I’ve been playing a whole bunch of Roguelikes lately. Here’s a short list of games I’ve really enjoyed.

Nethack

Nethack is the first roguelike I ever played. There were a bunch of students in my Computer Science program at Oberlin that were always playing it in the CS labs.

Most recently, it’s what got me hooked on the genre all over again. Famously, it gives you almost nothing to go on when you start. It’s up to you to figure out everything based on what you – the player – know about the game. It’s like a puzzle!

Brogue

Brogue is the first Roguelike I played after only ever playing Nethack. The first time I started it up I was in awe. It does a really great job of making use of the terminal to render a beautiful world for you to explore. The water (there are lakes!) animates, there are fields of mossy grass and plants, there are blobs of goo that explode and spread noxious pink gas everywhere.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

My friend David introduced me to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup on Twitter. I think it does a good job of distilling the complexities of many roguelikes into a simpler form that’s still rich and engaging. I really like how easy it is to drop in on people and observe games too!