I wouldn't call those rogue-like personally. The first two are procedurally generated, which is an attribute commonly in rogue-likes and rogue-lites, but I mean more in-line with Enter the Gungeon, darkest dungeon, risk of rain 1 and 2, binding of isaac, neon abyss, rogue legacy, streets of rogue, etc. Permadeath, RNG of perks where sometimes you can be over-powered and sometimes you have to work with what you have. Generally the random perks every run is what pulls me in. They are often shooters but also sometimes turn-based. I've often been pleasantly surprised by unheard of ones by small developers. Neurovoider and Moss Destruction are a couple of my favorites in that case.
Spelunky Classic (https://spelunkyworld.com/original.html) - in my book, the best of all time and free to boot! I've been playing it regularly for probably 5 years. Some 10,000 runs in, it still entertains and challenges me. I was initially critical of some of its design decisions but over time I have come to realize that it is a masterclass in one-man game design.
Spelunky, the HD remake that is on Steam, is also good and much prettier, but I have a soft spot for the original. Yet to try Spelunky 2.
Other than the ones you mentioned, I have heard good things about Nuclear Throne and Synthetik, though I haven't gotten to playing them yet.
Outside of theh usual suspects, you could try Doomsday Hunters (formerly called "I, Dracula: Genesis"), an Early Access title with neat pixel art that has a tremendous variety of weapons, items, perks and synergies between them. I had volunteered as a tester with modest expectations on the strength of the visuals but have played for 170+ hours now. It does require more polish and balancing to become great though. The story is weak and you are likely to run into a bug now and then but the gameplay is solid and the 2-man indie dev team is worth supporting.
I tested Spelunker World when I worked for a small game testing and QA company in Austin, Tx. I didn't feel like it was much of a rogue-like, more like a simple dungeon/puzzle game for a group, though I haven't tried the other titles.
Doomsday Hunters sounds good, I'll check out your suggestions! Nuclear Throne is a staple in the genre!
I figured you had probably played Nuclear Throne (who hasn't except me?) but mentioned it because it wasn't in your list of examples. I've owned it for a while but haven't gotten around to playing.
I've never played Spelunker World either (which is a far more recent release) but I do know that its predecessor Spelunker was one of Derek Yu's inspirations when creating Spelunky. I remember playing the NES version of that when I was young but not liking it all that much back then compared to the Mario games or Metroid or Adventure Island.
Spelunky is technically a "roguelite" but I tend to steer clear of that pedantic debate and consider it close enough in a non-academic context.with permadeath, procedural level generation, random item drops, a steep learning curve and. most importantly, mind-blowing depth to uncover. I hear the devs of Isaac, Rogue Legacy and FTL have cited Spelunky as one of their inspirations. Highly recommend you try the franchise - I suspect it would have been even more successful if its difficulty had not caused many players to give up on it before they understood its genius. And now I'll stop gushing. :-)
No I hear you! Rogue-like and Rogue-lite have a lot of overlap, the latter just meaning that there are permanent perks/upgrades on the account. I just love the challenge mixed with the RNG, which both " genres" generally have.
I'll give spelunky a shot. Maybe spelunker world was just a nod to the series. ( it was on playstation only IIRC )
Spelunker World was a PS4 sequel of the original Spelunker of the Atari 8 bit era, while Spelunky is a separate franchise whose original (Spelunky Classic) used Spelunker as one of its inspirations.
If you try Spelunky and dislike some of its aspects, stick with it, try the different play styles (such as speed run or slow & steady) and you should see that almost everything is there for a good reason. There are a number of "pro techniques" that are very rewarding to discover on your own.
Even with my experience and expertise, I have not yet truly mastered the ghost - a moment of overconfidence or greed is enough to cause YASD.
Spelunky Classic only has a final boss. IIRC it took me over 3000 runs to beat the game for the first time, though I could have done it sooner if I could bring myself to prioritize life over loot far more than I did or if I was more into speedrunning. All the best! 😁
I'd heard good things about Rogue Legacy 1 and picked it up back in 2019 but haven't gotten to playing it. Will bump it up the backlog priority list, but I've got to shake my obsession with dominating the Spelunky ghost to free up more time - LOL!
I'd use the term "dedication" when I've had my fill of a game but keep soldiering on for the sake of completionism or achievements but in the case of Spelunky, it has genuinely had me hooked for all these years. No other game in all my gaming years has given me that sort of replayability.
You could of course skip the original and go straight to the HD version on Steam but if, as I sense, you are not an eye-candy junkie, I'd suggest starting with the original, especially since it's free and well worth experiencing. You may not be inclined to go backwards if you don't start with Classic. If you fall for it as I did, you can progress to the sequels, which have more content but are not free. Be warned that the early days will be frustrating with a lot of deaths but that's part of the learning process that helps you refine your tactics.
Caves of Qud. It's good... it's VERY good. The things you can do in that game, the characters you can build, the strategies you can try... it's so huge and so difficult to explain, you have to try it to see how ridiculously large that game really is. Also it's been years since they do "Feature Friday" the Devs implement more features into the game every friday so it gets updated with new content weekly.
