The gigantic poll for teh best roguelike of 2008 has finished at Ascii dreams, and the undoubted winner is…. Dungeon Crawl, Stone Soup!
This comes to no surprise as this “variant” has given Crawl, which was already one of the most popular roguelike, a new breath of life. Congratulations to all the development team!
Following are the 10 first games:
1. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup: 126 votes
2. Dwarf Fortress: 116 votes
3. Incursion: Halls of the Goblin King: 45 votes
3. DoomRL: 45 votes
5. POWDER: 30 votes
6. Legerdemain: 28 votes
7. GearHead-2: 18 votes
7. Elona: 18 votes
9. Unangband: 16 votes
10. T.o.M.E: 15 votes
Congratulations to all developers!
Temple of The Roguelike 
At least a RL won, but its a shame to see so many votes for a game that is not even a roguelike.
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That makes one think, if lots of poeple think a game is a roguelike, doesn’t that make it a roguelike?
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It kind of does, if you think about it hard enough. I’m happy with DF’s position on that list.
Besides, it does have a roguelike-ish game mode in addition to the one that people actually play.
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Seems like a pretty solid slate of listings to me. I wonder where 2009 will take Elona for example—-will it list again or will that JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Roguelike steal the spotlight if it gets translated and developed further in the same manner that Elona has?
Gearheard 2 kinda surprises me on account of the game only becoming kinda winnable within the last few days whereas everything else on the list, I think, had at least some modicum of time where people have somehow or another been beating through it.
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I credit GearHead’s success to the lack of competition in the giant robot roguelike subgenre. That and the fact that the first winnable version was just released probably created a bit of excitement.
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Well, since you all think DF is a roguelike, then if civilisation were done in ‘ascii’ it would obviously be a rogue-like as well. I’m just glad to see a really nice mix of games from position 3-10
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Would it be possible for you to include links to all the winners? I’m really that lazy.
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I have no qualms calling all the games in the list roguelikes. Dwarf Fortress is just a Roguelike Manager, in so much as it runs many, many games of rogue with less violence (until you get the sick, twisted players’ minds factoring in), and the real time doesn’t really disqualify it. (Doryen, anyone?)
My only regrets are that I’m no good at Crawl.
Congrats on DoomRL’s success, Slash!
About Civilization done in ASCII, if it were, it still wouldn’t be a roguelike. It lacks some of the more important factors of roguelikes, such as individual characters, and insane detail. In DF, next release, there will be hair that can come off (Not the 40d# releases, though) with injuries, and grow back. DF plays like a roguelike, Civilization doesn’t.
Elona’s actually really, really, really deep. Seriously. It’s easy to lose yourself in the world. Or lose.
GearHead 2’s been really fun for quite a few versions, so I’m not surprised it got what it got (ok, so I thought it would get higher, but [tangent removed]).
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Its all about Incursion bringing it home at 3rd place- while still in alpha! That game has ridiculous depth and the D20 implementation is just sick- I look forward to where it goes in the future.
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DoomRL deserved it’s position up on the list, like majorly. And it’s only gonna get better. 🙂
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Yeah, it’s been hard work, but it has been worth it!
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@Slash: Pixal isn’t letting me on, for some weird reason.
Here’s a list of links to the winners, in order. You’ll need to copy-paste them into the address bar.
http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net/
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
http://www.incursion-roguelike.org/
http://www.doom.chaosforge.org
http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about
http://roguelikefiction.com/
http://www.gearheadrpg.com/
http://homepage3.nifty.com/rfish/index_e.html
http://unangband.blogspot.com/
http://t-o-m-e.net/main.php?tome_current=0
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I just played DoomRL a little yesterday. I mainly play the challenges (Who needs a full fledged armory when you can run around with a pistol or a chainsaw?), and I cheat a lot. But I still have fun. It’s a pretty fun game. Should’ve beaten Dungeon Crawl. Yeah, I’m biased. I’ve never been good at Dungeon Crawl. Either way, I’ve tried to put up a list of links probably three times, and it’s failed to submit comment. Spam filter?
@Slash: Pixal doesn’t seem to want to let me on.
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Yeah, I get a LOT of spam comments daily 😛
I hava approved your post, thanks for the links!
Also, why won’t pixal let you in? it is working here… forgot your password?
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I’ve tried copy-pasting the password. I’ll try again. Just worked.
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I think Mage Guild got robbed.
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Mage Guild will be there next year. Came in 13th or something. Likewise SewerJacks should of been at least first :p
I think this list represents a good list for the year. I have played everything but Elona so off to download it I go.
P.s Is there a new developer of DoomRL 😉
P.p.s Who ever voted for Rogue Mercenaries out of all those games?
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