AliensRL [roguelike]

[673f5417386abThiefsieFool]

Tags: °roguelike
AliensRL stands for Aliens: The Roguelike more or less.
Terrifying experience if you can get past the text mode. F.R.E.E.

Image: http://imgur.com/FP4S3.png

webpage and download: http://alien.chaosforge.org/
Forum: http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/board,19.0.html

[673f541738b47Kolya]

Very atmospheric. It even has speech and sounds, including ambience and aliens hissing and howling in the dark.

EDIT:
I found a later update (0.8 beta2) on their forums, updated the base version from the site with it and attached the result to the first post. Even this beta is a few years old, but it can save and load games. Apparently the author has taken up the project again as of late.
Anyhow, this game is just down my alley. Great find TF. 

Here are some slightly corrected tips also taken from that forum:

1) The most probable way to die in this game is to run out of ammo. To solve this problem, go to the storage tower immediately after the beginning of the game (it's just north of the civilian tower, where you begin). Stay there until you get a shotgun and possibly a magnum.

2) The goal of the game is to kill the queen. To do so, you will need some heavy firepower to get rid of the elites around her. The queen herself is no weakling, either. Smartgun is my weapon of choice here, with at least 50 units of ammo. The military tower is the place to find this toy, and possibly a power armor (the tower is west of storage tower).

3) Speaking of Elites. Those bastards are sure to spoil your picnic, so anti-elite measures are a must. Krak grenades can kill them in one hit. Plasma rifle is good here too. If you don't have these weapons, the Magnum can save the day. Failing that, the starting equipment can sort 'em out with a few medpacks. Just don't use your shotgun, it can't punch through the elite's armour.

4) Watch out for randomly spawning hunters. They hurt. A lot.

5) If you have the ability, explore as much as you can. It gives major exp bonuses.

6) Draw maps of the levels, especially note where the lifts are. You'll need them on your way out. I failed my game twice because I didn't know where those damn lifts are.

7) About classes: I found out that the scout works the best for me. But any class except medic and the tech guy will do, really.

8.) The most important note: DO NOT PRESS CTRL C! You don't want to end up losing your game after hours of playtime.

9) There's an old bug where splash damage doesn't exist for thrown grenades if they don't land on an alien.  I doubt it's been fixed in the latest beta. You really do need throwing skill fairly quickly.

[673f541738c8aThiefsieFool]

I'm glad you like it, I also almost forgot that it's pretty novel for a roguelike to have sounds/music, let alone ones this good.
From my plays I remember getting really, really far but still having to rely on the mp5/shotgun/pistol because the higher tier weapons are so tough to find, I'm going to give it another serious shot soon with that new version tho.

[673f541738d8fKolya]

You might want to wait a little longer, as the author recently twittered that a new version (stable 0.8 ) might be released in April.

[673f541738ed7ThiefsieFool]

I couldn't wait but it don't matter since I'll keep playing new versions as they come up, it's that good.
So I'm finally done, tips:
1. once you find a gyro-stabilizer, don't let go of it ever, even with irradiated areas
2. make copies of the "save" file lol. that way you can resume even if you die, I had my own folder of savegames

[673f541739031Kolya]

Much respect, I'm not even close to finishing this game. I guess I should start following the tips I quoted above but just rummaging around in these towers, trying to stay alive, is a lot of fun. Speaking of the tips, I'm sure grenade splash damage works, so I struck it from the list.

[673f541739186xerkon]

I tried this the other night.  Does having to imagine what the text is get easier the more you play?  I only played for a minute but all I saw were letters.  Somehow Privateer seems less "texty".  Roughly how long does it take to really experience this game?  Maybe that's something that's different for every person.  I'll definitely give it more of a shot than I did.

[673f5417394fcKolya]

From adom.de:

Most roguelike games do not use any graphics but rather rely on the ASCII character set to display their surroundings.
While this might sound horrible to you, you will be surprised how quickly you start to enjoy this "primitive" type of display. Your imagination quickly will take over and you'll no longer miss those ugly hand-drawn graphical tiles that do not resemble your picture of a dragon at all. But in your imagination, that blue D will soon become the most horrible and frightening ice wyrm you can imagine. Try it out. You won't be disappointed.

