Full Results for Ascii Dreams Roguelike of the Year

This is the fifth year I've had to string together superlatives describing the growth of the poll both in record numbers of entrants and numbers of votes. Thanks to all 5,123 of you who voted on the 283 games below.

91	4 (0%)
3079	8 (0%)
@Star Wars	16 (0%)
100 Heroes	11 (0%)
2419RL	3 (0%)
7DRL	8 (0%)
99 Levels to Hell	5 (0%)
ADOM	1445 (28%)
ADOM II (formerly JADE)	730 (14%)
Afterlife 3: Legends of Rickard Bronson	0 (0%)
AliensRL	72 (1%)
Allure of the Stars	3 (0%)
Angband	91 (1%)
Animonstres	0 (0%)
AppRogue	0 (0%)
Ascension of the Drillworms	1 (0%)
Ascii Wilderness	1 (0%)
AS.T.Ro	1 (0%)
AsylumRL	6 (0%)
Auro	3 (0%)
Bardess	0 (0%)
BattlePaths	0 (0%)
Below	1 (0%)
Beyond the Light	2 (0%)
BileBio	3 (0%)
Bone Builder	3 (0%)
BOSS	3 (0%)
Brogue	349 (6%)
Bushudo	0 (0%)
Cardinal Quest II	23 (0%)
Cardlike	9 (0%)
Cargo Commander	10 (0%)
Castle Dungeon	1 (0%)
Castle of the Winds Online	4 (0%)
Cataclysm	173 (3%)
Cave Chop	0 (0%)
Cave Rescue	0 (0%)
Caves of Qud	138 (2%)
Chengband	5 (0%)
Cinders	0 (0%)
Claustrophobia: The Downward Struggle	0 (0%)
Cogmind	70 (1%)
Como el Rogue	0 (0%)
Cooplike	0 (0%)
Cosmic Commando	9 (0%)
Crossword Dungeon	2 (0%)
Crystal Catacombs	1 (0%)
Cult: Awakening of the Old Ones	28 (0%)
Cursed Dungeons	0 (0%)
Cypress Tree Manor	1 (0%)
DaedlyFlazh	5 (0%)
DaJAngband	3 (0%)
Dangerous Dungeons of Sevenholm	0 (0%)
Dark Valhalla: Prelude	1 (0%)
Dary's Legend	0 (0%)
Das Schurke Boot	0 (0%)
Daybreak RL	0 (0%)
Dead Night Forest Chapter 2: The Lost Caravan	0 (0%)
Death Settler	0 (0%)
Deep Deadly Dungeons	3 (0%)
Delver	15 (0%)
Demonhunt	4 (0%)
Denizen's Den	1 (0%)
Depths of Peril	17 (0%)
Desktop Dungeons	83 (1%)
Destiny of Heroes	1 (0%)
Diablo III	95 (1%)
Diehard Dungeon	1 (0%)
Diggr	5 (0%)
Din's Curse	39 (0%)
DoomRL: Doom, the Roguelike	393 (7%)
Dungeon Panic!	1 (0%)
Dungeons of Desolation	1 (0%)
Drakefire Chasm	17 (0%)
Drox Operative	20 (0%)
DuneRL	5 (0%)
Dungeon Bash Tactics	2 (0%)
Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup	687 (13%)
Dungeon Dashers	8 (0%)
Dungeons of Dredmor	280 (5%)
Dwarf Fortress	605 (11%)
Dweller	59 (1%)
Earl Spork	5 (0%)
