Out at GDC 2010 last week I had a chance to sit down with Wes Paugh of Dinofarm Games to get a bit of hands-on time with their upcoming iPhone roguelike, 100 Rogues, which we covered, most recently, last month.
Wes explained that 100 Rogues is designed to be approachable by adventure gamers that aren’t necessarily hardcore roguelike aficionados. The game features a modern, enhanced graphics set that should appeal to players more than the fairly sparse presentation of most roguelikes out there. Certain options and items have been kept more basic, as well, in the name of keeping things straight forward for the player. For example, there are only two character classes: Fairy Wizard and Human Crusader, and there are a good number of items to collect and equip along the way, but not the thousands of obscure scrolls found in the more traditional roguelike offerings.
100 Rogues, a name inspired by the SNES title 100 Worlds Quest, features not only an array of dungeon enemies, such as Bats, Rats, Skybabies, Gypsies, and Bandits, but also the occasional boss enemies, including a Genie and even Satan himself. A tap-based inventory and attack menu system designed to be quickly accessible on the iPhone has been implemented.
The initial release will feature two game worlds, with four to five additional worlds to be made available down the road through updates.
Have a look at the brief gameplay video we were able to capture during our meet.
The iPhone is happily host to several excellent roguelike dungeon crawlers, including Rogue Touch [$2.99] and Sword of Fargoal [$4.99]. Based on what I saw of 100 Rogues at GDC, Dinofarm’s own take on the formula is sure to be listed among those of quality.
100 Rogues is set to appear in the App Store in just a couple of weeks.
