100 Rogues: Dungeon Crawler Game for iPhone
On Friday, I happened across a MetaFilter project for a game called 100 Rogues, a Roguelike dungeon crawler for the iPhone. I’m a sucker for games like this, and love the whole hack and explore and increase XP formula. There’s just something satisfying about the whole process that gets my brain firing the right way.
The interesting thing about this game is the permanent death feature. There’s no saving, no restarting where things left off. Once you die, it’s over. And the only way to continue is to start a whole new game (and start from the beginning).
It’s not as annoying as it seems. Since the maps are automatically generated anew each time, it feels like a completely different game. I’m happy to report that I’ve lost several hours on this guy, just this weekend alone.
A few caveats: this game is a bit pricey. At $4.99, it’s one of the more expensive apps I’ve ever purchased. The game is also still being refined, as I encountered a fair number of bugs and crashes when I first tried playing. Thankfully, an update was already in the app store… and after I installed the update, most if not all the crashes have been resolved.
Below is a video preview of the “Crusader” character class. As you can tell from the voiceover, there’s a lot of tongue in cheek comedy also tied in to the overall gameplay. If you’re wanting more of an official promo trailer, try this video.
More information on the game is available at the official site, 100rogues.com. While there are definitely some kinks to work out and the game isn’t 100% bug free, there are also two additional characters and two additional worlds planned. So it seems like there’s more content updates to come.
Like many of Popcap’s games, the overall time to complete a single game is decent… and reduces the chance that you’ll burn out (the randomzied maps help that a lot, too). While I was definitely frustrated when I first grabbed the game (due to the crashing), once I grabbed the patch… I was pretty hooked. Though it’s still being developed and imrpoved upon, if the time I’ve already spent playing 100 Rogues is any indication… it’s a pretty fun and pretty addictive little game.
I was struck by how $4.99 is “a bit pricey” for you. I feel the same way…yet there’s so much I spend much more on that I don’t think twice about. Price expectations for phone apps are odd. I know I’ve gotten used to free software (often better than the for-pay stuff), so maybe that’s it.True story: I paid $1.99 (+ tax!) for the Twitter app on my phone after having gotten the first beta versions for free. I use this app daily for hours. The per hour cost is essentially zero. Yet I was irritated about having to pay $1.99 and thought “this better be worth it”. In fact, I think the only reason I paid was that the old version no longer worked with the OS update on the phone. Nuts.
admoman (May 10, 2010 at 12:26 pm)