ORJ: Kerkerkruip

With the resurgence of the roguelike genre, many of the classics (NetHack, ADOM, Angband) and newcomers (Caves of Qud, TGGW, Golden Krone Hotel) are gaining in popularity and renown. But there are so many hidden gems, obscure roguelikes few people know about and play, even though they would deserve much more attention. Here is one of them.

Have you played Zork? I have tried it a few years ago, convinced by its status of a cult classic to give it a chance even though I had next to no experience with interactive fiction games. I was amazed and delighted by the way you could interact with the world, by how immersive it was to actually write the commands rather than just press a control button.

I have never finished it because I don't particularly like static puzzle games where you die and try again until you find the one way to solve it successfully, but since then I was thinking how interesting it could be to combine the principles of roguelikes (mainly procedural generation and permadeath) with the feeling of immersion achieved by interactive fiction. And eventually, I found out there already is a game that does just that.

Kerkerkruip (appropriately meaning "dungeon crawl" in Dutch) is an experiment gone right. You are thrown into a randomly generated dungeon to fight for your life. There is no Undo command and no save and reload. You will die messily, except this time it won't be on an ASCII map, surrounded by hostile letters and punctuation, but rather your death will be described to you in textual detail.

There are some fun monsters to be fought in Kerkerkruip.

And the design of Kerkerkruip immediately shows its ingenuity - conscious of the cumbersome nature of commands required for interactive fiction, the game will not force you into a slew of fights. No, that would quickly become boring in the text interface. Instead, there are very few fights - maybe six or seven monsters in the whole dungeon - but there are no trivial fights. You can and will surely die to the lowliest of enemies, unless you learn to fight tactically.

Every monster has some special powers and abilities
that require you to adapt in your fighting or die trying.

And the game offers a wide variety of tactics in a combat. There is no simple "bump attack", but rather a set of actions and reactions you can use to gain advantage over your opponent. You can concentrate for better chance of successful strike, dodge and block and parry, break enemy concentration to make them miss you, or use any of the special powers and items you gain later in the game. It more than makes up for the lack of positioning and terrain awareness usual in classic roguelikes.

BTW, you can also become a cultist of Aite if you find her altar.

As you would expect from interactive fiction, the game takes great pains to present an interesting, interactive world. Sure, you only see a single dungeon and get next to no backstory for your character, but in the spirit of Dark Souls, every item you find presents a tiny snippet of narration that you can combine into a story. I enjoy this form of storytelling, and these bits and pieces of untold tales combined with the strangely magitek Renaissance setting make for a compelling background story.

Tentacles and madness...

All in all, I just like running through the dungeon, trying to interact with the various furnishings and contraptions present - and they all can be used in some way, if you can find the right commands or circumstances - and looking for any advantage I can use to beat the dangerous monsters. And if you actually manage to slay (or befriend) Malygris, the Wizard of Kerkerkruip, the game will bump up its difficulty, adding new items and enemies to the mix.

Right from the start, there is so much to do and explore!

Every room holds some surprise for you.

You won't gain XP nor regenerate HP, but you can absorb
the souls of slain enemies and gain all of their powers.

There is even a bridge over lava in this dungeon.

The game has a development blog and a public GitHub repository. It is still in development, thou it seems to be rather slow-going right now. Download a nicely packed release here, or grab the source code and run it with your favourite Inform 7 interpreter. You can even play Kerkerkruip online here, but sadly just an outdated release.

Happy hacking and don't die!

ORJ: Magus

With the resurgence of the roguelike genre, many of the classics (NetHack, ADOM, Angband) and newcomers (Caves of Qud, TGGW, Golden Krone Hotel) are gaining in popularity and renown. But there are so many hidden gems, obscure roguelikes few people know about and play, even though they would deserve much more attention. Here is one of them.

I have found another forgotten roguelike* game a few days ago - it's called Magus and seems to have been originally released in 1993. It might have been lost altogether if it wasn't for the efforts of several fans who preserved its source and binary on GitHub.

*) Edit: Actually, the game world is not procedurally generated, only randomly populated with monsters and items, so it's a more of a roguelite and not a proper roguelike.

My knight fighting a troll in a forest.
And yes, the game has adorable graphics.

Unlike nearly any other roguelike, Magus is exclusively mouse-controlled. Pretty weird for someone accustomed to keyboard controls, but usable. And Magus has even more distinguishing features when compared to classic roguelikes.

