She slips on the ring, drinks the potion of polymorph, specifies “black dragon,” then slips on the amulet. She found the ring of polymorph and an amulet of polymorph control. One player started playing a character whose ambition in life was to be a dragon. Watching others play creates a micronarrative, a communal experience like hearing about a Nethack ascension run, reading the touchstone Dwarf Fortress boatmurdered saga, or losing an afternoon deep in the intrigue of EVE Online: Although it’s not important to the game, some of the most fun you can have with roguelikes actually doesn’t involve playing them, but involves going into the Usenet groups and reading players’ stories about their games. It is the difference between me running some laps in the park against seeing Allyson Felix compete in the Olympics: sure, we’re both running, but only one of us elevates it to an artform. Also, I'll say that although roguelike fans will get the most out of this book, neophytes should enjoy it, too.Īpex Legends released recently to roaring acclaim a behemoth on twich, the hype got me to try it-I even scraped together a win-but I quickly gave up and went back to watching professionals play. ![]() The end result is a collection of stories that are meant to be read in chronological order, but can be cherry-picked if, say, readers are more interested in Moria than they are NetHack. My interest in writing about them stemmed from interviews I did for STAY AWHILE AND LISTEN, wherein I explore the making of Diablo, which was influenced by roguelike games.Īs is usually my approach when writing about game development, I wrote about the games covered in DUNGEON HACKS through the lens of the era in which they were made: the shared interests and factors that influenced their creators, and how the technology they used informed their designs. (I'm counting it toward books read in 2016 because I spent this past weekend reading through and revising it.)ĭUNGEON HACKS chronicles the making of seminal roguelikes-RPGs with procedurally generated levels, monsters, and treasure. Instead, I'll talk a bit about the process of writing it. I wrote this book, so I won't cheat by leaving a star-rating or critique.
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