Roguelike Radio

Happy New Year roguelike fans!  It's 2013, we're all still alive, and we're back with a new episode of Roguelike Radio.  This week we cover the Resurrection of ADOM, with Darren Grey, Thomas Biskup and Ignacio. Read more »

Hosts discuss challenges in determining Roguelike game of the year, controversy over erotic roguelikes, appeal of Lua for scripting in game development, trend of first person shooter roguelikes, debate over whether commercial action RPGs qualify as roguelikes, discussion on what constitutes a roguelike and exploration of introducing tiles and cool items in the game. They also mention recent updates and releases in the genre, highlight popular roguelike games and their communities, and express disappointment in the lack of game discussions in general communities.

Justin Ma and Matthew Davis, developers of the roguelike spaceship sim FTL, discuss the game's influences from board games, its scale and setting, the mechanics and design choices of crew members, advanced tactics and dialogue events, risk and crew member survival, flaws in the system, and post-release activities and future plans.

Troy Goodfellow, founder of the strategy game podcast Three Moves Ahead, joins the discussion to explore the intersection of strategy games and roguelikes. The conversation dives into the evolution of roguelikes, emphasizing their unique mechanics compared to traditional strategy titles. They dissect how players handle failure, showcasing emotional journeys in games like Dark Souls and Dwarf Fortress. Furthermore, the guests discuss the crossover potential between fantasy strategy and roguelikes, highlighting indie innovations shaping the future of gaming.

Guests Darren Grey, Ido Yehieli, Michael Brough, Sos Sosowski, and Zapa discuss the thrill and challenges of participating in game jams. They share their experiences, talk about popular game jams like the Seven Day Roguelike Challenge and Ludum Dare, and explore the benefits of participating in game jams including creativity, learning, and community.

Listen as Darren Grey, Tom Betts, Michael Cook, Ian Horswill, Leif Foged, and Andrew Doull discuss the intersection of game design and academia. They explore automated game design, constraint technology, crossover between game design and other fields, designing games with a multi modular AI program, exploring 3D roguelike game development in Unity, procedural content generation in a dungeon crawler game, presenting academic concepts to a general audience, moving beyond copying existing games, open access to academic research in game design, challenges and solutions in collaboration between academic and indie game development communities, challenges of procedural content in game design, and an open source bibliography database and academic events.

In this engaging conversation, Jagosh Kalezich, an artist from Cardinal Quest, discusses the struggle of sourcing quality artwork for roguelikes. Thomas Whetnall, known for Fuel, shares the importance of collaboration with artists and explores the potential of open-source tile sets. Meanwhile, John Attea, from Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, dives into pixel art techniques and licensing issues. They collectively ponder the evolution of gaming art and the balance between nostalgia and modern design in the vibrant world of roguelikes.

Jagosh Kalezich, a graphic artist from Cardinal Quest, joins Thomas Whetnall, indie game developer and tile artist, along with John Attea, known for his work on Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. They dive into the intricacies of graphics and tile design in roguelikes. The experts discuss the balance between minimalist visuals and gameplay, the challenges of transitioning from ASCII to tiles, and the importance of collaboration in game art. They also reflect on the role of color palettes and the creative freedom found in indie game development.

This milestone discussion dives into the journey of creating 50 episodes, highlighting the struggles and triumphs along the way. The team reflects on their experiences with the roguelike community, emphasizing the passion behind indie game development. They tackle the challenges of game design, particularly the significance of user interfaces for accessibility. Listeners are invited to share in the evolution of roguelikes while looking forward to exciting future topics and potential guests, all sprinkled with humor and personal anecdotes.

Welcome to Roguelike Radio episode 49. This week we interview Tarn Adams, creator of Dwarf Fortress. Talking this episode are Darren Grey, John Harris and Tarn Adams. Read more »