Notably, you don't get a single move per turn. Instead, you have several action points which can be used for movement, attacks, spellcasting, etc. You then need to manually end your turn, which both restores your action points and allows the monsters to use theirs. Don't think you're safe with several tiles between you and the enemy, they can cover much more then a single square per turn.

Small house lost in the forest.
There was a spell hidden inside.

This substantially changes the flow of combat, as you can plan your moves more freely with several actions available, but the monsters can also surprise you, emerging from behind a corner and clearing the distance before you get another turn. Don't worry, though - even if they get several attacks at you, you won't be one-shotted from full health. The game seems rather well-balanced in that regard. Several monsters at once, though, or even worse a melee monster together with an archer or a spellcaster, can be quite deadly.

Ambushed by an orcish archer.

I also learnt a neat trick - normally you regain 1 HP per an ended turn. But should you end your turn with unspent action points remaining, they will be converted into extra healing, meaning you can rapidly regenerate by ending turns without spending actions. Thus you don't need to wait ages when out of combat to regain health - an unexpected convenience for such an old game.

Hm, a hidden entrance into the mountainside.

Magus offers multiple character classes that differ both by starting stats and equipment, and do actually play quite differently. From the usual barbarian or wizard to the unusual shaman and unique duck mage, you are offered a nice variety of options. And if you can't decide what class to play as, the game has another surprise prepared.

This room offered a massive treasure haul,
but several trolls trapped me and nearly
brought me down.

The unique way of handling actions allows the game to do a thing virtually unseen in roguelikes - you can manage a whole party rather than only one character. Instead of a single hero, create a party consisting of different classes and control them all, switching between the heroes. I have seen a few other roguelikes who attempted a similar party-based approach, but as far as controlling every member of your party goes, I probably like the implementation in Magus the best.

While it can get a bit clumsy, the action point mechanic is once again very interesting as it allows for positioning, combat assistance and tactics that would be much harder to pull off in a normal turn-based game. And it's nice to have the backup, as the game can throw rather hard fights at you.

A party of a duck mage, a knight and a dwarf
defending a village from some monsters.

Once again unlike nearly any other roguelike, the game is not located in a dungeon split into individual floors, but in an open world. There are tunnels and strongholds dug into the mountains, but no stairs or dungeon branches. I'm also not totally sure whether the game world is procedurally generated, or if it's static and only the monsters and items are placed randomly. (Thus also why this game might be "roguelike-ish" rather than a true roguelike.) However, the map is huge and offers much to explore and discover, especially since I tend to die once I travel further away from the start.

A tiny garden deep within the mountain maze.
I have no idea whether the pentagram
can be used in any way, or how to use it.

Oh, there is a quest! You seem to be tasked with slaying the Dark One who has a fortress somewhere southward from the starting village... But who is playing roguelikes for the story? It does means that the monsters get stronger the more south you get, though.

There also seem to be some friendly NPCs, namely at least one hat-wearing fellow who can be given items, supposedly to give you something in return, eventually.

I have a fancy new axe, but this orcish necromancer
is summoning skeleton faster than I can kill them.

I like the diversity offered by multiple classes, equipment options and spells, but what really makes this game stand out for me is the sense of exploration and discovery. You are given a huge world full of secrets - every forest seems to have a hidden hut, every mountain some dungeon, every lake an island with treasure. Magus feels less like a hack and slash, and more like a Tolkienesque journey for adventure. There is always another passage to explore and I love it.

I found a castle!

Wow, that castle was pretty heavy on loot. I have
Sun's Edge and Sun Shield as my new armaments,
plus a handful of spells. Sadly, I have zero mana
and who knows if I can even gain any as a knight.

You can download all the necessary files here, but it's running in DOSBox, so you will also need that if you want to try it. And it is worth at least a try.

Entering an abandoned village.

An elementalist cornered me with summoned elementals
and I'm not doing well. I also have even more spells now,
and still no mana.

That was way too close.
I should have a break now before
I do something stupid and die.

Happy hacking and don't die!

ORJ: Hero Trap

With the resurgence of the roguelike genre, many of the classics (NetHack, ADOM, Angband) and newcomers (Caves of Qud, TGGW, Golden Krone Hotel) are gaining in popularity and renown. But there are so many hidden gems, obscure roguelikes few people know about and play, even though they would deserve much more attention. Here is one of them.

