Although the vibrant world of roguelikes isn’t something I used to focus on in the past, it’s a genre that’s slowly grown on me over time. It’s certainly not one that I excel in, but it’s one that I don’t mind failing in if I have a good time along the way.
A little while back, my good friend Greg gave me a copy of Barony that he purchased during a Steam sale. It seemed to be kind of a whim purchase to be honest, but he figured that it would be something I’d like to eventually try my hand at. The game is a 3D dungeon crawler with pixel art graphics (pretty similar to Minecraft‘s style), but it works very well in recreating the aesthetic of a 1990s-era PC title. Released in June 2015 from Burning Wheel LLC, the game has gotten really good feedback in the time since its release on Steam, and I can see why: the game is just plain fun.
Still, I’m not very good at it, and I manage to die rather unceremoniously after the success of finally finding the staircase down in the first major floor of the dungeon. And guess what? That means I have to start all over again!
Anyway, it’s a fun little game, and for $9.99 on Steam it’s kind of hard to go wrong if you enjoy a good dungeon-crawling adventure. So, what are you waiting for? Go check it out!
Nerdy But Flirty 
Roguelikes are a HUGE toss up for me. The turn-based game play appeals to the multi-tasker in me, as does the relatively (early at least) shallow learning curve. The out-and-out unforgiving nature RE: food, and saved games and later game constant attacks. I think in some ways they are superior to most CRPGs because of this. It’s easy to charge in like a maniac when you have multiple saved games backing you up…if all you have is the game in front of you and no backup, planning is a LOT more necessary.
Personally, i like the top-down style (what can I say, much like good apples it has a peel) a little more than the FPS viewpoint, but the latter DOES add to the realistic idea that you don’t know the map looks like – kind of like real life would be.
Can’t wait to see updates and how well you manage to do!
I’m certainly no expert of the genre, but I definitely see your perspective on it.
A while back, I played a bit of “Shining in the Darkness” (a classic, and first in the Shining franchise), and that was interesting to me because as a kid I’d never played that one, and found it very different from my idea of a normal RPG. It’s not really a roguelike, but it did fuse that idea of deep-dungeon exploration with turn-based combat and it was refreshingly fun, though pretty sadistically hard!
Barony is a fun little game. I will admit though that the most fun roguelike I’ve played in quite some time is probably NECROPOLIS, so if you haven’t seen that one I’d highly recommend checking it out 🙂