ElonaPlus	69 (1%)
Emet	0 (0%)
Encircled	2 (0%)
Enter Thy Name	2 (0%)
Epilogue	13 (0%)
Equal in Death	8 (0%)
Escape from the Vault	2 (0%)
Expedition	4 (0%)
FAangband	25 (0%)
Fabula Divina	2 (0%)
Fall From Heaven	4 (0%)
Fame	3 (0%)
FFHtR	2 (0%)
Fictional Roguelike	1 (0%)
Flatspace	8 (0%)
Flight of the Maxima	0 (0%)
Fog and Thunder	1 (0%)
Forays into Norrendrin	16 (0%)
Fragile Wrath	1 (0%)
FTL	454 (8%)
Fuel	9 (0%)
GatewayRL	1 (0%)
GearHead-2	21 (0%)
Gnoblins	0 (0%)
Goblet Grotto	6 (0%)
Grand Rogue Auto	5 (0%)
GUTS!	1 (0%)
Hack, Slash, Loot	19 (0%)
Hallowmorn Dungeon	0 (0%)
Halls of Mist	20 (0%)
Harmonia	0 (0%)
Hellmouth	1 (0%)
Herculeum	0 (0%)
Hokuto-no-rogue	6 (0%)
Hope	0 (0%)
HordeTheory	1 (0%)
House of the Lost	0 (0%)
HunterRL	1 (0%)
Hydra Slayer	13 (0%)
Hyperbolic Rogue II	5 (0%)
HyperRogue III	23 (0%)
I rule, you rule, we all rule old-school Hyrule	19 (0%)
Ighalsk	0 (0%)
Ignite	0 (0%)
Inferno+	2 (0%)
Infiniverse	3 (0%)
Infra Arcana	52 (1%)
Intelligence: The Roguelike	1 (0%)
Interhack	0 (0%)
Into the Dungeon ++	2 (0%)
JaggedRL	0 (0%)
Jelly	0 (0%)
Kaiju King	2 (0%)
Kerkerkruip	16 (0%)
Kitchen Masters	3 (0%)
LAIR!	0 (0%)
LambdaHack	4 (0%)
LambdaRogue	11 (0%)
Left Field Hotel	2 (0%)
Legacy	0 (0%)
Legend of Dungeon	5 (0%)
Legend of Siegfried	9 (0%)
Legends of Yore	21 (0%)
Life of Sir Pointsalot	0 (0%)
LinLem’s Vague Adventure Roguelike	0 (0%)
Locks	0 (0%)
Lost Labyrinth	15 (0%)
MagmaHack	1 (0%)
Magog	0 (0%)
Malastro	3 (0%)
Me Against The Mutants	1 (0%)
Meat Arena	0 (0%)
Mercury	4 (0%)
Microcosm	0 (0%)
MicRogue	5 (0%)
Middlecrest	3 (0%)
miniFlake	1 (0%)
Mont Asall	0 (0%)
Mujahid	6 (0%)
Mushroomvania	2 (0%)
Mutant Aliens!	2 (0%)
Mysterious Castle	3 (0%)
NEO Scavenger	24 (0%)
Neon	6 (0%)
NetHack-De	33 (0%)
Nightfall	2 (0%)
NitroHack	5 (0%)
NLarn	9 (0%)
No Way But Down	1 (0%)
Noxico	30 (0%)
NPPAngband	21 (0%)
OutlastRL	0 (0%)
PabloQuest 3: Danish Adventures	2 (0%)
Path of Exile	57 (1%)
phage	1 (0%)
Pineapple Smash Crew	4 (0%)
Pixel Dungeon	9 (0%)
Porta Lucis	4 (0%)
Portralis - NewAngband	8 (0%)
POWDER	76 (1%)
PRIME	11 (0%)
Probability 0	2 (0%)
Professional Sword Tester the Roguelike	1 (0%)
