Getting into DCSS a lot recently. Still just running Minotaur Berserker with the furthest I’ve made it being the 10th floor aha.
Regardless, really enjoying it and wondering if others have any other recommendations. I tried ToME4 and just felt overwhelmed and wasn’t enjoying myself too much.
Have my eyes of Caves of Qud as well. Love the more “literary” aspect to it (even though I know it’s often nonsense), and the atmosphere/setting. Seems to be highly regarded overall though. Wondering if I should buy it and play alongside DCSS.
COGMIND.
COGMIND COGMIND COGMIND.
Cogmind is legitimately the most underrated “real” roguelike around. Everyone knows about CDDA and Caves of Qud or whatever, I never see anyone talk about Cogmind. It’s such a rabbit hole both gameplay and actually story-wise (because yeah, it actually has a story, despite being a traditional roguelike) that I can’t help but wonder how the hell it’s developer keeps going.
They have a blog where they talk about the game. It’s borderline obsessive.
If I look at any one aspect of it closely I inevitably end up going “wait, what the hell?” because it goes farther than I expected. In-game computer terminals, the way word of your presence travels throughout the caverns you’re in, each tile actually being a 3x3 space which affects how much “cover” you have… playing for quite a few hours before meeting other truly sentient robots and realizing that oh, there’s, like, lore. A lot of it.
COGMIND is, hands-down, the most beautiful Roguelike game I have ever enjoyed. I recommend this game as well! God, I wish it had a mobile port.
Hades 10outta10
I don’t think anyone should play anything other than Hades.
Until Hades 2 is released, that is.
I’m so in love with this game it’s not even funny. Hated it the first time I played it on Xbox, got it on my steam deck and can’t put it down.
Ancient Domains of Mystery is really really good if you can get into it. It’s available on Steam, but you can get the free version which is identical except for the UI from https://adom.de/
this was my first roguelike, we used to play it in high school in 1996 on the lab computers. nice times.
Caves of Qud is phenomenal and you won’t regret playing it. If you have a phone, I’d highly recommend Shattered Pixel Dungeon. It may be one of the cleanest versions of the genre. It’s also available on PC, but I’ve never played it there.
Similarly, I think Hoplite on the phone may be the most distilled versions of the genre, pared down to the barest essentials and utterly glorious as a result.
Dead Cells is brilliant
I’d recommend: Hades, Dead Cells, The Binding of Isaac, and FTL
I think they’re looking for a roguelike and not a roguelite, but those are great roguelites!
What is the difference? I’m not familiar.
There seems to be some disagreement over the term, but I have always liked the explanation that “true” Roguelikes are “like Rogue”, in that they have randomly-generated maps, permadeath, and nothing saved between runs; meanwhile Roguelites feature a “meta-progression” system that allows the player some kind of persistent progress that carries over between runs, and maybe other QOL features.
I did a small write-up off my understanding here, but that’s coming from someone that’s only dabbled in both and I may have missed some stuff.
Man I’m sad we don’t have an /r/roguelikes here. Discussion of the genre has been clobbered by the much more popular roguelites and it was nice to have a forum focused on traditional roguelikes. There’s a discord but it’s not the same.
Some lesser known ones that I think are quite cool:
Shadow of the Wyrm, open world fantasy with a nice vibe.
Dawn of the Mexica, quite brutal lethal combat with an uncommon setting.
Forays into Norrendrin, traditional dungeon crawler setting with distilled gameplay systems. Brogue-adjacent.
The Ground Gives Way, also a traditional dungeon crawler but with a really interesting fatigue-based equipment system and non lethal combat options. Cool item effects and stuff.
Lost Flame, if dark souls was a roguelike. Quite involved combat where attacks are telegraphed and you can dodge them, use abilities for movement etc. Great atmosphere.
Caves of Qud is AMAZING! You should buy it OP
I’ve enjoyed Slay the Spire and Wizard of Legend. The latter is very hard to beat at least for me.
There are builds that let you clear it pretty easily if you play it safe. Then once you clear it once and unlock the cursed items, using the item that makes all damage 99 lets you run through the dungeons again to get all the chaos arcana quickly
Yes I beat it with a friend, then I beat it myself again easily using a stupid strategy…
stupid wizard of legend strategy
Bringing the Vampire glasses on one player and the Singing Bowl on the second player (who I ignore for the whole game), transferring the item to the other, and play with one character only… With these two items and a multi hit move like Cardice Prime I could heal half my health bar in one encounter. :::
You would really enjoy Caves of Qud. It’s like DCSS but science fantasy in a crazy world instead of pure fantasy. Mechanically they’re fairly equivalent; both offer a lot of deep builds and complicated ways to solve the problem of “how do I survive this next turn?”
Holy god, I never thought I’d see someone else mention DCSS in the wild!! I used to play that a bunch about a year or so ago. Truth be told, I kind of miss it once in a while. Devilishly hard, but I did manage to break into Hell once. Even killed one of the pandemonium lords.
Shit… I might start playing again.
It was updated recently!
Dwarf Fortress and Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead/Bright Nights are the obvious recommendations I have, though they are more managing/survival games than a classic roguelike.
One that I come back every now and then and don’t see recommended often is Prospector, it’s about exploring space.
Also I try NetHack every three or four years but I can’t make it hold my attention long enough to learn it.
I’m currently playing Hades (a top-down, isometric brawler). The gameplay is really fun and with different weapons, skills & upgrades per run, it stays entertaining for a long time. The story is simple but engaging, and after almost every run, there are some characters with new dialogue that tells you more about it.
I was never really a roguelike fan but I loved Hades! The game always makes you feel like you’re making progress without feeling grindy, which I think is an issue that pushed me away from most roguelikes.
As a roguelike fan, I could not find a taste for Hades. A lot of roguelikes I play have a systemic nature to them where you can combine elements together to come up with creative solutions to problems, like making enemies attack each other because you triggered some criteria that allows that to happen. In Hades, all of the power ups just seemed to be a way to make you deal more damage and that was about it. Plus, out of four levels, I really wasn’t a fan of levels 3 and 4.
I got very addicted to Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead for a while… so much so that I ported it to Android so I could play on my commute to work.
I second Cataclysm, it’s the most fun I had with a roguelike in a long time. There is also Cataclysm: Bright Nights, which is a fork that rolls back some more unpopular recent changes. But they are both still pretty similar and tons of fun.
Depending on your sense of humor, you might also be roped into playing this game by the SsethTzeentach video.
Cataclysm is such a good game and FREE/open-source. The UI and artwork are a bit of an eyesore for new players, but once you learn the mechanics the game really opens up.
It reminds me of Dwarf Fortress in that it weeds out all but the most hardcore gamers in the first few minutes of gameplay.
Definitely agree with you there! I’ve had a few friends who noped out 5 minutes into playing. I get it, it’s not for everyone!
Ancient Domains of Mystery, but not the half 3D one.
Dwarf Fortress adventure mode, coming to Steam eventually. Also available in older versions for free.
More Action: FTL, Spelunky, Angband, Barony
