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.
borderline obsessive
Okay, I’m sold.
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.
Caves of Qud is AMAZING! You should buy it OP
Dead Cells is brilliant
Check out Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. There’s a version on Steam to support the developers, but you can download the executable for free from their website just like DCSS.
CDDA also has a non terrible mobile version as well. When I used to commute pre pandemic I’d spend many a bus rides home playing and it’s surprisingly playable on a phone. Wasn’t expecting that.
- The Binding of Isaac
- Rouge Legacy
I’d like to add Enter the Gungeon to this list, as it fits thematically. It’s a roguelite with bullet hell aspects. In many respects very similar to The Binding of Isaac. And it has a great art style and humor.
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.
Try out Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. It’s like a 90’s sci-fi that gets hit by every single apocalyptic, world-ending disaster at once.
A personal favourite is UnReal World.
…into the far north we shall take you.
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?”
I’ve enjoyed Slay the Spire and Wizard of Legend. The latter is very hard to beat at least for me.
For wizards of legend, 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…
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.
Binding of Isaac is my favorite.
If you are curious about a classic originator in the genre, and willing for a steep learning curve, I highly recommend to check out Nethack: “NetHack is a single-player roguelike video game originally released in 1987 with ASCII graphics. It is a descendant of an earlier game called Hack, which is a clone of Rogue” It’s still under development today! I prefer the tile-based versions over the ascii versions. And if you can play it on a touch-screen device, that can be an even better experience.
Nethack is an amazing deep system to explore and learn about… but it’s not that fun to play (at least once you’ve already been to the late game). It’s more fun to read NetHackWiki than to actually play the game IMO. It would be a huge downgrade from DCSS, which is carefully designed to be fun.
I can see that. It did take me a while to really appreciate Nethack even back in the day. TBH I haven’t played it in 10ish years so maybe my recommendation was made poorly.
Didn’t know about DCSS thanks.
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.
