If you are new to the genre, then DRL (formerly known as DoomRL)is the perfect place to start. It does a surprisingly good job of capturing the feel of Doom's combat, but also has the gameplay, depth and progression of a good roguelike. The control's are relatively simple, without needing to span the entire keyboard. A single run is also relatively short (it's a "Coffee Break" roguelike.) It is also freely available (GPL2), has ASCII and tile (art by Derek Yu,) mode.
Brogue is also a great game on a similar scale. It's unusual amongst modern-ish roguelikes in that it its primary influenced by Rogue itself, but way more technically advanced. It's playable entirely with the mouse. The stylized ASCII graphics are quite distinctive too. Also free, and finished(!). Brogue CE is a community maintained fork with some new features.
Nethack is close to the best game of all time (objectively the 2nd best ever so far according the the HG101 Top 47k games list, behind only Tetris and ahead of all Mario games, doom, etc.) It's visually similar to Rogue at first, (it comes with a graphical tile version as well now, but it is bad,) but there is way more stuff in it; multiple genders/races/classes, shops, themed levels, non-linear level progression, bizarre but entirely-consistent item usage and interaction, the entire library of Terry Pratchett, weird pop-culture references to books/movies/other games, A quantum mechanic enemy that drops a box with a 50% chance to contain a pet cat named "Schrodingers cat" and 50% chance to contain the corpse of a pet cat named "Schrodingers cat".
Nethack is the roguelike I recommend the most, but it is also brutally difficult and quite intimidating. Using their semi-official "spoiler" policy I guarantee nobody here starting the game now will ever finish it, using a wiki it is merely "extremely hard". It is probably the primary influence/inspiration that lead to the Spelunky/Binding of Isaac/Nuclear Throne/"Roguelite" genre. Also free (using their own free software license.)
Of modern games for sale on Steam/Itch/GoG: Caves of Qud is brilliant, it's set in a post-post-post-post-apocalypse surreal, body-horrorish open world. Most similar to Fallout or Wasteland, but entirely original. The writing is superb, both the main quest dialog and the "lore hidden in items descriptions". Has a fixed overworld + main quest and some fixed sidequests, but is mostly procedurally generated otherwise. Has an astonishing array of starting builds (either a cybernetic human, or a mutant with potentially dozens of powers) that give a similar feeling to when Deus Ex lets you start with a rocket launcher. Controls can be confusing at first, but incredibly simple compared to most roguelikes (space and ctrl-space context menus do most of the niche actions that would be spread across the keyboard normally.)
Cogmind is a mech roguelike where you play as a robot trying to escape a facility. Has a very unusual progression system, you upgrade attributes by finishing a level and upgrade your parts by scavenging spare parts or disassembling the other robots you defeat/blow up. Has a visually distinct style (Your robot's "sensors" project a graphical overlay on the underlying pseudo-ASCII) and implements a soundscape similar to what the Trent Reznor Doom 3 soundtrack was supposed to be. Also, only Caves of Qud has better writing IMHO. Entirely controllable with the mouse as well.
Finally a non-game recommendation. Roguelike Celebration is an annual roguelike convention that has a lot of interesting talks from developers/players/fans. It uses an extremely broad definition of what is related to Roguelikes (including "roguelites") so there is almost definitly something most fans of this website will enjoy there.
@fisk0 said:
I'd consider giving them the money for the Steam version though.
If you want to give the original creators of Rogue money, the Steam version isn't it. It's just being sold by some guy who acquired the rights to the entire Epyx catalog. It's doesn't seem to be illicit as some have suggested, but don't consider it the morally correct version to get.
Rogue was also 5 years old by the point the commercial Epyx version for DOS was released. It wasn't the original, nor is it the most recent version.
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