NorseWorld Ragnarok

The Isometric ModeRagnarok-Valhalla is/was a graphical roguelike game from the early 90’s.

I was surprised to find out a very well done remake project is under development by a group called “Alchemist Team”, under the name “NorseWorld Ragnarok”.

Screenshots look very nice, using a much improved UI over the original and including a nice looking isometric mode parallel to the classic zoomed-out + detail mode and an ASCII mode.

Overall, the game seems to have been adapted to modern gaming technology; there are lots of improvements, such as native linux support, a built in script handler and multilanguage support (currently russian/english, english texts are still being polished though)

The Console modeThe console mode is an absolutely awesome demake of the original UI, while still being a bit sluggish (seem to use an emulated console instead of direct real console access), I always wanted to see this game with a cleaner, easier to use UI.

The bad news: English version isn’t very polished yet, although it is at the DevTeam plans to enhance it. Godspeed for them!

The development of this game was begun at november 2002, as remake of Ragnarok game, created in 1992-1995 by Thomas Boyd and Robert Vawter.

In English modeIn this roguelike-game, created on base of scandinavian mythology, you are brave viking, who must help the aces (the gods) to win in Ragnarok – the final battle against evil. This battle will determine the fate of nine worlds.

You begin in your village and can choose between the ways of viking warrior, woodsman, blacksmith, alchemist, conjurer or sage. Each way is different from others and has its own advantages and disadvantages, each new game is totally unique:worlds and their levels, lands, creatures, items and even merchants are randomly generated.

NorseWorld Ragnarok
Developers: Alchemist Team Led by Serg V. Zhdanovskich
Licence: Freeware (not confirmed)
Supported OS’es: Unknown
Status: 0.99.2 alpha

3 thoughts on “NorseWorld Ragnarok

  1. Oh, cool. I never thought I’d hear anything new about that game again.

    Ragnarok was easyish by roguelike standards, but I dunno… to me it had a charm to it that I don’t believe I’ve seen in any other.

    I think a good part of it is in how many cool things there are to discover. All of the ‘bands take place in far larger maps, but there’s really nothing interesting in them when it comes down to it. The monsters and items are just continually stronger versions of the same thing. Ragnarok has the orb of imprisonment, the bazaar, the different dimensions, and the ability to travel to them, the wand of annihilation, etc.

    My biggest complaint about the game is that in a regular human’s body the game gets pretty tough, but if you polymorph into, say, a Swordsman? It’s a cakewalk. If this isn’t just a remake, I hope that they improve the starting human body you have, and limit some of the others. Not that polymorph isn’t fun, but it should be more viable to play without it.

    Like

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