Project gnh20/The game of my dream (sb3dgraph)	2 (0%)
Prospector RL	42 (0%)
PWMAngband	4 (0%)
QUAD	0 (0%)
Quest for the Unicorn	1 (0%)
QuestQuest	2 (0%)
Quickband	9 (0%)
QuickHack	7 (0%)
QuillRogue	1 (0%)
RailRL	0 (0%)
Random Realms	3 (0%)
Ransack	0 (0%)
Receiver	3 (0%)
Red Rogue	55 (1%)
Revenge on a Toy Factory	1 (0%)
Rings of Valor	5 (0%)
ROADLIKE	2 (0%)
RoboCaptain	1 (0%)
Rogue Mud	0 (0%)
Rogue Survivor	38 (0%)
Rogue's Souls	8 (0%)
Rogue's Tale	10 (0%)
RogueDungeons	0 (0%)
RRRSRoguelike	2 (0%)
Ruins of Kal Raman	0 (0%)
SCP: Site 17	2 (0%)
Second Wind	1 (0%)
Seduction Quest	4 (0%)
Serial Killer	3 (0%)
Shadow Rogue	0 (0%)
Shattered Haven	0 (0%)
Shepherd Slaughter	3 (0%)
Sick Peter	4 (0%)
Sil	130 (2%)
Smooth Rogue	1 (0%)
Solstice	3 (0%)
SpaceNodes	0 (0%)
Spelunky HTML 5	39 (0%)
Spelunky XBLA	52 (1%)
Squirm	0 (0%)
Steam Marines	12 (0%)
Steel Knights	3 (0%)
Stella-111: A Cosmic Voyage	1 (0%)
Stellar Edge	4 (0%)
SUN CRUSHER!!!	19 (0%)
Super Office Stress	1 (0%)
Super Shotgun Showdown	0 (0%)
Swamp Monster	0 (0%)
Sword in Hand	7 (0%)
Sword of the Stars: The Pit	180 (3%)
Tales of Maj'Eyal (ToME)	1659 (32%)
Teleglitch	28 (0%)
Telos	0 (0%)
The Adventurer's Guild	5 (0%)
The Binding of Isaac	150 (2%)
The Challenge!	1 (0%)
The Death of Juga t'Dy	1 (0%)
The Four Challenges	0 (0%)
The Liberate Pixil Cup Quest	0 (0%)
The Light of Amber	1 (0%)
The Serpentine Caves	0 (0%)
The Slimy Lichmummy	15 (0%)
The Well Of Enchantments	1 (0%)
The Wizard's Lair	0 (0%)
Through	6 (0%)
TomeNET	133 (2%)
Top Dog	0 (0%)
Torchlight 2	175 (3%)
Tower Climb	13 (0%)
Traction Edge	0 (0%)
TrapRL	0 (0%)
Triangle Wizard	37 (0%)
Turambar	0 (0%)
Turnament	1 (0%)
Ugly Rogue	1 (0%)
Ultima Ratio Regum	63 (1%)
UnBrogue	26 (0%)
Underhill 2	0 (0%)
UnNetHack	37 (0%)
UnReal World	442 (8%)
Untitled	2 (0%)
Vapors of Insanity	6 (0%)
Voxel Heroes	1 (0%)
Voyage to Farland	3 (0%)
Waaaghammer	5 (0%)
Warden	2 (0%)
Wayward	9 (0%)
WazHack	25 (0%)
WebRaidMobile	0 (0%)
Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space	22 (0%)
World of Tey	1 (0%)
Wyrm	3 (0%)
X@COM	135 (2%)
Yeekband	2 (0%)
YioRpg	0 (0%)
Zaga-33	33 (0%)
Zero-Player Game	3 (0%)
Zombies!	5 (0%)
Zombocalypse	4 (0%)
Zone	3 (0%)

