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Roguelike for DS and GBA
An update for this popular Roguelike homebrew game.
To understand POWDER, you should first understand roguelikes. "Roguelike" is a term applied to a wide variety of games which share a common inspiration from the game Rogue. A non-exhaustive list of such games would be: ADOM, Nethack, Crawl, Diablo (I & II), Moria, and Angband. My apologies to the many excellent roguelikes I didn't list. What characterizes these games? The exact specifications are a matter of debate - indeed, I may receive hate mail for including Diablo - but I shall try to write a few:
Having defined Roguelike, POWDER is easy to describe: A Roguelike designed for the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS.
- Tactical play. The unit of action is based on the individual adventurer. The game is not twitch oriented (like Quake, rewarding reflexes & well trained actions) nor is it strategy oriented (like Civilizations or Warcraft, requiring working on the large picture)
- Based in Hack and Slash. A roguelike isn't primarily about plot development or telling a story. It is about killing things and acquiring treasure.
- Random games. A roguelike is a dungeon crawler where no two games are the same. The maps are different, the items are different, there are no guaranteed win paths.
- Permadeath. You die, that is it. No restoring a savegame. Good roguelikes delete your save game after loading them. This is compensated by the replayability of the game.
- Complex interactions of properties. While the commands for a roguelike are simple, the potential interactions are not. My favourite example is equipping a silver ring as a weapon in order to damage a creature vulnerable to silver, but not one's other weapons. [Editor: This matches the Hack branch of the roguelike tree, not the Angband branch]
- Steam rolling monsters. If a critter is in your way, and weak, you shouldn't even notice it is there.
Having defined Roguelike, POWDER is easy to describe: A Roguelike designed for the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS.
Exciting new tools include the first large special weapon - the Earth Hammer. More zaniness has been added to the great tridude den in the sky. Sick and stoning characters will get some onscreen visualization of their plight, and users of stickyflame will enjoy a more accurate depiction of the suffering of their foes.
* Leather helms will actually use the new leather helm icon. (Bunnyriffic)
* Doors to special rooms will hopefully now be properly blocked so wandering monsters don't wander through them.
* Secret doors should no longer be giveaways in dark rooms by being the only lit wall.
* Special overlay tile when creatures are on fire.
* New special weapon, the earth hammer. (Ibson the Grey)
* Creatures may teleport you to escape rather than always themselves.
* Creatures will use wands of sleep to escape. (Derek S. Ray)
* Creatures that are tame to someone other than yourself are described as followers rather than tame. (Derek S. Ray)
* Picked up items always go to the end of your inventory rather than filling holes, hopefully making it easier to find items you just picked up. (Malte Helmert)
* H'ruth is no longer impressed by you being surrounded by sleeping or paralysed enemies. (Robert Hamaker)
* The charging of lightning rapiers is now proportional to the damage that would be done.
* Tlosh will grant exotic armour skill. (R. Dan Henry)
* Necromancer and Barbarian dress codes (R. Dan Henry)
* When polyed into a grid bug you can move diagonally with the stylus, mouse, or the new Move command. (Michal Bielinski)
* Flamestrike's strength now is dependent on your favour with your current god. (Xaintrix)
* Ghosts are no longer able to bypass the library's locks.
* You can make secret doors and hidden traps. (CYBER Aeon)
* You can smash viewports. (Brendan)
* Name generator has a hotkey so keyboard purists can use it. (Brendan)
* Forgetting things no longer leaves the menu on screen.
* When turning to stone or poisoned your apperance changes.
* The final damage from poison is now applied before the you are cured message, leading to a less confusing apparent order of events. (Andrew Poandl)
* Ibson the Grey tileset white and red dragons fixed. (Vladimir Stalin)
* Leather helms will actually use the new leather helm icon. (Bunnyriffic)
* Doors to special rooms will hopefully now be properly blocked so wandering monsters don't wander through them.
* Secret doors should no longer be giveaways in dark rooms by being the only lit wall.
* Special overlay tile when creatures are on fire.
* New special weapon, the earth hammer. (Ibson the Grey)
* Creatures may teleport you to escape rather than always themselves.
* Creatures will use wands of sleep to escape. (Derek S. Ray)
* Creatures that are tame to someone other than yourself are described as followers rather than tame. (Derek S. Ray)
* Picked up items always go to the end of your inventory rather than filling holes, hopefully making it easier to find items you just picked up. (Malte Helmert)
* H'ruth is no longer impressed by you being surrounded by sleeping or paralysed enemies. (Robert Hamaker)
* The charging of lightning rapiers is now proportional to the damage that would be done.
* Tlosh will grant exotic armour skill. (R. Dan Henry)
* Necromancer and Barbarian dress codes (R. Dan Henry)
* When polyed into a grid bug you can move diagonally with the stylus, mouse, or the new Move command. (Michal Bielinski)
* Flamestrike's strength now is dependent on your favour with your current god. (Xaintrix)
* Ghosts are no longer able to bypass the library's locks.
* You can make secret doors and hidden traps. (CYBER Aeon)
* You can smash viewports. (Brendan)
* Name generator has a hotkey so keyboard purists can use it. (Brendan)
* Forgetting things no longer leaves the menu on screen.
* When turning to stone or poisoned your apperance changes.
* The final damage from poison is now applied before the you are cured message, leading to a less confusing apparent order of events. (Andrew Poandl)
* Ibson the Grey tileset white and red dragons fixed. (Vladimir Stalin)
Thanks go to the mighty Urza for the news.