I have to say, this description is a bit misleading. In my experience you need to have some pre-existing idea of the monsters and your surroundings. This is true for me with AliensRL but certainly not with any roguelike. (What the hell is an "ice wyrm"?) I've seen the Alien films and the game's sounds help recall that atmosphere quite vividly. The rest is filled by fantasy. And when I play I can almost see me strolling down these corridors and encountering quick dog sized juveniles, elegant hunters and monstrous alien warriors. BAM! BAM! BAM! Back to the hell which spawned you!

[673f5417398deEnchantermon]

Not necessarily. When I played Rogue as a kid (and I've found myself playing it more now since you made this board), I didn't know what Hobgoblins or Kestrels or Orcs were, just to name a few, so I created images in my head. They were completely wrong, but who cares. I guess this could be a problem if you don't have any imagination, but if that's the case, you probably wouldn't get sucked into the atmosphere too much to begin with.

[673f541739a04xerkon]

I used to have a great imagination, and back then a game like AliensRL would have sucked me in instantaneously.  I'm sure my good imagination is still tucked away inside of me somewhere, but all the eye-candy in the latest games has spoiled me and caused my imagination to atrophy.  Maybe it needs an AliensRL booster shot.   

[673f541739b29Epyon]

New version up!

http://alien.chaosforge.org/

[673f541739c35Kolya]

Yay! Thanks for the heads-up!

EDIT: I may have frolicked too early...this update doesn't run for me. Not only that, it completely freezes my computer.
Not sure yet if it's some setting or a bug. But all I get is a transparent window named "Valkyrie SDL Application" and then the system dies.

[673f541739d0dEpyon]

I replied on the forum -- did lowering the resolution help?

[673f541739e4dKolya]

You're the author of AliensRL, Kornel?
I got 0.8 to work now, thank you.

Awesome game. I regularly play it on the train to uni.

[673f541739f3cEpyon]

Thanks - keep an eye out, the next version will be a lot better

[673f54173a0a3Kolya]

Cool, I'm looking forward to it. Though for now I'm happy strolling through v.08. Changes I noticed so far were the map showing only after exploration, the furniture of course and the keycards inventory. I'm especially looking forward to use those.

A note regarding furniture, walls and line of sight: When a locker or some other high object stands in front of a wall, that wall looks a lot like it had an opening there. It's not a bug or anything, it's just that the characters representing walls within LOS (#) and out of LOS (:) are quite different, which makes the map layout somewhat confusing, more notably so now that objects exist which can obstruct the LOS.

[673f54173a1f9Kolya]

After me bitching a bit about the graphical pseudo console in the latest release, Kornel has actually put up a console version of v0.8. Now that's fan service.

[673f54173a5afEnchantermon]

Now that's fan service.

I don't think that means what you think it means.
Image: http://www.snapdrive.net/files/391413/asciifanservice2.jpg

[673f54173a728Kolya]

Hehe, I know what it means in the anime/manga scene. But there are different kinds of rewards and I much prefer Kornel to make roguelikes than pantyshots. 

By the way that is some weird ugly picture. I guess that's what you get when you search for "fanservice" with the family filter on.

[673f54173ab1fEnchantermon]

But there are different kinds of rewards and I much prefer Kornel to make roguelikes than pantyshots.

I know, I was just playing off the term you used.

By the way that is some weird ugly picture. I guess that's what you get when you search for "fanservice" with the family filter on.

No...it's not easy to tell, which kind of ruins the joke, but it's ascii art. Therefore: ascii fanservice.

[673f54173ac2eKolya]

Well played Sir. However I raise you this.

[673f54173ad13Enchantermon]

Touché, my good man, touché.

[673f54173ae52Kolya]

Since this game is so awesome but tough as nails, I created a simple cheat-helper that is attached here.
If a savegame it exists it creates a backup, then runs the game.
If no savegame exists it restores one from the backup, then runs the game.
Place in your AliensRL folder and just use it whenever you want to play.

Code: [Select]

if exist save (
copy save save.bak
aliensrl.exe
) else (
copy save.bak save
aliensrl.exe
)

EDIT: Minor update of cheat.bat

[673f54173af6cEnchantermon]

Heh. When I was little, my uncle did the same thing for me for Rogue.