Best of lists

Goblet Grotto is among the indie gam.es Best of 2012: Adventure.

Badly worded, apology

I would like to sincerely apologise to DarkGod for the wording of the previous post which implied he was somehow cheating or hacking the poll. The post and follow up comments were poorly written and far too ambiguous and I should have been much more explicit about what was actually happening and what outcome I wanted.

From next year, the poll will include the following wording: 'Promotion of this poll from within a game itself is strongly discouraged and will be sanctioned if discovered. This includes using any kind of MotD or in game chat functionality which may already exist in the game.'

The reason I am making this change is I don't want anyone to start down the trail of 'I need to add feature X to the game to promote my chances of doing well in the poll'. There's no evidence that this is actually happening - and I would be surprised if it did - but I would hate for even one developer to make one decision which was based on this kind of reasoning.

You are completely free to promote your game outside the game itself - that's what forums, twitter, Facebook etc. are based on. Note the key difference between inside and outside the game, is that promotion outside the game can be done by anyone - the developer themselves are not the gatekeepers for this process. Whereas coding and/or code check-in and review are drains on developer time, and I don't want to end up being responsible for taking time away from working on the parts of the game which you feel are important.

Not happy

It appears that someone is distributing an .exe which has been modified to directly affect the vote outcome.

I believe this is a violation of the spirit of the poll, and I'd like to ask this person to stop.

Request for Votes: Ascii Dreams Roguelike of the Year 2012

283 roguelikes have qualified this year: this is again a record year on year number and 98 more than last year.

How did the games qualify?

The list was taken from the roguelike releases announced on the Rogue Basin news section between December 13th 2011 and December 15th 2012 and from the list of Actively Developing Roguelikes maintained by Michał Bieliński, plus other sources as discussed on a thread on Rogue Temple. Notably, despite the discussion period, several games were missed from the list - hopefully I've picked up everything.

What about 'x'? Why isn't it on the list?

Make sure you announced your roguelike on Rogue Basin for next year.

What about 'y'? Why is it on the list?

As roguelikes become more popular, the term is used to increasingly describe a broader type of game. This list has expanded to embrace that idea, but mostly to ensure that we don't miss any actual roguelikes. With this many entries, I'd rather be inclusive rather than exclusive, as I cannot possibly play every entry. You are free to not vote for a game if you don't consider it a roguelike.

What's the prize?
Pride. And a sexy logo - if you want one. You can see the winning 2007 logo on the Dwarf Fortress links page. Other winners are free to request them, but haven't done so. Logo designs for this year are welcome.

Having a competition is a dumb idea/offensive/stupid when you can't police the results.

Yep. Doesn't stop it being fun. You can vote for multiple different roguelikes. The idea here is that you will be encouraged to go out and download a roguelike that other people consider interesting, not that there is any kind of real competition element involved.

Which up and coming roguelike (like) are you looking forward to the most; new poll

Thanks to all 36 of you who voted. New poll coming shortly. This one had been hanging around long enough that most of the games on the list ended up getting released before I made the results post.

Auro	5 (13%)
Borderlands 2	9 (25%)
Diablo III	14 (38%)
FTL	10 (27%)
Minicraft 2, or whatever Notch decides to call it	1 (2%)
Mysterious Castle	2 (5%)
Red Rogue	0 (0%)
Spelunky XBLA	11 (30%)
The Archive	0 (0%)
The Occult Chronicles	5 (13%)
Unnamed Team Meat Project	5 (13%)
Unnamed Terry Cavanagh Tigjam UK Project	3 (8%)
Wrath of the Lamb	5 (13%)
Other (add in the comments)	3 (8%

Start wars

If you ever wanted to get your non-roguelike friends to play a roguelike, you need to point them here.

[via boing boing]

On gaming

This year has seen a significant shift in the way I approach games: I've become incredibly time poor - reflected in the catastrophic drop in output on this blog which now resembles a long form twitter account (A thing I have now started doing). That I managed to be a regular panellist on a podcast and release UnBrogue this year is merely a reflection of my time poverty: you always make time for things you love.

A conventional approach to a middle aged gamer with more money than time would be to sink that time into sampling a wide range of blockbuster games. I'm more fortunate in that I have a non-gaming partner to whom I have to justify my entertainment expenses: so my approach has been to set a threshold (around USD$20) at which I wait like a tunnel spider, waiting to pounce on games I want. Intriguingly, this means that my blockbuster experience has been firmly rooted in 2011: with play time spent with the Witcher 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and RAGE.*

Having only an arm's length perspective on much of the critical and mainstream game's writing this year has made me realise there's no journalistic or critical voice which represents me as a gamer any more. Partially this is a moving on of voices who spoke strongly to me (Kieron Gillen, Quintin Smith), and I'm waiting for some other voices to mature (Adam Smith, Jon Schafer) and hopefully not in the way that loses their individual flavour (I'm thinking here of Rob Zacny who's professional writing is somehow weirdly disconnected from the personality he brings to the fore in his podcasting and twitter account).

