Rogue

There’s been many efforts to define exactly what a “rogue-like” game is. Permadeath is definitely one. A different map every time you play is another. Having to discover each time what the magic items you discover do, that’s one. Descending into a deep dungeon, grabbing a quest item and making it back to the surface in one go, definitely. Rogue came out of a thriving ecosystem of similar dungeon-exploration games from the late 70s and early 80s. Its simple, quick gameplay was perfect for quick gaming sessions between classes, which is how I first encountered it at the University of New Hampshire back in the day. Universities, back then, were the fertile breeding ground for the progenitors of many computer game genres that we still play today. It was a wonderful time. ...

The thing about “rogue-likes” is, they aren’t for everyone. Let’s face it – you will probably never, ever win a real rogue-like, no matter how long you play. The only question is, how far will you get before you die, lose everything, and have to start over from the very beginning? It’s about the heroic struggle, not the happy ending. ...

This isn’t going to be a new player’s preview to the Chronicles of Spellborn – you can find links to that sort of information after this post that point to my experiences playing on the EU servers prior to the Acclaim closed beta, or take a look at Dragonchasers’ excellent initial impressions. On the EU servers, I played a Rune Mage. My special power: Special tattoos that could be triggered to cause explosions. Rune mages are the EQ2 warlocks (or WoW frost mages) of Spellborn, and since many of my damage spells also triggered instant heals or heals over time, I felt very comfortable mostly tanking things, moving only to get out of enemy AOEs, but mostly just building and executing combos through the skill deck. ...