Andrew Doull, the fellow I suspect to be behind Roguelike Radio (which did an interview with Gaslamp Games), is running a poll for the Roguelike of 2011* on his blog Ascii Dreams. You can read the post here, voting happens on the right side. You know what to do. * Funny thing, it's not asking what is necessary best roguelike. Just your favourite. And you can vote for as many as you like; I hear DoomRL is pretty nifty! Even Binding of Isaac is on there, if you want your vote to confound the really orthodox roguelikers. And go listen to Roguelike Radio too. It's cool. [Now back to toiling in the pixel mines.]
Oh, and there's also a vote going on at IndieDB.com or whatever for Indie Game of the Year 2011. I'm sure it's important too. (Though Terraria is going to own us, I bet. Still: not losing hope for the top few slots!) Here's the link to IndieDB's 2011 Indie of the Year top 100 - click the categories to open lists up and vote for games.
Wow, that debate on what games should be included or not and how all commercial roguelikes suck made me die a little bit inside. If I thought one genre of games (and game creators) would be least likely to delve into that whole "I'm more l33t than u" scene, it'd be roguelikes.
There's elitist dicks in all communities, alas. We'll be defending Dredmor in strong terms on the podcast next week!
Stick it to the elitists - Binding of Isaac for Roguelike of the Year! Oh, er, and this one too. Yes.
As someone who's played both old, ascii-style rogue-likes, and newer graphical ones, Dredmor is tons of fun. Are there good traditional roguelikes? Of course. But I have had more fun with Dredmor than with just about any other game this year, so I voted for it. That said, I also became quite addicted to Powder for a bit, so I voted for that game as well. I highly recommend it, though I warn you that it is extremely challenging. I'm quite inept at any game that requires reflexes/aiming so I haven't felt like trying The Binding of Isaac, but I wish it well in the competition. I'm not exactly sure if it's really a rogue-like, but it's not my contest so I don't make the rules.
Its a genre fusion but it feels rogue likey. I think it fits in the competition. Sure its action based, but its about dungeons, exploration, tough difficulty, dying alot and learning.
This was my first rogue-like, as far as I know, and DoD is a lot better than certain games I can think of that lanugish on my steam library
Ehh, looking over the votes so far TOME is winning? Meh. This is why such things should be decided via a republic and not a democracy. DCSS is in my opinion the best roguelike of all time. However, the two roguelikes of 2011 are clearly Dungeons of Dredmor and Binding of Isaac. Both being fantastic and comercial roguelikes. How often does that happen? I'll give you a hint, almost never. I don't think there has been a decent comercial roguelike in a very long time (shen the wanderer is the last I can remember). I wouldn't give DoD game of the year, that honor goes to either terraria or skyrim. But DoD is still a fantastic game. Personally, I like this game over Binding of Isaac. Though I will say, the arcade gameplay + roguelike fusion of that title is brilliant.
Terraria, skyrim, shen the wanderer. Good tastes ! Therefore i gotta check out that Stone Soup... though I suspect its the one based of Nethack ?
Nope. Crawl is an entire different branch. It's my favorite free roguelike and the most played currently.
Crawl is an independent branch of roguelike and one of the major ones at that (the others being nethack, adom, and the bands). Unlike nethack or the bands it doesn't have any popular variants outside of stone soup. I suspect that's because the stone soup team is exteremly competent. You should really give it a try. It's a very accessable roguelike. What stands out is the polish. Every jagged edge has been rubbed smooth. Anyway, looking over the comments I find the roguelike community's criticism of DoD to be interesting. The purists seem to discount the game because it is comercial and accessable. Though I will agree that the combat lacks complexity. I'll still take DoD over the [X resistance] to procede beyond [Y depth] of the band variants.
Thanks guys. I think I tried Soup years ago but quickly stopped though cant remember why. I ll try it again. I do appreciate how DoD doesnt need endless farming to allow you to go on. It feels like a good fusion of traditionnal US rogues and Japanese roguelikes like Shen to me. And it has its own old school art style I really dig-gle. ...Sorry for that one.
The Ascii Dreams link was a bit sneaky for me. Links aren't showing up in a different color or font for me-- might want to change that. +1 on the poll
