We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

I bought Drawful 2!

Could anyone please do me the favor of replying to this post with their favorite roguelikes (either all-time or currently loving)

I can kick things off with my picks of:
The Binding of Isaac
FTL
Spelunky

Cheaper/Free ones would be best since I can more easily check them out for my Research, but anything helps. Thanks!

In no particular order (and not including FTL or Isaac because you got them already):

Rogues:
Caveblazers -- it's only okay, but it's cheap
Dwarf Fortress (fortress mode (a sandbox/sim mode) is a lot better than the roguey but unfinished adventure mode, but both are pretty punishing and neither allow reloads upon loss)

Semirogues:
Rogue Legacy
Hyper Light Drifter (not really a roguelike, but similar feeling, and an excellent game)
The original Legend of Zelda, if you don't cheat and use save states on an emu

What do you need these for?

NetHack is a game I have not beaten in 11 years of attempts.

Roguelikes
DungeonCrawlStoneSoup (free)
Dungeons of Dredmor
Unexplored

Semi-Roguelikes???
Runers
Hand of Fate

In terms of true roguelikes I'm still in love with Doom: The Roguelike (help me my inventory is 90% ammo and I love every bullet too much to drop any for this modpack)

I think I've only ever beaten it once, and it was only a technical win (if you bring a nuke to the Spider Mastermind and take yourself out along with the boss it awards you a win but marks it differently than a true win where you survive)

Its simpler than your Nethacks and the like, with a heavier emphasis on large scale murder but it's still tactical. I'm not great at it but learning when I need to sprint and when it's better to hide vs go loud, and like hey, if you fire a shotgun in a direction and hear a pain sound it means a monster is in that direction.

But like a lot of the time I play on the challenge modes, which get unlocked as you accomplish various achievements. I like Angel of Berserk, which is a melee only mode, and extremely hard but real fun, and man does life get better once I reach the chainsaw level on a run. Other modes are also weapon focused for the early ones, like a pistols only mode or shotguns only mode, being able to focus on just one weapon type helps me not have to worry about which ammo to keep even though I lose out on some flexibility: (funfax: lost souls are not great to take on a single pistol shot at a time, and arachnotrons don't even notice the shotgun shrapnel you're pelting at them) but then like there's also modes where, say, a nuke is armed on every single floor you enter, so get out before it goes off, or a mode where you're GIVEN a single nuke to take down the boss with and you aren't allowed to use any other weapons at all (difficult)

now i kinda just wanna play doomrl

I mostly deal in semi-roguelikes but the one actual roguelike I've heard a ton of good things about (and have in my steam inventory and haven't gotten around to) is Tales of Maj'Eyal. It's open-source, so you can actually get it for free, but if you donate on their site or buy it on Steam/GoG you get some bonus features.

Another thing I'd really qualify as closer to a solid roguelike than semi-roguelike is Dungeons of Dredmor, which is jam-packed with flavor and goofy spells and a great time. Pick it up with all the expansions if you can, they're all real good.

Coming around to semi-roguelikes:

I'll let Schaz talk further about Crypt of the Necrodancer because I'm sure they can wax lyrical about it far better than I, but yeah, it's Great and Continues To Be Great. Top Tier.

(Schaz could probably also talk more in detail about TOME which iirc they've actually played).

Enter the Gungeon is really great fun if you want a super slick semi-shmup semi-roguelike that's still getting constant updates and filled with neat things. I've sunk a ton of hours in and as soon as the next update drops I'll sink a ton more.

Sunless Sea is a roguelikelike from the Fallen London browser game devs in which you must sail the unterzee and trade various goods around it in order to upgrade your ship so you can see more of it and solve long story questlines. Really good writing and story beats (as you might expect from the people behind Fallen London), and the game looks and feels great. The gameplay is a your mileage may vary sort of deal - if you enjoy sitting down with a game to decompress and waste some time the long sea trips are great, if you want constant action you might be a bit let down. There's also a Zubmariner expansion which adds a submersible you can launch from your ship, and coming soon is SUNLESS SKIES in which you'll be crewing a SPACE TRAIN.

I haven't played CRAWL but I've heard good things about its unique take on making an asymmetric adversarial multiplayer (!) roguelite.

Dungeon of the Endless is a top-tier (preferably) co-operative roguelite. Loads of fun, and with slick design decisions courtesy of the same folks who made Endless Legend and Endless Space.

Risk of Rain is an oldie and may have a bit less content than some of the above games but it's still one of my favorite action-roguelites of all time. Due to the ever-escalating enemy strength over time co-op is a riot, but you can definitely have a good time solo as well.

Darkest Dungeon is kind of different, and honestly one of the more -like of the roguelites I'm discussing here, but certainly at least deserves an honorable mention for its incredible aesthetics/tone and pretty neat party-based combat system.

Teleglitch is weird. In the best kind of way. Oppressive, minimally helpful, and a top-down real-time combat that forces you to exhibit almost superhuman reflexes at times. Which sounds bad, and definitely if you're not in for that kind of punishment it's perfectly fine to dislike the game for it. But that combined with a neat find debris/craft it system and a discovery-based story system makes me want to recommend, even though I've never gotten past the halfway point in it.

on a similar note as gungeon*, I super love Nuclear Throne. I've never beaten this one either but i've gotten close, and it'll happen at some point, I'm just bad at video games! But getting better has been lots of fun and like, it just feels so good, tbh. It doesn't have the same variety as gungeon does, the bosses are always gonna be the same if you take the same path, guns generally come in a few specific flavors, but that's fine, because it's very much about mastering what it does have. What it does have in variety is the characters, which all have a different passive and active ability that makes how you play with them vary quite a bit, and I can't decide who I like best so I almost always just play with random character selected.