ADOM, very addictive, a large world full of mysteries and things to explore, monsters. Feels kinda like an adventure.
Cogmind. (Very atmospheric and well designed, it has really cool mech combat)
IVAN; Hilarious; fun; very addictive and with an interesting world to explore
.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (very addictive, it's more about the combat and making good decisions in difficult situations)
Rogue Empire (It has interesting mechanics, when you level up you get to choose between 3 random upgrades, you can only get one. It's very challenging but fun)
Golden Krone Hotel (It's very hard!)
Neo Scavenger
Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead (haven't played it that much but it the setting has a lot of potential and there's a lot of freedom.)
Deep Sky Derelicts (Some sort of darkest dungeon but with a new flavor, cards and other mechanics, mysterious exploration of space derelicts and fun combat)
Infra Arcana, a classic horror roguelike based on Chtulhu mythos..Very atmospheric and fun.
Awesome, I look forward to checking these out. Out of all of them I only have Deep Sky Derelicts. All of these look very interesting, though I couldn't find IVAN , Infra Arcana, or the Cataclysm game.
Neat list - thanks.
I'd come across Qud when I WLed Sproggiwood by the same Devs but the MSDOS-Wordstar style UI and being in EA since 2015 led to my passing it over. WLed now.
Wasn't aware of Cogmind... seems to have been in EA since 2017 (!) though.
Downloaded IVAN, Infra Arcana and CDDA, though I have no idea how to make time to play them.
The rest I already had my eye on.
Thank you so much for the game. Speaking of roguelites, I have played a couple of deckbuilders recently like Ring of Pain, Monster Train and Slay the Spire.
Also, some action roguelites like Voidigo, Children of Morta, Wizard of Legend, Skul: The Hero Slayer, Atomicrops, Risk of Rain 2 and Gunfire Reborn (I have played a lot more, but those were the first that came in mind besides the most popular ones).
Yeah I saw Ring of Pain since joining this site. Looks interesting! I enjoyed Skul a lot, and I recently got atomicrops to play with my GF. I've seen Children of Morta and meant to play it for free weekend but got sidetracked. It looks a lot like Moon Hunters, which is a great one but very challenging, much easier with a friend.
Regarding roguelikes... apparently FTL: Faster Than Light qualifies, and I would highly recommend that one! A sci-fi Oregon Trail, won't find or see everything there is even after multiple runs.
Terraria? No Man's Sky? Tyranny? :(
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I wouldn't call those rogue-like personally. The first two are procedurally generated, which is an attribute commonly in rogue-likes and rogue-lites, but I mean more in-line with Enter the Gungeon, darkest dungeon, risk of rain 1 and 2, binding of isaac, neon abyss, rogue legacy, streets of rogue, etc. Permadeath, RNG of perks where sometimes you can be over-powered and sometimes you have to work with what you have. Generally the random perks every run is what pulls me in. They are often shooters but also sometimes turn-based. I've often been pleasantly surprised by unheard of ones by small developers. Neurovoider and Moss Destruction are a couple of my favorites in that case.
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THX
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Spelunky Classic (https://spelunkyworld.com/original.html) - in my book, the best of all time and free to boot! I've been playing it regularly for probably 5 years. Some 10,000 runs in, it still entertains and challenges me. I was initially critical of some of its design decisions but over time I have come to realize that it is a masterclass in one-man game design.
Spelunky, the HD remake that is on Steam, is also good and much prettier, but I have a soft spot for the original. Yet to try Spelunky 2.
Other than the ones you mentioned, I have heard good things about Nuclear Throne and Synthetik, though I haven't gotten to playing them yet.
Outside of theh usual suspects, you could try Doomsday Hunters (formerly called "I, Dracula: Genesis"), an Early Access title with neat pixel art that has a tremendous variety of weapons, items, perks and synergies between them. I had volunteered as a tester with modest expectations on the strength of the visuals but have played for 170+ hours now. It does require more polish and balancing to become great though. The story is weak and you are likely to run into a bug now and then but the gameplay is solid and the 2-man indie dev team is worth supporting.
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I tested Spelunker World when I worked for a small game testing and QA company in Austin, Tx. I didn't feel like it was much of a rogue-like, more like a simple dungeon/puzzle game for a group, though I haven't tried the other titles.
Doomsday Hunters sounds good, I'll check out your suggestions! Nuclear Throne is a staple in the genre!
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I figured you had probably played Nuclear Throne (who hasn't except me?) but mentioned it because it wasn't in your list of examples. I've owned it for a while but haven't gotten around to playing.
I've never played Spelunker World either (which is a far more recent release) but I do know that its predecessor Spelunker was one of Derek Yu's inspirations when creating Spelunky. I remember playing the NES version of that when I was young but not liking it all that much back then compared to the Mario games or Metroid or Adventure Island.
