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rbandrewsI just finished an epic game of Dungeons of Dredmor.
There are so many things that make this game great. Here are a few of them:
- Almost every healing item is heal-over-time. This means you can't potion-spam to win hard fights; you have to plan out "okay, I'm losing x health to this guy a turn, so I can gain one health a turn by eating this cheese, that'll give me three more turns, in which I can..."
- The game gives you interesting, meaningful abilities on level one. The first few rooms of the game are actually interesting combats and you can do more than just "attack and hope he dies first". So many roguelikes get this wrong.
- It's hilarious. The first time I saw a Lutefisk god statue I busted out laughing. The first time I saw an altar to Inconsequentia, the goddess of side-quests, I bought Adam the game.
- Character creation is neither time-consuming nor boring. There are thirty-six abilities and you can pick any seven you want (although you're well advised to pick at least one weapon proficiency). Do that, name your guy, and you're done.
- The abilities are interesting. They all let you do interesting and obviously strategy-altering things from the very beginning of the game. And, they alter your (random) starting gear, so you're guaranteed to get the items you need to use your abilities.
- Characters aren't all-or-nothing. You can easily be a tank who is also a caster. In fact, every character is expected to have a good melee weapon, a crossbow, and some spells. You need all three to not get drilled.
- It's turn-based. Completely. Combats aren't a matter of clicking fast, so it's playable on a laptop. The game wants you to, requires you to, will kill you if you don't, think your way through it.
- You aren't expected to pick up every little piece of junk and sell it for a nickel to merchants. In fact, unless I have a Horadric Lutefisk Cube (turn any item into a piece of Lutefisk) I'll leave most of the junk I find on the ground. Inventory management is just not fun.
There are so many things that make this game great. Here are a few of them:
- Almost every healing item is heal-over-time. This means you can't potion-spam to win hard fights; you have to plan out "okay, I'm losing x health to this guy a turn, so I can gain one health a turn by eating this cheese, that'll give me three more turns, in which I can..."
- The game gives you interesting, meaningful abilities on level one. The first few rooms of the game are actually interesting combats and you can do more than just "attack and hope he dies first". So many roguelikes get this wrong.
- It's hilarious. The first time I saw a Lutefisk god statue I busted out laughing. The first time I saw an altar to Inconsequentia, the goddess of side-quests, I bought Adam the game.
- Character creation is neither time-consuming nor boring. There are thirty-six abilities and you can pick any seven you want (although you're well advised to pick at least one weapon proficiency). Do that, name your guy, and you're done.
- The abilities are interesting. They all let you do interesting and obviously strategy-altering things from the very beginning of the game. And, they alter your (random) starting gear, so you're guaranteed to get the items you need to use your abilities.
- Characters aren't all-or-nothing. You can easily be a tank who is also a caster. In fact, every character is expected to have a good melee weapon, a crossbow, and some spells. You need all three to not get drilled.
- It's turn-based. Completely. Combats aren't a matter of clicking fast, so it's playable on a laptop. The game wants you to, requires you to, will kill you if you don't, think your way through it.
- You aren't expected to pick up every little piece of junk and sell it for a nickel to merchants. In fact, unless I have a Horadric Lutefisk Cube (turn any item into a piece of Lutefisk) I'll leave most of the junk I find on the ground. Inventory management is just not fun.
