The Chronicles of Doryen

By: Derek Yu

On: June 5th, 2008

The Doryen Arena

The Chronicles of Doryen is an experimental roguelike-in-development that touts “real-time gameplay” and “2.5d perspective” (i.e. limited z-axis) as two of its biggest features. While some might argue over whether the game’s real-time gameplay discounts the game as a roguelike… well, who really cares! The important thing is that the characters in the game are represented by (very colorful and pretty) letters, numbers, and the ever-present “@” symbol.

There’s no playable version yet, but you can see a video of the game in action, or follow the blog (which is updated fairly regularly). The developer, J.C. Wilk, has also released a sub-game, called The Doryen Arena, that lets you test out Doryen’s combat system in a gladiatorial setting. In the arena you face off against waves of increasingly stronger opponents until you meet an appropriately grisly demise.

As simple as it is (and still v0.5), TDA definitely shows off some of the potential of the real-time thing. It still feels like a roguelike despite having a basic, timing-based combo system(!). I’m interested to see where it goes from here! A multiplayer roguelike with this system seems like it could work!

(C/C++ roguelike developers may also be interested in The Doryen Library.)

Thanks, Xion!