Ive been hooked lately on this videogame called Brogue. Its a free, open-source roguealike that is quite possibly one of the best videogames Ive ever played. I wanted to post about it, because I wanna keep my friends hip to the good shit! Perhaps youve never heard the term roguealike before. I hadnt really, either. But heres a quick rundown: In 1980, some students at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley developed a game called Rogue, which was perhaps the first dungeon-crawling sort of game to sport a graphical interface. It ran on Unix terminals, and the graphics were crude -- pure ASCII art, letters and numbers and symbols used to represent the dungeon and its inhabitants. But it was a compelling and addictive game, partly because the levels were generated randomly (ensuring that each new game was unique), but also because there were a variety of mysterious items to be discovered and monsters to be fought. The game was immensely popular, and versions of it were eventually ported to nearly all of the computing platforms of the day, including the Amiga, the Amstrad, the Atari 8-bit and Atari ST, the Commodore 64, DOS, and the TRS-80, to name a few. Because of its popularity with programmers, Rogue spawned communities of folks interested in continuing its development. Derivative games, known as roguealikes, emerged. The most noteable of these, according to Wikipedia, are Hack and NetHack, both of which improved the depth and complexity of the gameplay -- but which also failed to improve the games single worst problem: A convoluted and confusing control-scheme, which required the player to memorize a list of commands which could be issued with single keystrokes. I recall my first experience with one of these games. It was probably in 1988 or 89. My dad had this old Amstrad PC, and my brother and I used to play these shareware games on it that hed bring home on big 5-1/4 floppy-disks. I guess he got them from his friends at work or something. Anyway, one day he brought home a disk with this game called Amulet of Yendor on it. It was a roguealike, even though I didnt know as much at the time. And it was an interesting experience. I remember my brother and I being kind of fascinated by the way the levels would unfold in crude ASCII graphics as wed move our way through the dungeon. Also, by the way that we started the game with a dog, who would help us fight monsters -- until he either died, or we killed him (either by accident or on purpose, just to see if we could) -- and at that point, we discovered that we could eat the dogs corpse to regain some health! The game was full of strange and delightful discoveries like that. There were, for instance, a variety of scrolls and potions that one could find over the course of a level. But the potions -- initially -- were only identified by their color, and the scrolls were only identified by nonsensical names. In order to find out what any of them actually did, you had to use them. And then there were the interesting interactions you could have with monsters. I recall one time when my dog attacked a bat, only to get bitten and become rabid -- at which point, many turns later, he began to behave erratically, and then eventually attacked and killed me, ending my game. I have very fond memories of the time my brother and I spent playing that game. We never got very far into it; the game was fiendishly hard, and the controls were confusing. The accompanying manual (a text file elsewhere on the disc) stated that the dungeon was 26 levels deep. I bet we never got past level 3. The game had no continue feature, nor any savepoints. When you died, it was freal, yo. Anyway, I had thought that such gaming experiences were lost to time. But the other night, on a whim, I did a search for rogue on the iOS store, and discovered this derivative game called Brogue. Some further investigation revealed that the game was not only available for iOS, but also for Android, PC, Linux, and Mac. Ive since downloaded it on both my iPad and my PC. Its enjoyable in both formats. I cant imagine playing it on my phone, as the screen would be far too tiny. Brogue is simply an evolution of, and a refinement of, the same game that my brother and I fell in love with years ago. It offers the same sense of discovery and play, the same kinds of fascinating interactions, the same exciting sense of possibility -- but with certain graphical and user-interface tweaks that make it far more pleasurable to play, and far more accessible to newcomers. The selling-point of this game is not its graphics. I mean, youd be right to look at me funny if I said, The way this game uses ASCII graphics is just absolutely beautiful! All those green quotation marks really DO look like fungus! And a shimmering blue tilde is just the perfect character to represent water. And DOOD! When I see a pink J headed right for me, I crap my pants! But I kid you not, there is something special about the graphics of this game, and I dont think its just the warm cloud of nostalgia. I think the excellent, thoughtful, colorful way this game uses these textual characters to represent its world engages my imagination much more effectively than better graphics might. It asks me to fill in the blanks; it suggests, rather than showing me every last detail. And in