OT: Oldies but Goodies - Page 3

Erax · #21 May 3rd, 2003, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kamog:
Then there were those text-based games that had ascii graphics. The rooms were drawn using #### for walls or something, and there were characters like "r" and "S" and stuff moving around that represented monsters and different objects. I forget what the game was called. Never finished that one one either.

Those are the 'roguelike' games. The first one was called Rogue, in the pre-PC era (it's still around and people still play it). Then came others, such as Moria, Angband, Nethack and ADOM. See the Thangorodrim page for more details. Also check out the ADOM website. Many of those are open source, too. If I could code, I'd make a Star Wars variant for Angband, but I can't so I don't.

Edit: Before you download anything... I had better warn you, these games can be as addictive as SEIV.

[ May 03, 2003, 14:23: Message edited by: Erax ]

Kamog · #22 May 4th, 2003, 01:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Erax:
Those are the 'roguelike' games. The first one was called Rogue, in the pre-PC era (it's still around and people still play it). Then came others, such as Moria, Angband, Nethack and ADOM. See the Thangorodrim page for more details. Also check out the ADOM website. Many of those are open source, too. If I could code, I'd make a Star Wars variant for Angband, but I can't so I don't.

Thanks for posting those pages, Erax. On the Thangorodrim page, in the downloads section there is some work by David Gervais! (32x32 tiles for Angband)

Quote:

Edit: Before you download anything... I had better warn you, these games can be as addictive as SEIV.

Ooo, I'm SO tempted to download some games... after all, if it's addictive, it probably means it's good. What's the point of playing if it's not addictive?

mac5732 · #23 May 4th, 2003, 05:18 AM

Ultima IV for the atari, man I played that by the hour... cloth map and everything, ah looking for mandrake going down into the dungeons... My Opinion, it was the best of the early Ultima Series....

In Zork, I hated the damn Dam, always got stuck around that thing

just some ideas Mac

Gwaihir · #24 May 4th, 2003, 05:29 AM

I really liked Ultima VII (one of several major omissions) - it had a good storyline, lots of funny bits somewhat in the longstanding tradition of Zork, and it even looked decent (well, thats a relative measure i guess, nothing on todays games, but pretty nice)
-Actually, there's a runner for it, Exult, which runs it on any OS, and a bunch of slowdown utils to make it workable on new, too-powerful comps. Methinks me will try to dig up the old disks again. :-)

-The wizardry series, starting with Wizardry 1 ("written using all the power of the new programming language PASCAL!") - i got an apple ][e emulator just so i could play the first few after discovering the original manual tucked away in a bookcase. Then I started to port it to the TI-83 calculator, but the 3d maze wireframe took too long to render. Mebbe i should take that up again. :-)
-Wizardry 8 - newest (and Last, alas for SIR-TECH) in the series - really neat, nice 3d first person RPG, with good gameplay and character dev, a bit combat-heavy for some, but overall a great game, lotsa people play it over and over to try out different parties (or to go hardcore and beat it with 1 character rather than the usual 6, with only one savegame . . . etc. I'm still working through it my first time, I just discovered it.)

Erax · #25 May 5th, 2003, 01:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kamog:
Thanks for posting those pages, Erax. On the Thangorodrim page, in the downloads section there is some work by David Gervais! (32x32 tiles for Angband)

quote:

Edit: Before you download anything... I had better warn you, these games can be as addictive as SEIV.

Ooo, I'm SO tempted to download some games... after all, if it's addictive, it probably means it's good. What's the point of playing if it's not addictive?

You've been warned. Just don't do like a friend of mine who once wrote, "What's happening to me ? Why can't I sleep ? Curse you Erax, what have you done ?"

David Gervais tiles for Angband ? And I was going to suggest that to him, too... Guess he beat me to it. The tiles are incredibly good, I loved the spellbooks and the chaos blade !

[ May 04, 2003, 13:44: Message edited by: Erax ]

Kamog · #26 May 11th, 2003, 09:12 PM

I have gone through about 15 different characters in ADOM in the Last few days. I'm not getting very far because I keep getting killed. At first, I wasn't paying attention to my hunger level, so I starved to death, and so then I improved my 'food preservation' skill whenever I can, and whenever there was a dead monster left after a fight, I ate it before it rotted.

So the food situation was OK, but then when I go past the first couple of towns to the west, I keep getting killed by a group of chaos sisters who are really strong and I always die. So I tried to build up my levels before I meet them, by wandering around the wilderness and fighting random monsters. This worked to a certain extent, but inevitably I have an unlucky battle and die.

ADOM is more difficult than most other RPG's I've played... gaining a few levels does not make the battles easier by that much even when you fight the same monsters; also you can't revert to a saved game when you die - you have to start all over. Oh well, keep trying!

Angband seems to be a bit easier. I haven't played this one very much so far. The labyrinth is huge and I haven't gone very deep because I know I'll get lost. I'm thinking of finishing ADOM first before I go back to Angband...

Erax · #27 May 12th, 2003, 01:12 AM

In ADOM, talk to the people in the first town. The easier dungeons only appear if you are on a quest. Don't go west of the river before you finish one or two of these quests.
You can also buy food in the first town. It is highly recommended that you do so (you can't eat your money when you starve).

Edit: Eating some monsters may give you skills, raise or lower your stats, or poison / kill you (this info is in the manual).

In Angband, the levels are all random and they are generated whenever you go up/down the stairs. So you go, for example, from L1 -> L2, explore L2, then come back up... and there's a brand new L1 to explore.

[ May 12, 2003, 00:16: Message edited by: Erax ]

Kamog · #28 May 12th, 2003, 05:09 AM

Thanks, Erax. I'll try that.

Krsqk · #29 May 12th, 2003, 03:20 PM

DO NOT start playing Angband or Nethack. I wasted many, many, many days which should have been spent studying for my graduate classes playing Nethack, which I personally prefer to Angband. I don't think the developers of Nethack have left any possibilities out of their programming.

Voidhawk · #30 May 13th, 2003, 05:54 AM

NetHack rules! By far the coolest way to play it is on a public server, where you have access to "bones piles", or levels where other players have died and dropped all their goodies. Kind of lends a multiplayer feel to it. Of course, usually the overwhelming joy at finding a pile of awesome equipment is tempered somewhat by the agony of getting whacked a couple of moves later by the monster(s) who did the first guy in.

If you can get used to the interface and (lack of) graphics, NetHack makes Diablo seem about as deep as Pong.