Recently I read a post on Super Adventures in Gaming about a game called Rogue Legacy. Then a couple days later Sthenno left a comment on one of my Steam card posts saying we should become Steam buddies to trade cards, even though he doesn't have any cards because all he plays is Rogue Legacy. Then I went to look on Steam for Rogue Legacy and it was on sale. It looked cool, so I picked it up.
In the couple days since then Sthenno has been playing lots of games to gather cards. I have been playing lots of Rogue Legacy. Even though it doesn't have cards, it does have my attention. It's basically a platforming RPG roguelike game where you run around in a castle attacking bad guys for loot until you die. The twist is that unlike a normal roguelike game (where you're acquiring loot and experience to power yourself up) in Rogue Legacy you're acquiring loot to power up your next character. Your current character is going to die. But the cash he picks up along the way gets handed down to the next generation in your family, and they can spend that cash to buy permanent upgrades that make themselves and every future character better. Each time you die you get to pick between three children with different classes, spells, and random modifiers. Maybe you're a dwarf so you fit into small places. Maybe you're colourblind so the game is played in black and white. Maybe you fart a lot. I don't know if that last one actually helps me in any way, but it's amusing.
The one thing I've always hated about roguelike games like ZAngband is the feeling you get when you do pretty well, but then die. You have to start all the way from scratch again, with the knowledge that you're almost certainly not going to get as lucky with early loot drops and you're probably just going to die on floor 10 again. This game completely removes that feeling. Now when I die I get to be happy. I probably have enough cash to make my next try slightly easier. If I'd tried out a new class or trait combination and didn't like it, I get a different one. And since nothing you find in the castle actually helps out your current playthrough I never get that feeling that this was my lucky chance and I've lost it. If I die early and don't have enough cash to buy anything new? Oh well! It didn't take much time to have that happen and I can just try again!
I went to check what year it is in my game while writing this, and got sucked into playing 4 times. My most recent character lived from 2367 to 2386. The SAiG post said the game starts in 760, so my little line of adventurers has been trying to beat this castle for 1626 years. And hasn't even come close to beating the first boss. Poor, terribly family. At least they make lots of cash!
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