Tales of Maj'Eyal

This is a neat little game. I've been playing it lately, because it's so easy. (I've been trying to get started in Achtung Panzer: Operation Star, too, but that's so difficult and this game is just so easy to jump right in and play.)

I'm not normally a big fan of rogue-likes, but this game is different. For one thing, it's a graphical rogue-like. It might not be Skyrim, but it's not just ASCII symbols, either. (I can't even do ASCII with Dwarf Fortress.)

Also, permanent death is an option. You can't get unlimited lives, but you can die a few times, more as you advance in levels, without ending your character permanently, if that's what you want. I like that, because I get tired of playing the very beginning of rogue-likes, over and over again.

Tales of Maj'Eyal helps with that, too, since different races start in different locations. And it still maintains the advantages of rogue-like games, including the fact that it's free. Download it here. I did donate a bit to the developers, because I like to support such things, but that's not required. (Jef Major, in this video, says that donors can play in "adventure mode," but I don't know anything about that.)

ToME is still in beta, so you might run into problems with the game. But I haven't seen any, myself. I suspect that it's just not as complete as it will be, eventually. But if so, that's not obvious, either.

One of the neat features of the game is that not all races and not all character types are unlocked from the beginning. You have to play a little bit first, until you stumble across something special. For example, one of my characters had a random encounter with a hostile tree, which unlocked the "Summoner" class of character. That class is now unlocked permanently for me.

That's a neat idea, because there's always something new to try. You can play for awhile with the introductory classes, before the game opens up something you haven't seen before.

Well, try it for yourself. ToME is well worth trying, and the price is certainly right. Plus, as I say, it's very easy to play, even just for a short period of time. It's seductive, because that ease of play is just so tempting.

Achtung Panzer: Operation Star looks like it will be fun, but it's a bear to learn, and it's always going to be an effort to get started again. I'll get to it eventually, and I'm sure I'll blog about that one, too. But I'm pretty lazy, and ToME is really taking advantage of that right now. :)