But I think it is also a reflection on the way that writing about games, especially games journalism, is wrapped up in a weird mix of neophilia and nostalgia, and the games I'm playing are too old or too odd to have any hype surrounding them, but too new to be seen through rose tinted shades. So when it comes to the blockbusters, I stopped playing the Witcher 2 as soon as I finished the prologue - a ridiculous combination of wildly uneven pacing and reaching my encumbrance limit 10 feet away from the first shop I found: there are better games for inventorytris. I uninstalled Deus Ex: HR far too late in the game: for a game mostly about hiding behind office desks, Metal Gear Solid 2 did it better ten years earlier and at least had the decency to ensure the desks were on a nuclear armed oil silo. And RAGE was somewhat inspirational during it's tense shooting set pieces: until I played Teleglitch. While I could not distinguish the quality of tension imparted to my viscera by both games, I could clearly tell the quality of writing apart (Teleglitch was far superior).

Games journalists seem to write about year old games only when the game releases a new patch or mod, and then primarily in the mode 'Hey here's a thing I can't be bothered playing: is it any good?'. Games critics seem to be focused on games amenable to critical 'analysis' whatever that means, and refusal to impart qualitative assessments. I want to know strictly about the middlebrow: games that need to be rescued from B obscurity: like Homefront, but not already in the process of redemption (Spec Ops: The Line). I've written about some already: Dark Messiah: Might and Magic, Clive Barker's Jericho, E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy, Crysis; but also AAA games that have no clothes, like Deus Ex: HR, Portal 2 and Bioshock, and how, though the latter is an objectively terrible game, it redeems itself with its sly commentary on the rapacious looting RPG mechanic. I'm thinking specifically of why Borderlands is one of the greatest games ever, and Borderlands 2 is terrible.

In short, why is there no Mystery Science Theatre equivalent to Old Man Murray, or Game Intestine, but written in the mode of the guy at the video store who'll recommend you and your girlfriend watch Kids?

And if there is, why don't I know about it?

[*] At the under $20 range, pretty much anything goes and I've gorged myself on Steam sales, indie releases, iPad nostalgia and DLC throughout the year. But I've not dangled my legs in the F2P water: when you're time poor this is not a cheap thing to do, and I've stepped away from my biggest gaming addiction to date: I've stopped losing myself in Team Fortress 2 for an evening or more a week.

Achievement unlocked

Recommend a favourite roguelike to hosts of all podcasts on the Idle thumbs network within one week. (From 1:12:40. Caveat: This is only an email I submitted being read out on air, about which I am perhaps unnecessarily excited.)

Fresh from the Something Awful forums

Apparently eroRL is a thriving sub genre... I'm not going to link to anything though.

What we've been trying to say is...

"The roguelike formula is an amazing design plan that isn't used much, mostly because its traditional designs rely on alienatingly complicated user interfaces. Once you crack the roguelike formula, however, it becomes an increasingly beautiful, deep, and everlasting design that allows you to generate a seemingly dynamic experience for players, so that each time they play your game they're getting a totally new adventure."

A list of games that is intended to provoke some discussion

7DRL
99 Levels to Hell
Afterlife 3: Legends of Rickard Bronson
Auro
Cave Rescue
Cardinal Quest II
Cargo Commander
Claustrophobia: The Downward Struggle
Crossword Dungeon
Crystal Catacombs
Dary's Legend
Delver
Diehard Dungeon
Dungeon Dashers
Epilogue
Enter Thy Name
Flight of the Maxima
Fog and Thunder
FTL
Gnoblins
GUTS!
Hack, Slash, Loot
Hallowmorn Dungeon
House of the Lost
HyperRogue III
Inferno+
Legend of Dungeon
Mercury
Minicraft 2
miniFlake
Mysterious Castle
NEO Scavenger
Pineapple Smash Crew
Probability 0
Project gnh20/The game of my dream (sb3dgraph)
QUAD
Receiver
Second Wind
Spelunky HTML 5
Spelunky XBLA
Steam Marines
Stella-111: A Cosmic Voyage
Super Office Stress
Sword of the Stars: The Pit
The Liberate Pixil Cup Quest
Teleglitch
The Wizard's Lair
Tower Climb
Turnament
Voxel Heroes
Voyage to Farland
WazHack
Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space
Zombocalypse