*The game structure is very different but they're both twin stick shooters, so they control similarly

Oh yeah, CRAWL is great.

Thanks everyone :) These have all been added to my list of research materials

I will also bring up Hand of Fate, which is a game I just started playing that has a good mix of luck and skill.

My current list feels pretty hefty, but please bring up more games if you feel any are missing from the discussion so far

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup and Tales of Maj'eyal are both free and more like the original Rogue game (turn-based, tile-based dungeon crawling. In both you a pick a race and class which determines starting equipment and stats.)

Also not mentioned here yet and free are Red Rogue (sorta-platformer, option to play it "live" or time only progressing when you move) and Brogue which has the prettiest ascii art ever.

All except ToME have procedurally generated maps which include key features like sub-dungeons (branches as they're called in DCSS) as sorta-constants. ToME's as I recall are more fixed

And not free but also worth noting: caves of qud, sproggiwood

Shout-out to Nuclear Throne, Risk of Rain, Crypt of the Necrodancer; I've played those games a lot and loved them.

You should definitely check out Unexplored; it's a very interesting roguelike take, and one of my favourite games from this year. The dungeons are generated in a cyclical way, with hints to future locations and events, and branches that have challenges to unlock doors in previous levels.

A game I've been meaning to check out is HyperRogue, which is set on a hyperbolic plane. I don't know anything about the gameplay, but the concept intrigues me.

Can confirm Hyperrogue is a good time, though less Roguelike-y than some of the other entries here. There's no stats and most enemies can be killed in one shot, but you lose if you'll be hit on your next turn (i.e. if two enemies flank you).

It's purchasable on Steam but also playable for free online here.

Dead Cells is a solid action-roguelite (though still in early access if that's a concern). game takes clear inspiration from castlevania and dark souls; lots of weapons and spells and traps to toy around with, and hits that methodical-but-frantic combat style pretty well? it's been a while since I've played it, admittedly; there's been lots of updates and balancing and I'm not sure on the specifics anymore... but it is still updating frequently, so that's hopeful.

if you're enjoying Hand of Fate, definitely check out the sequel. while the core mechanics are fundamentally the same, (and thus prone to similar strengths and weaknesses,) the game both expands on those core mechanics in ways that feel natural and plays around with its game-within-a-game premise within each scenario. it feels... right, y'know?

Aside from that, seconding Enter the Gungeon and Risk of Rain on the action-y side, and Dungeons of Dredmor and Darkest Dungeon on the strateg-y side.

if you're enjoying Hand of Fate, definitely check out the sequel.

That's actually why I started playing the original. I got it in a bundle a while ago, but ignored it; now I'm trying to beat it before I get the second.

Not roguelike at all, but if you want some sweet dungeon-crawling action, check out the Legend of Grimrock series.

The only roguelike I like or have played is Pokemon Mystery Dungeon so I guess that makes me a pleb but check it out if you like roguelikes?? Not sure how it compares to other roguelikes really and I only play it for the story.

i love the roguelike about exploring a series of caves... what was it called again...?

oh wow i heard that ones getting a sequel

Hey, does anyone have any dungeon-crawling games, non-roguelike, to recommend?

Among RPGs, there's the Etrian Odyssey series for the DS and 3DS. They have a reputation for being hard, but most encounters are manageable if you know what you're doing.

Or, there's the DROD (Deadly Rooms of Death) series, which is a turn-based puzzle dungeon game. Basically, you kill monsters to clear rooms, but sometimes killing all the monsters is tricky. Earlier entries in the series have more of a focus on combat, while the fourth and fifth games are more focused on puzzles (and the fifth game has a ridiculous number of them).
The game also features a robust level editor, and there are hundreds of additional dungeons made by members of the community.

Related to the above is DROD RPG. Aside from the very basic movements, this plays completely differently from the main series; it's based on Tower of the Sorceror. There are stat upgrades hidden all throughout the dungeon (in fixed places), and monsters don't move, instead standing around waiting for you to kill them. So it becomes a game of figuring out which stat boosts and other benefits to go for first, before tackling stronger monsters. I struggle with this kind of gameplay myself, but it might be your thing. As with regular DROD, this features an excellent level editor, though there aren't as many custom level sets for this one.

Just finished Night in the Woods. It was hauntingly beautiful actually. I figured this game is right up your collective alley so most of you have probably played it already, but yeah if you haven't you really should. Not much in the way of gameplay elements, truthfully, but the story kind of hits you out of nowhere.

I started playing Etrian Odyssey recently. It's pretty good, but people weren't kidding when they said that it was like Wizardry. I really like the dungeon mapping features, but I'm not really a fan of the random encounters or the number of menus that come with the genre... I'm used to games like Might and Magic 6, or Wizardry 8, where exploration and combat take place in the same world, and attacking an enemy is as simple as clicking on them. (You should check those games out if you want cool battles in open 3d worlds, but the graphics are... dated)

heroes of might and magic was my jam, my favorite campaign was the one where you could only make skeletons then dive into a one-way dungeon full of angels. I entered with like, 20,000 and it still wasn't enough

Heroes of might and magic was also my jam. I don't think I played that campaign, but you can split the skeletons up into a couple stacks of 1 to waste enemy attacks.

Steam keeps trying to recc that to me because i've played an absolute shitload of Age of Wonder I lately. My grandma used to have the demo on her ancient computer when i was a kid and it still stands up!