ID:856
 
No not Raganrok Online! It's quite annoying that the stupid MMO stole Ragnarok's good name and now I can't say I like the game Ragnarok without further clarification. For those that don't know Ragnarok(or Valhalla in Europe) is a commercial rogue-like game made in the early 90s sporting a super high res of 640x480(well high res for the time). The game is pretty in depth and intricate and lets you do things like weild anything which for the most part doesn't mean much but it lets you pull off clever things like being able to weidl a cockatrice corpse(provided you have guantlets so you don't turn yourself to stone) and whack at monsters turning them into stone if your attack connects. For those who have not yet got a chance to enjoy the game you are lucky as it has long since become freeware and you can download it along with the handbook at http://theboyds.com/ragnarok/ . Though I highly suggest playing without using the handbook as most the fun in the game is finding out your own cool tactics and tricks to try and make winning a slight feasability. Which is another interesting thing about the game. In most games finding a trick with the engine and exploiting it generally makes an alreasy easy game even easier but in the case of Ragnorak finding cool tricks and abusing them is largely required for a successful game. Making it more like finding tactics to win rather than the norm of them being exploits which only make the game too easy to be fun.
Wonderful find, Theodis! Another method for wasting away my otherwise empty days. :)
Yeah, Ragnarok is like Nethack++ (where falling into a pit while wielding a cockatrice was almost funny). Nothing terribly new or innovative, but a nice presentation nonetheless. The time constraint makes the game MUCH tougher than most Roguelikes because you are pretty much forced to suicide dive or run out of time.
However the game gives you permanent backups which makes the time limit not as bad since you can be reckless without worry of having to start over right away. Though it does get away from the dungeon crawl style most roguelike use with the assortment of various areas some of which have very unique set ups and feels. Also unlike most roguelikes most monsters are fairly unique either from a unique ability or AI.
Thanks for the link! I'm in the proccess of downloading it now. But for those who are looking for more roguelike goodness:

UrW: THe game of survival in a bronze-age Finland-esk world!
http://www.jmp.fi/~smaarane/urw.html

ADOM: Ancient Domains of Mystery - A classic, and my personal fave.
http://www.ADOM.de

Nethack: Not a big fan of this one, but a lot of people like it:.
http://www.nethack.org/

A list of a bunch of Roguelikes in development:
http://thelist.roguelikedevelopment.org/

Also, T-O-M-E Net is a fairly fun multiplayer Roguelike. If anyone wants to get a party together on that, drop me a comment on my blog.
(http://www.thangorodrim.net/pernmangband.html / http://www.t-o-m-e.net/main.php?tome_current=0)

-Thorg