The Dude
Liturgist
Since the search function seems utterly broken for me at the moment I don't know if anyone else found the gem that's Legerdemain. It's basically a roguelike coupled with Interactive Fiction, which actually works as well as it sounds like when you hear it.
Your character is some kind of mage, called a "manipulator" in the setting, and the type of mage as well as any additional skills are chosen in the beginning through a set of questions a la Daggerfall or JA2. The schools of magery aren't really that cookie-cutter but all of them feels kinda usefull. Which could be seen as a bad thing is that the game employs memorization a kin to AD&D, but on the other hand this makes it a real decision when to use your powers since rememorizing some of the spells takes a lot of time.
The first dungeon (at least what you can see of it when you are trying to escape) is pretty boring, but once you come out (which is likely to cost you a few characters) the game opens up. The thing that makes this roguelike stand out though, are the pretty much non roguelike elements of dialogue and story. There are reoccurent descriptions of locations popping up sometimes and the ones I have encountered so far are generally well written although a bit bombastic at times. The dialogue system is the tested and true approach using a few speak-phrases (hail, chat, gossip, offer, ask) coupled with the ability to type in a keyword if you ask something. You mostly won't get any essay-lenght expositions out of NPCs, but what's there is again decently written and relevant.
I haven't actually come that far into the game yet, but what I've seen so far makes me want to play it more. If you don't mind ASCII, and thinks that a combination of a roguelike and interactive fiction sounds like a good idea I think you should try Legerdemain out.
Some pics:
Character screen:
Entering the first village:
Your character is some kind of mage, called a "manipulator" in the setting, and the type of mage as well as any additional skills are chosen in the beginning through a set of questions a la Daggerfall or JA2. The schools of magery aren't really that cookie-cutter but all of them feels kinda usefull. Which could be seen as a bad thing is that the game employs memorization a kin to AD&D, but on the other hand this makes it a real decision when to use your powers since rememorizing some of the spells takes a lot of time.
The first dungeon (at least what you can see of it when you are trying to escape) is pretty boring, but once you come out (which is likely to cost you a few characters) the game opens up. The thing that makes this roguelike stand out though, are the pretty much non roguelike elements of dialogue and story. There are reoccurent descriptions of locations popping up sometimes and the ones I have encountered so far are generally well written although a bit bombastic at times. The dialogue system is the tested and true approach using a few speak-phrases (hail, chat, gossip, offer, ask) coupled with the ability to type in a keyword if you ask something. You mostly won't get any essay-lenght expositions out of NPCs, but what's there is again decently written and relevant.
I haven't actually come that far into the game yet, but what I've seen so far makes me want to play it more. If you don't mind ASCII, and thinks that a combination of a roguelike and interactive fiction sounds like a good idea I think you should try Legerdemain out.
Some pics:
Character screen:
Entering the first village:
