Transcendence [roguelike]

[679b8e291975cTwerty]

Tags: °roguelikeI'm not sure whether this should go in Roguelikes, or Free Games, so I'll post it here, because this game, too, also has the whole 'space-trading-sim' bit going on for it, with roguelike elements and randomly generated content, but not actually being a roguelike.

http://neurohack.com/transcendence/Downloads.html

Transcendence. And -extremely- polished off game, where '1.00' is faaaar from its first release. I just couldn't help but post if after seeing Ampersand talk about upgrades and your ship being like an 'itty-bitty space-snail' in the beginning.

[679b8e291996bKolya]

We're not very strict about what games "roguelike" includes, as you can see from me putting up Harbinger. And while I personally wasn't too happy with the flight controls in Transcendence I think it deserves it's own thread.

[679b8e2919ab8Twerty]

To your credit, Harbinger, a hack-and-slash RPG, seems much more roguelike than Transcendence, a top-down space shooter. Though I do agree being more strict than necessary about the matter is a bit silly, fun games are fun nonetheless. :p

Out of sheer curiosity, may I ask what you found dislikable about the controls? I found they took a little bit to get used to, but adjusted rather quickly. That doesn't mean I'm good at the game, but I got the controls down, anyway.

[679b8e2919e2bKolya]

Yeah, I have a problem with it's traditional Asteroid-like controls. To quote myself:

Personally I think Asteroid controls are a relict from a time when it used to be okay for video games to let the player fight the controls more than anything else. But it also largely depends on the way they're implemented:
- Automatic breaking for example. Now I can already hear someone say it: "This is space, no friction!". But don't be so foolish, because of course it's not space, it's a game. It ignores lots of other aspects of space and rightfully so, because realism isn't always fun.
- Mousecontrol, see Rymdraket for an example of how to do Asteroid controls right with mouse controls.

So in conclusion, I have a problem with this sort of traditional Asteroid controls, because they're clumsy, imprecise, hard to control and imho they don't fit at all into an RPG where you often want to reach specific goals, have to manage resources carefully and so on, but - oh no! - you just drifted a few million miles past your target planet (again) and into a field of enemy ships and turrets. Yay.

tl;dr: Kolya sucks at Asteroid and therefore doesn't like Transcendence.

I found the rest of the gameplay quite intriguing, so that point irked me even more. But maybe if I try it another day I might get a bit further with it and get used to the controls.

[679b8e2919f9dTwerty]

I guess it's just differing tastes. :p I think it's part of the appeal of the game. It does make things more difficult, but it adds to the use of omnidirectional (autotargetting) weapons, and I think strafing by a bunch of enemies blasting away feels kinda badass. Ah, well.

There IS a stop button. Guess you could just hold it down like all the time. :p

I don't think it really makes the game feel harder because the enemies drift a few million miles past while trying to shoot at you, too, heh.