Floor 2, full of krakens. Only in Hero Trap.

Hero Trap is another browser roguelike that can be played here. It was created as a contribution to the Seven Day Roguelike challenge in 2017, taking up the ninth place on the overall ladder. It has a pretty cool design goal:

Make a traditional roguelike, but the very first monster kills you if you try to melee it to death.

It was successfully completed in the seven days, and later received a few more updates to fix minor bugs and add some new features. I love it.

Fighting a graveyard full of zombies. The game has
four-directional movement, so thankfully the kraken
cannot attack me.

The game is true to its design and throws monsters way too strong at you. Fight and you will die. However, clever rogues will survive, and you are playing as a (soon to be legendary) rogue!

The game also does a very clever thing with its monsters - the monsters are split into uppercase (next to unbeatable) and lowercase (hard but beatable). It's so intuitive and simple idea, yet I have not seen it in any other roguelike. It offers the most important information the player should care about and requires no spoilers or memorization. And this is still not the last clever thing about monsters Hero Trap has to offer.

Soon, you will have inventory full of unknown magical items.
Don't horde them, use them. You really, really need them.

While uppercase monsters are mostly unbeatable by conventional means, every one of them has a weakness you can exploit to overcome them. Golems are powerful killing machines, but much slower then you. Krakens cannot leave water. Faceless cannot sense you if you don't move. Saws only move in straight lines, no matter what you do, and dancing between them is really fun. Unicorns are peaceful unless you disturb them. Jabberwocks are... jabberwocks will kill you no matter what you do, so don't even try. On the plus side, they only appear very late in the game, when you have magic items are your disposal.

Quaffing unknown potions and reading unknown scrolls
is not a bad idea in this game. There is nothing that
would directly kill you and no other way of identification.

Even the lowercase monsters (or "you can kill those, but still be careful" monsters) have unique quirks and gimmicks. Monkeys steal your items and run away. Harpies come in groups and try to fly over your head to surround you. Dwarves will dig to get to you. Zombies are weak and slow, but there is a nigh endless horde of them. Fungi grow constantly, quickly filling the dungeon. Bloats cannot attack, but they will explode if you hit them. There is one monster for every letter of the alphabet, and every monster has a unique power. You won't find boring monsters in this game.

Damn you, mimics!

What's more, monsters have nice short descriptions that will hint at their behaviour and weaknesses, so you can be prepared even if you never encountered this type of creature before. Once again, no spoilers required to make informed decisions about the way you play, and clever play will get you further than mindless hacking. You will feel as a genius the first time you find a way to abuse a monster's power to your advantage.

This is my equipment for most of the game.
While it's better not getting hit, it still helps if
your enemies kill themselves as they attack.

No, it is pretty badass. In a game where stealth
will save your life, releasing clouds of impenetrable
darkness from you sword is very cool.

As if this was not enough, Hero Trap offers an interesting take on magical items. There is a set of enchantments, but they can appear on different item types. Every game, an item type is assigned to each enchantment - so you may have potions of healing in one game, but only armours of healing in another.

Discoveries at the start of the game. Here you
can see all the different possible enchantments.

And this is an end-game Discoveries screen.
That armour of death might sound strange, but
it was crucial to my survival at one point.

The item type also influences in what way you can use the enchantment. Wand of teleportation can be zapped at any creature you see. Potion of teleportation can be drunk to teleport yourself, while a scroll of teleportation will teleport every adjacent monster. Sword of teleportation will sometimes teleport struck enemies away. Armour of teleportation will also sometimes teleport attackers away, but may also randomly teleport you. Some items are very useful, some are double-edged or situational, but you will need them all to survive.

Ogres, giant beetles, lizards and pixies?
I'm sure this floor will be alright.

Or not? Whew, that one was really close.

Anyway, you can read the development and release thread of this game here, if you're interested, and once again, play it here. And if you win, let me know, because I keep dying just short of the final floor.

Yeah, floor 23 of 26. It went so well until the nymphs
stole my sword and wands, then surrounded me
without a way to escape or kill them fast enough.

Happy hacking and don't die!

ORJ: Infinite Cave Adventure

With the resurgence of the roguelike genre, many of the classics (NetHack, ADOM, Angband) and newcomers (Caves of Qud, TGGW, Golden Krone Hotel) are gaining in popularity and renown. But there are so many hidden gems, obscure roguelikes few people know about and play, even though they would deserve much more attention. Here is one of them.
 
