iPhone

My love of roguelikes began way back in the midsts of time… or 1981, to be precise. My future wife was off being born, I was playing games on my ZX81. One game I didn’t have was Catacombs. My friend Neil had it, but I didn’t. Whether I ever played it or only watched him play, I don’t remember, but I do remember being absolutely amazed by it.

You waited five minutes for the game to load, then about two minutes for it to generate a level (showing only a blank screen during that time, as the level generation was done in the ZX81′s fast mode, which stopped the computer showing any graphics) and then you were in an amazing world of adventure.

Behold!

Have you ever seen such glory? Back then, I actually hadn’t. Not in terms of the graphics – obviously, they were basic even for the time, but there were random dungeons to uncover, monsters to fight, treasure to collect and walls to tunnel through.

Back then, I didn’t know it was based on a game called Rogue. (Though I think Catacombs may have been real time, rather than turn-based.) I never forgot it, though, and it was only really when I started playing ZangbandTK a few years ago that I made the connection.

So that was then. And a couple of years later, unbeknownst to me, a very similar but far superior game called Sword of Fargoal was released on various Commodore machines. (I was a Spectrum kid, Commodore was the enemy. No fanboy console wars can compete with the intensity of the Sinclair/Commodore wars of the early eighties. Thank goodness we didn’t have the Internet back then.)

And now Sword of Fargoal is back, in a gorgeous version I can play in the palm of my hand.

Okay, so you can’t tunnel like you could in Catacombs, but nobody’s perfect.

I didn’t play too much last night, as Song Summoner took up a lot of my time, but I started a new character and managed not to die stupidly, which is a victory of sorts after yesterday.

I can’t resist a decent roguelike, especially when it’s less than two pounds (which is pretty much my barrier for an impulse buy).

Stop. Pause for a moment. In the App Store, over two pounds for a game seems expensive. Meditate on that for a while.

Right, let’s carry on. Sword of Fargoal is based on a simple early-eighties roguelike, full of monsters, treasure, traps and spells. The dungeons are randomly generated and once you’re dead, you’re dead.

Pretty standard, really, but there a few wrinkles. The combat is slightly different to normal – once in a fight you can sit back and watch if you simply want to carry on hitting the enemy with your sword. It’s not quite turn-based meaning if you put the game down without pressing the pause button, you’re in danger. You can see what items and spells are when you pick them up. No need for a scroll of identity here. (You might not know what they do, but playing around is always put of the fun.) There are a few other little wrinkles, but overall it’s simpler than even Rogue, while not being watered down enough to be boring. At least, not yet – I’ve only played half an hour or so.

(Remember, none of these blog posts are reviews, just my current impressions.)

So, it’s a slightly more casual roguelike than usual. What really sets it apart from other games of this nature is the loving presentation. It simply oozes style, with a gorgeous look that seems to effortlessly skip along the tightrope between retro and modern. It’s gorgeous and screenshots don’t really do it justice – which is odd, given the rather static nature of the thing.

If you want it you should probably grab it now, before the price goes up.