r/roguelikes

Hey, I'm Max and wanted to show you my roguelike game Rangedrifter!

In a long forgotten world, you play the hero on a quest to reach the center of a lost kingdom that is encircled by a large, invisible barrier many miles wide. Countless have entered it over the centuries in search for treasure. None were ever heard of again.

The game is a traditional turn-based roguelike set on a generated path that leads you through the game's persistent, hand-made world. The goal is to survive the dangers along the way and to arrive at its end.

As the path snakes past pretty sights, monster nests and sunken temples, in order to survive, you will need to collect all the food and supplies you can and delve into the dungeons to find weapons and gear. Your bag is small, so you have to decide what to take with you and what to leave behind.

The game's world contains hundreds of locations that form the links in the chain that is the path. The whole world is always around you, but you are bound to the path that was set for you by the barrier's magic.

When you die, you start at the beginning and a new path, starting at a different location, will lead you unpredictably through the wilderness. While you could reach the end of the path in an afternoon, expect not to for a long while.

Rangedrifter is meant to pose difficult situations that are as fun to fail as they are to overcome. Reaching further and further into the path with practice is where it's fun is meant to be.

You can find it on Steam for Windows and Linux. It is played with gamepad or keyboard. There you will also find a complete list of the game's contents.

I have been working on Rangedrifter for just under two years, but you could say it is more than ten in the making, and with more to come. And I can't wait to start work on the next region soon!

If you want to know more about the game's development, I wrote a popular post on r/roguelikedev last week that you can read here. If you have an idea on how to improve the game, please let me know in the subreddit!

As is the case with new releases, there may be small hiccups here and there. You can find me in the Support forums wearing a hard hat.

Thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it. Consider giving Rangedrifter a try!

"You arrive with supplies on the far shore of the forbidden lake. A collapsed cave holds the entrance to the barrier. The fisher who told you to stay called it a sleeping monster. You've seen the hazy plains with the crumbling towers. How far can it really be?"

Edit: Thank you for all the kind comments and support on release day! On its first day, 52 people purchased the game, with 2 people refunding. At the same time, wishlists skyrocketed from 500 to well over 800! Thank you so much for supporting the development of the game. I'm working on the demo and hope to have it out next week. I believe you will receive a notification once it's available if you have wishlisted the game.

I'm a fairly new fan of roguelites and roguelikes, and when I think of actually developing one myself, I'm more comfortable with the web development stack than game engines. I wonder what the pros and cons of developing a roguelite in HTML CSS and JS are? Seems to me there might be more open-licensed projects where I could review source and study how people build game logic.

It made me wonder what the best browser-based roguish games are?

I recently tried one that was shared in this sub, Void Descent, and I was very impressed with the gameplay. Even though the graphics are minimalistic, the mechanics are solid for a survivorslike and it's genuinely fun! I wonder what other hidden gems there are like this.

I've been surprised that web ports of classic trad roguelikes like Nethack and Angband aren't more common.

So what's your favorite browser based rogue? And please also give your thoughts on what's involved in developing games for the open Web.

These are a couple slice-of-life videos from Stravaeger (the Retro Survival RPG I'm building) that demonstrate the issue.  

You know the deal with survival games: you start the game in your undies, picking berries and trying to tie a rock to a stick to make a crude axe while getting chased around by a pig who will one-shot you.  From a new-player perspective, this doesn't really show off what the game can do, and it can be really boring and dreary.

I remember my first experience in Valheim, and wanting to drop the game entirely because it was "lame". Fortunately, a friend forced us to press on until it got good. (And of course, now, the Early Game is my favorite part).

But that's the thing.  How do I (as a dev) signal that the game will in fact be cool at some point? Because if all you can do is pick up rocks and sticks, half the players will close the game and never come back after that first pig attack.

I'm thinking of starting with a sort of flashback sequence, where you are kitted out with some good gear, and in an area with lots to do.  Then "something happens", and you're stripped of all that and tossed into spawn in your undies to start the game proper.

I like the idea, but then I also Hate when games do this to me.  This is the start of every crappy RPG these days, where you're locked in a room somewhere and spend the first hour solving stupid puzzles and watching cutscenes before they finally let you out into the fresh air so you can start playing the game.

So the question, is a.) Do I try to do something like this?  and b.) How do I make it not piss people off?

Thoughts?

(You can see what I'm getting at by firing up a new game at https://stravaeger.com/)

Hi everyone,

I just released the first native Windows and Linux beta builds of Tower of Scherbenmark, a turn-based ASCII roguelike RPG set in the fractured dark-fantasy world of Mornhollow.

A free demo is available here:

https://bernhardp.itch.io/tower-of-scherbenmark

About the game:

Scherbenmark is a broken domain of floating islands, ruined cities, mana rifts, and time-scarred places. You descend into an old research spire after your sister Mara disappears inside with a group of rift scholars and sellswords. Only her satchel returns, along with one warning:

Do not trust the echo of a spell.

The current early access build includes:

• Turn-based dungeon exploration
• ASCII presentation with optional glyph sprites
• Melee combat and ranged enemy magic
• Loot, weapons, armor, potions, and equipment bonuses
• Chests, mimic chests, furniture, riddles, traps, and secrets
• Journal entries and lore fragments
• Autosaves, save/load support, and persistent settings
• Keyboard, mouse, and controller support
• Native Windows and Linux beta builds

The game is still in active development, so I’m looking for feedback on difficulty, readability, controls, dungeon pacing, bugs, and ideas for enemies, items, riddles, traps, or lore.

If you try the demo, feel free to post feedback or bug reports on the game page. I’m especially interested in whether the native builds work well on different systems.

Thanks for taking a look!

Today I'm releasing PocketZot, a personal passion project for getting DCSS WebTiles onto my phone. I hope others will enjoy it as well. Would love to hear from you if you find it useful.

https://pocketzot.pages.dev

I started making this coffee break roguelike because I wanted a game that’s quick to play but still makes me think.

I put a lot of work into the UX to make it easy to play. Runs take about 10 minutes and there is a minimal learning curve. It’s designed to be accessible for beginners, but it's still challenging enough for experienced players. It’s highly replayable and gives a great roguelike feel.

Please add it to your Wishlist if you're interested!

Steam：NOMAD-san

I'm solo dev and finally chasing the dream of my own studio. I just got the Steam page live for the June Next Fest(!)

Turn-based video showcase: https://youtu.be/lxZxxh5FyWw (~3 minutes)

Hello, sharing here for the first time about my upcoming game, Zeroth. You might know me by my first game, Pathos, which is a traditional roguelike based on Nethack rules and has been in development for over 10 years.

Zeroth is a side-perspective remake of Pathos, with full character progression, inventory management, world procgen and lots of content including 750+ items, etc. I like to imagine that when a hero dies in Pathos, they are sent to the 0th circle of Haell for one last chance at redemption.

The video linked above showcases turn-based mode in Zeroth. Time runs forward when moving but automatically pauses when you stop. So you can take your time rifling through your inventory, in situations that demand a careful decision. This is likely similar to WazHack, although it’s been quite a few years since I last played it.

I’m interested to hear your ideas and suggestions on how to improve this mode to be more approachable for TRL players. As an example, I recently added afterimages to indicate the speed and direction of enemies and objects, which you can see in the video.

I've learned a lot about roguelike game design over the years and challenging myself in a new perspective is helping me to better understand roguelike mechanics and what makes it fun. If you'd like to know more about Zeroth, I've linked the steam page below.

Wishlist on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4062680/Zeroth/