Recently, I happened to find a browser-based roguelike named Infinite Cave Adventure. I don't know if it was inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure or not, but it claims taking inspiration from NetHack on its RogueBasin page.

It seems to be virtually unknown, as I tried and failed to find some community or further information about it. Still, it's fun to play and has an interesting take on the classic roguelike elements.

I'll let the game's homepage explain:

Here's what makes this [roguelike] different:

• Grinding is impossible or pointless.
• No experience points, the game advances when you face new challenges, not when you collect kills or equipment.
• A very limited inventory that makes stockpiling impossible. Choosing what gear to keep and what to discard is a major strategic choice in the game.
• A steep ramping of power levels and an aggressive hunger clock makes the game fast-paced.
• Each level is different in flavor in strategy, to make advancing interesting.

The idea is to make a roguelike game that is skewed much more towards a board or strategy game than a role-playing game. There's very little role-playing, but a lot of square counting and strategic choice.

I think it succeed in what it aims to do, and manages to be highly (re)playable, even if you have to accept its weirdness.

You are thrown into the game with no intro, no explanation. The map is huge and you can't see what you've already explored, so remember it. The exploration itself is really fun, though, as the map generation works well and places enough special features to make the map interesting. Wait for your first drow slaver caravan, or kobold farms.

Everything is deadly. The very first level teaches you this, because you cannot even attack without finding a weapon first, but there are wolves, bears and zombies, all of them capable of killing you with ease. You have to learn to run, and you will run away very often. Later on, you will fight wizards capable of paralysing and poisoning you, drow who summon spiders, or mind flayers with their long-range psychic blasts. Fun all around, I tell you!

You can only carry one of each type of items (one weapon, one armour, one healing item, ...) and it's not always easy to distinguish what to take and what to leave. The game offers next to no information on anything, which I'd see as a tiny flaw. Some people might enjoy this "fumbling in the darkness" feeling, but given that I'm not given the inventory space and time to experiment, I'd like to know what I'm doing.

And you don't have much time, the food clock really can be brutal. Thankfully, there can be some rare food rations found on the first level, and later levels have kobold farms full of food you can harvest. It's never enough.

However, the items themselves are useful and varied, so you probably have to persist through the period of "I have no clue" until you know what to equip yourself with and which item to use. Try wishing for "dverga-hjaalm", "dverga-skjoeld", "dvergs-oex" and "dverga-hliif", aka the full set of dwarven armour and an axe. Items such as "ring of the sleepless eye", "astral beacon" or "blinking rod" can also help you, and there are many, many more.

The game has a unique take on multiplayer, which is generally impossible to pull of in a traditional roguelike. In Infinite Cave Adventure, other players can influence your game. You will find graves of dead players and can dig them up for the treasures they died with. Signs left by other players can be read by you, and you can write your own signs by finding a signpost tool and using it. You can dig holes and tunnels, and they will persist for other players. You can even rob the bank accounts of other players, or leave items for them in special safe spots.

I managed to find my own grave once.

Even the goal of the game is somewhat multiplayer - you are all looking for a Ring of Power, trying to bring it to the Astral Throne. But there is only one Ring of Power in the game, regardless of the number of players. The first one to pick up the Ring will have it until they win, die, or stay idle for several hours. The Ring will also stay where the last player left it, so should someone die halfway to the Astral Throne, you only need to take the Ring the other half of the way to win. Have fun racing your friends.

The only strategy that's working for me so far (as in "I don't die immediately") is to explore level 0 until I find a pickaxe, then find a grave with a nice amount of cash inside and dig it up. You have to run from the ghost and try to loose it, but can return for the money later and find stairs or a portable hole to descend to level 1. There you should try to find a Temple of Midas and buy some equipment to live a bit longer. You can even buy a vorpal sword, if you dig up nice enough grave. Oh, and baby kobolds are great for your first kill, but kobold fishermen are too hard to fight without a good armour and weapon.

Anyway, you can play it here and here is its GitHub page for anyone interested.

So far, I managed to get down to level 11, while the Ring is (as of the time of writing) at level 17. Given how deadly the lower levels are, we'll see how long until someone can find it and survive.

Happy hacking and don't die!