCat]

Is there a way to fast move with the arrow keys?  I don't like hjkl.

Shift and Ctrl modifiers seem to work only with hjkl. To make situation worse it is not possible to just hold a key for continuous movement as the strokes will get recorded in the keyboard buffer and make your character move after you release the key and past the point where you wanted to stop

From what I've seen I like this one better mechanically.

Mechanically Rogue+ is far superior, or so it is intended to be. For what takes several key presses, and usually switching from map to inventory screen, and back, it can be achieved with only two mouse clicks. Also, you always move fast and usually can go where you want with a single click, which with keyboard could require pressing different directional keys plus changes in holding/releasing of shift/ctrl key.

As I am putting final touches on it any feedback is valuable, so I'd like to encourage you to try it out and let me know what you think in this thread here: http://forums.roguetemple.com/index.php?topic=5114.msg47508

[Vanguard]

Rogue V5 at rlgallery.org is the "real" rogue right? It's by Glenn Wichman, Michael Toy, and Ken Arnold, and the mechanics/items/monsters haven't been tinkered with by others?

I tried Rogue+ for a few minutes and it seems like most of the keyboard commands don't work or have been changed?  And ctrl + numpad for fast move still doesn't work, so suggestion is to get all of that running.  Mouse support is nice but keyboard support is still faster and a complete necessity.

[elwin]

The bug I mentioned with hallucination and levitation is fixed now.

Is this available for download? Where do you keep most recent version? It seems download from rlgallery is different than the one on bitbucket.

The newest source code is always in the Bitbucket repository.  Official releases (both source and binary) are on the rlgallery.org download page.  That bugfix is currently the only difference.

I'm currently playing the IBM port of 1.1.  Is there any particular reason to prefer another version over this one?

That is the original authors' last and most polished version.  Its disadvantages are needing DOS to run it and its questionable legality (unless you bought the floppies back in 1985).

I did not realize CTRL+arrow does not work reliably.  Another item for my list of things to do...

Rogue V5 at rlgallery.org is the "real" rogue right? It's by Glenn Wichman, Michael Toy, and Ken Arnold, and the mechanics/items/monsters haven't been tinkered with by others?

Yes, it's the real thing, based on the code Ken Arnold put on SourceForge.  The Roguelike Restoration Project and I have only made maintenance updates.  None of the mechanics have changed.

[Vanguard]

The real disadvantage of the IBM version is that nearly every room is dark even in the early parts of the game.  It also seems to be missing a few features, like instead of different versions of identify scrolls, there's just one scroll that works on any item.

Yes, it's the real thing, based on the code Ken Arnold put on SourceForge.  The Roguelike Restoration Project and I have only made maintenance updates.  None of the mechanics have changed.

Awesome.  Your site is really cool, thanks for running it.