Spelunky is technically a "roguelite" but I tend to steer clear of that pedantic debate and consider it close enough in a non-academic context.with permadeath, procedural level generation, random item drops, a steep learning curve and. most importantly, mind-blowing depth to uncover. I hear the devs of Isaac, Rogue Legacy and FTL have cited Spelunky as one of their inspirations. Highly recommend you try the franchise - I suspect it would have been even more successful if its difficulty had not caused many players to give up on it before they understood its genius. And now I'll stop gushing. :-)
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No I hear you! Rogue-like and Rogue-lite have a lot of overlap, the latter just meaning that there are permanent perks/upgrades on the account. I just love the challenge mixed with the RNG, which both " genres" generally have.
I'll give spelunky a shot. Maybe spelunker world was just a nod to the series. ( it was on playstation only IIRC )
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Spelunker World was a PS4 sequel of the original Spelunker of the Atari 8 bit era, while Spelunky is a separate franchise whose original (Spelunky Classic) used Spelunker as one of its inspirations.
If you try Spelunky and dislike some of its aspects, stick with it, try the different play styles (such as speed run or slow & steady) and you should see that almost everything is there for a good reason. There are a number of "pro techniques" that are very rewarding to discover on your own.
Even with my experience and expertise, I have not yet truly mastered the ghost - a moment of overconfidence or greed is enough to cause YASD.
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I highly suggest Rogue Legacy 1 and 2. It's very challenging. I think it took me about 20 runs before I beat the first boss.
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Spelunky Classic only has a final boss. IIRC it took me over 3000 runs to beat the game for the first time, though I could have done it sooner if I could bring myself to prioritize life over loot far more than I did or if I was more into speedrunning. All the best! 😁
I'd heard good things about Rogue Legacy 1 and picked it up back in 2019 but haven't gotten to playing it. Will bump it up the backlog priority list, but I've got to shake my obsession with dominating the Spelunky ghost to free up more time - LOL!
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wow, that's dedication. I'll definitely make time to play it. So I should just go for the original Spelunky?
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I'd use the term "dedication" when I've had my fill of a game but keep soldiering on for the sake of completionism or achievements but in the case of Spelunky, it has genuinely had me hooked for all these years. No other game in all my gaming years has given me that sort of replayability.
You could of course skip the original and go straight to the HD version on Steam but if, as I sense, you are not an eye-candy junkie, I'd suggest starting with the original, especially since it's free and well worth experiencing. You may not be inclined to go backwards if you don't start with Classic. If you fall for it as I did, you can progress to the sequels, which have more content but are not free. Be warned that the early days will be frustrating with a lot of deaths but that's part of the learning process that helps you refine your tactics.
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Roguelike suggestions:
ADOM, very addictive, a large world full of mysteries and things to explore, monsters. Feels kinda like an adventure.
Cogmind. (Very atmospheric and well designed, it has really cool mech combat)
IVAN; Hilarious; fun; very addictive and with an interesting world to explore
.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (very addictive, it's more about the combat and making good decisions in difficult situations)
Rogue Empire (It has interesting mechanics, when you level up you get to choose between 3 random upgrades, you can only get one. It's very challenging but fun)
Golden Krone Hotel (It's very hard!)
Neo Scavenger
Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead (haven't played it that much but it the setting has a lot of potential and there's a lot of freedom.)
Deep Sky Derelicts (Some sort of darkest dungeon but with a new flavor, cards and other mechanics, mysterious exploration of space derelicts and fun combat)
Infra Arcana, a classic horror roguelike based on Chtulhu mythos..Very atmospheric and fun.
I played and recommend all any of those.
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Awesome, I look forward to checking these out. Out of all of them I only have Deep Sky Derelicts. All of these look very interesting, though I couldn't find IVAN , Infra Arcana, or the Cataclysm game.
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IVAN: https://attnam.com/
Infra Arcana: https://sites.google.com/site/infraarcana/
Cataclysm: DDA: https://cataclysmdda.org/
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Neat list - thanks.
I'd come across Qud when I WLed Sproggiwood by the same Devs but the MSDOS-Wordstar style UI and being in EA since 2015 led to my passing it over. WLed now.
Wasn't aware of Cogmind... seems to have been in EA since 2017 (!) though.
Downloaded IVAN, Infra Arcana and CDDA, though I have no idea how to make time to play them.
The rest I already had my eye on.
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Thank you so much for the game. Speaking of roguelites, I have played a couple of deckbuilders recently like Ring of Pain, Monster Train and Slay the Spire.
Also, some action roguelites like Voidigo, Children of Morta, Wizard of Legend, Skul: The Hero Slayer, Atomicrops, Risk of Rain 2 and Gunfire Reborn (I have played a lot more, but those were the first that came in mind besides the most popular ones).
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Yeah I saw Ring of Pain since joining this site. Looks interesting! I enjoyed Skul a lot, and I recently got atomicrops to play with my GF. I've seen Children of Morta and meant to play it for free weekend but got sidetracked. It looks a lot like Moon Hunters, which is a great one but very challenging, much easier with a friend.
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Thank you for the game!
Regarding roguelikes... apparently FTL: Faster Than Light qualifies, and I would highly recommend that one! A sci-fi Oregon Trail, won't find or see everything there is even after multiple runs.
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