Key words I'm looking for in the comments section: 'No publicly playable release between 14th December 2011 and present day'. I count demos as playable releases. I'm also looking for thoughts on whether invite only or Kickstarter contribution only counts as publicly playable.

Things that should go together

Tea and milk. Peanut butter and honey. Oryx and brogue...

Signal to noise

I recently was invited onto a members only game design forum, with a strict rule on contributing and not lurking.

There's some incredibly talented game designers on the forum, having some incredibly interesting conversations about game design. I must have written up drafts for four or five posts in response to various posts, and then thrown them away, because I somehow feel like I'm not adding to the discussion. And I couldn't figure out why...

I believe the biggest challenge in game design is that people don't have a common language to talk about games: a vocabulary of game design. The only way that this will change is if we keep talking about games in public, which anyone can read and contribute to. Knowledge doesn't exist in a vacuum, it is a continuous conversation passed from person to person, and using the greatest knowledge reproduction tool we've discovered - the Internet - to then hide it behind a walled garden feels to me like a betrayal of that tool.

I completely understand why this forum has been set up: as a way to increase the perceived signal to noise ratio. But to me it is all noise. Unless some 13 year old kid in India, some graduate student, some hobbyist would be designer, some jaded industry veteran, some up and coming games journalist, someone unemployed, someone's mother can read what you're saying, you may as well be speaking in silence.

I urge the people involved in this particular forum (in fact any such forum) to find some mechanism for making the conversations that they're having available to a wider audience.

You shouldn't be scared of noise. Noise means you're transmitting on a channel. Pure signal is something that is never heard.

Caving in

A common thread to many developers who have successfully developed interesting games featuring procedural generation is that they don't consider themselves to be great programmers - Tarn Adams of Dwarf Fortress and Brian Walker of Brogue* have both said as much (and I definitely fall into the same category).

One of the things I've been waiting in vain for is someone who is a 'great programmer' to also have the vision and drive to deliver on a similar scale project. Infinity, the Quest for Earth has been promising to do so for some time, and I had thought Spore would deliver along those lines - but both projects haven't resulted in what I was expecting to date.

I'm now quietly confident that Miguel Cepero of newly christened Voxel Farm will get there. I've voiced doubts previously, but his latest blog post on cave systems has won me over. I'm now a believer.

* For the record, I loved working with the Brogue code.

Hitler tries the new Brogue 1.7

He doesn't mention UnBrogue for some reason.

Dissonance

Shamus Young and FTL
(I would write more, but I'm sure that regular readers of this blog will be able to add what I'm planning on saying on the comments section either here or there).

UnBrogue 1.0.5 released

Mac OSX + source. Windows + source.

This release fixes all outstanding issues and to do list items, however could do with a little bit more testing before being considered a stable release.

Changes for 1.0.5

- Prevent a player from killing themselves by wielding an enchanted weapon of Transference they lack the strength to use. (Reported by tinyrodent).
- Prevent sparks from [spoiler] causing slow down and visual bugs during playback.
- Correctly calculate shield gold value.
- Allow shields and talismans to be called something, instead of crashing. (Reported by tinyrodent).
- Potion of winds do not help other gases spread.
- Added 3 more machine rooms.
- Talismans generated as rewards will not be cursed (Requested by tinyrodent).
- Fix scroll of duplication messages.
- Prevent scrolls of duplication from duplicating themselves (Reported by multiple people).
- Prevent scrolls of enchantment from enchanting [spoiler].