such a minimalistic environment, small changes can inspire excitement, or even dread. When I see a new symbol appear, for instance, I proceed with caution, because I dont know what it is, and it might damn well kill me. The heart of this game -- the key to its appeal -- is the way that everything in the game interacts with everything else. Yeah, sure, its a dungeon-crawler where your mission is to descend through 26 levels, killing monsters and amassing treasure and items along the way, grab the Amulet of Yendor (which is the traditional name for the endgame item in roguealikes), and ascend once more through the same 26 levels to find the exit. That is the plot, or the mission, or what-have-you. But what makes the game compelling are the strange, fun, and unexpected ways that each thing can affect other things. An example. Heres something that happened the other night. Im three levels deep. I come across a monkey being held captive by kobalds. The game renders the situation something like this: @.......... .............. .....\./...... ..k.m.k... ...../.\...... .............. I am the @ sign in the upper-left. The dots represent a stone floor; different symbols and colors are used to represent dirt floors, mosses or lichens, lush vegetation, etc. The ks are the Kobalds. The m is the monkey. The slashes are the chains holding the monkey. If I mouse-over any of these symbols, the game offers a short but colorful description. Also, I can see the vital stats of the Kobalds displayed along the side of my screen. I kill the kobalds. (Fighting is accomplished by simply using your arrow-keys to move over to the enemy you want to fight, and running into them over and over; because the entire game is turn-based, and combat outcomes are determined on a scale of probability, combat assumes a format that will be quite familiar to those who have played pen-and-paper roleplaying games.) Then I run into the Monkey. The game asks, Would you like to set the monkey free? I do. He then becomes my ally, which means that hell fight alongside me, and help protect me. Sweet! But monkeys are kind of weak. And Id like my monkey to hang in there. And I just happen to have found a wand of empowerment, which is an item that is only useful for making an ally stronger. So I zap him with it. The game tells me, Your monkey seems to swell with strength. Awesome! So we head off around the corner. And I know whats coming up. Earlier, from a distance, I spied a group of 5 goblins worshipping around a Goblin Totem, which is like a holy artifact. Goblins by themselves arent particularly fearsome enemies -- but in a pack they can do some damage. And, when theyre worshipping around their totem, theyre much stronger than usual, because it protects them. Also, the totem itself is a living thing. It doesnt move, but it attacks with something like a lightening-strike. We round the corner, my monkey moves up ahead of me, and the scene comes into view through a doorway. Im nervous about fighting these creatures, and so I pause in the doorway of the room, considering my options. Because this game is turn-based, if you stop sending commands (such as pressing a key to move, for example) the game essentially pauses. The game only does something if you do something. You act, it responds. This happens fluidly and instantaneously. And while those weaned on Playstation games might find the format clunky, I would argue that it has its own unique appeal. It makes the game feel more strategic than it otherwise might. I finally decide to try zapping the goblins and their totem with my Staff of Firebolt. Im hoping that, if I hit them with that before engaging in melee, it might weaken them all considerably. Fire has a way of spreading in this game, so you have to be careful where you use it, but this looked like the right sort of situation. My monkey was in the space ahead of me, situated directly in my line of fire. I didnt think about it, because I was under the impression that the game wouldnt let you hurt your allies. So I aimed my staff, and I fired. Here was the games response: You aim and fire your Staff of Firebolt! Your monkey is immersed in flame! Your monkey punches you. Your monkey has died. NOOO! MONKEEEY! I cried. It was tragic, and I still laugh about it. Thats not the funniest thing thats happened while playing this game, nor is it the most surprisingly intricate example of the way all the elements of this game interact. I chose it only because it was short and easy to summarize. At any rate, if youre into well-designed games, and youre not turned-off by ASCII graphics or a small learning-curve, I strongly recommend Brogue. Its one of the best videogames Ive ever played. Brogue is available for free from the iOS and Google Play stores. Its also available for free download from the games official website: https://sites.google/site/broguegame/ If you download it for PC, be sure to de-compress the .zip file before trying to run the .exe file contained within it. Also, note that on the PC, you can press F12 to go fullscreen, and you can hold CTRL on the main menu to change New Game to Custom Game, where you can then enter the seed-number of a game youd like to play.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 04:46:18 +0000
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