Potions And Pitfalls: My Year In Roguelikes. By Adam Smith on December 15th, 2011 at 1:46 pm. It’s been a fantastic year for Roguelikes, with continued development of the stalwarts and plenty of releases that have toyed with the formula, sometimes reshaping it until it’s almost unrecognisable. I’ve even managed to have great roiling arguments with people about whether certain games should be called Roguelikes or not. That led to Roguelikelikes, which I am simple enough of mind to be pleased about. I also love that people care so much about these permutations of a thirty one year old game that they are willing to bicker about them with strangers. The dungeons and wildernesses are more populated than ever. I know several people who had their first taste of Roguelike this year thanks to the comedic charms of Dungeons of Dredmor. I’ll talk about some of those wizened old gents later but first, a shout out to Brogue, which is my favourite discovery of the year in the field of traditional Roguelikes.
Finally, Desktop Dungeons. Epicinventor.com. Deity. Silent Asshat: Stealth Bastard. School’s Out: DADIU Graduation Games. By Quintin Smith on April 11th, 2011 at 12:24 pm. And by DADIU I mean the Danish Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment, a video game higher education institution which approaches its students’ graduation games a little differently from other courses the world over.
Rather than demanding small handfuls of students complete a game over a semester, DADIU exists to assemble crack teams of twelve to fifteen students where everyone fills a highly specialised role, but a game must be conceived and completed in five weeks. The results speak for themselves. This year’s contestants include historic dinosaur terror, a Portal-style puzzler, a strategy game with a truly brilliant concept and more besides.
Better still, they’re all built using Unity and available to play online. The game you see above is 1916: Der unbekannte Krieg (or “The War You Never Knew”), and I can only commend it for being the most horrible construct I’ve played in months. And you know what? Else: Defender of the Earth! Frozen Synapse: A Simultaneous-Turn-Based Strategy Game! Download. Mayor May Not Survive: Towns. By Adam Smith on November 16th, 2011 at 1:49 pm. I’ve been meaning to write about Towns for a while and since it fits neatly with my thoughts about ‘living’ game worlds, this seems as good a time as any. In its isometric countryside, the player takes the role of a town mayor, building up from a patch of wilderness and attracting newcomers with housing and entertainment.
However, your settlement sits atop an ‘orrible dungeon so among the folks you’ll need to attract are heroes, who will need incentives to quest into the depths and fancy equipment if they are to delve deep. Majesty meets Dwarf Fortress? Play now or journey downtown for more details. Yes, it’s another game at an early stage of development but I find this one particularly intriguing. You can download the latest public build now and see if it seems like something worth devoting an eye to.
Hopefully the game won’t fall foul of feature creep. And it is already fun with the potential to become much more involving.