Back in the early 80s, I was too totally proud of my roguelike, real-time dungeon crawl game imaginatively named TG (The Game, clever, huh?), which had some all-time design wins like being real time, fast-paced, and required you to type all your actions out in Zork-like sentences. When a dragon is tracking you down, typing “TAKE SWORD FROM STONE” without any spelling errors probably isn’t as fun as I thought it was back then.
Anyway, apparently (news to me!) Temple of the Roguelike has just run a contest all about making ASCII-based, dungeon-crawl games in the vein of Rogue and Nethack in just *seven days*!
I’d totally have given this a shot. I haven’t written a roguelike in awhile; back in the 80s, though, you couldn’t walk two feet without tripping over a dozen. My favorite was Larn, largely because, unlike Nethack, it was usually possible to win. Even though I contributed to Nethack, I never won it legitimately.
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Did you hear the one about the Boar in the forest? Whoops! Greasy fingers…
I don’t get it.
I’ve spent way too much time on Nethack, and haven’t ever beaten it either! Plenty of YASD stories to tell though… my favorite was when my Orc Barbarian was sacrificing in Minetown and summoned Jubilex, then was blinded and ended up attacking him. Splat!
Maybe I’m too young but I prefer playing using tiles, with noeGNUd (is this even available anymore? the website seems to be down.)
If you like Roguelikes check out this blog: @Play
Also Shiren The Wanderer just came out for the DS if you have one. It is one of the best of the full on graphical roguelikes (actually turn based unlike most others) with item identification, combinations etc. It is a lot of fun.
Sorry, my comment was a quote from one of the Zork games =P
It was a shot in the dark, oh shit Grues!
@rmckee — hey thanks for the rec! I’ll check it out. Lately my DS has been used for Drawn to Life and little else.
@Einhorn — dang, I STILL don’t remember it. I feel like such a noob :(
You’ve never been a noob Tipa, not once.
Wait, did you not get the “grues” reference either? Hmmm, I may be revoking my statement. =P
Certain “squares” you’d navigate to in Zork would be dark, and if you spent too long in a dark area without a light source you would be eaten by creatures called Grues, unspeakably vicious and hideous beings who were deathly allergic to light of any kind.
What a wonderful mechanism to keep players from attempting to brute-force their way through puzzles.
lol… no, I DID get the Grue reference. I played Zork before it was named Zork and before there was any company known as Infocom :P
My apologies then! *bows low and reverently places the crown of Anti-Noob on your worthy head*