Take up your S and slay the D as episode 184 explores roguelikes

This episode presented entirely in ASCII text.

This episode has been a very long time in coming! Ages ago, Patreon backer John Gibson requested we put together an episode on roguelikes... which we've been trying to do without success ever since. Illnesses, personal crises, and massives changes in plans by all parties involved caused multiple recording attempts to fall through... and even this recording almost didn't happen, since a guest dropped out at the last minute due to a sickness in the family. But isn't that kind of the nature of roguelikes? Try, fail, try, fail, try again, press on ahead despite being saddled with less-than-optimal circumstances?

Thankfully, this may not have been the most elegant run at the topic, but it nevertheless registers as a success. Hooray! We've ascended.

This episode exclusively covers PC-based classic roguelikes. Console roguelikes and roguelites are a different matter altogether, and therefore deserve separate episodes somewhere down the line, don't you think? In the meantime, there's just myself and Bob, guest Steve Tramer, and a bunch of aggregated wisdom.

Music this episode comes from Fatal Labyrinth, Dragon Crystal, and Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate. Those are not covered here, but PC roguelikes don't really do the whole "music" thing, you know.

Retronauts Episode 184
PC Roguelikes
MP3, 49.4 MB | 1:42:20

Direct download Retronauts on iTunes Retronauts at PodcastOne

Episode description: By patron request, we delve into the cryptic history of what might be the world's most complex genre: PC roguelikes. Genre aficionado Steve Tramer walks Bob and Jeremy through the unforeseen consequences of Rogue, Nethack, Dwarf Fortress, and more!