Andrew Doull, roguelike developer and mantainer of roguetemple’s friend blogsite: Ascii Dreams, has finished a review for the outstanding Angband variant: SteamBand!
Steamband is a Steampunk / Victorian / Pulp variant of Angband, A roguelike ASCII dungeon exploration simulation game. Steamband was based off the 2.9.3 version of Angband source code.
Check out the review, reproduced here at roguetemple with his permission.
Be sure to check too the Verbose Dumps if you want to get a feeling of the game, and the excellent fan-art by ponpoko.
Temple of The Roguelike 
Once a band, always a band. Looks and plays like any other band.
I guess a lot of people find this conforting…
Nice review though.
LikeLike
I thought this game wasn’t being developed any more?
LikeLike
The appeal of the band seris is, I think, a mircosm of the appeal of roguelikes in general; with these siimple graphics, commands and concept (rush through a get/kill something) what has the author done differently with the same. The bands blend together on the surface, but it’s in the details that they are fascniatingly different. Steamband is one that stands out not so much mechanically but artistically. This might not seem an important distinction, but in a free enviroment (ie. you have nothing PRESSING to do in 98% of Roguelikes) it’s how you picture your surroundings that draw you into a game.
For a good example of these conceptual distinctions compare this to Hellband, or even Furyband just down below.
LikeLike
Harh, I never expected my old art to turn up here of all places, this is kind of embarassing 😀 man look at all those anatomy mistakes damn damn damn MY SECRET SHAME EXPOSED
Seriously though, I’m definitely agreeing with AsciiKid here – gameplay-wise it’s your basic rogue-like, but it’s the theme and the well-conveyed 19th century adventure mood that really make the game for me. I realize that practically I’m just making my ascii dude kill ascii monsters by walking towards them, but somehow it’s just more appealing to me when it represents punching morlocks in a deerstalker hat than when it’s about punching kobolds in a leather helmet. Am I weird for preferring non-gameplay elements in ascii rogue-likes, which are arguably purely about gameplay?
I should probably redo those character class portraits some time 😦
LikeLike
Don’t worry about it, pomppo- Rogue Temple had some of my art up a few weeks ago, yours looks good in comparison.
LikeLike