MageGuild 1.0

By: Derek Yu

On: November 13th, 2008

A couple of neat roguelikes went 1.0 recently. One is Legerdemain, which we covered previously on TIGSource. It’s a story-based, IF-influenced RL, and is definitely worth checking out.

The second is MageGuild, which, as you may guess, is a magic-centric dungeon crawl. My experience playing wizard classes in roguelikes is that it’s generally too complex for my tastes. Reading books, having spells fizzle, getting my ass handed to me by weak enemies – I like sorcery about as much as Conan the Barbarian, which is to say, put that staff away and give me a sword to cleave a mage in twain with!

So it was a pleasant surprise to find out that MageGuild is one of the more easy to get into RL’s that I’ve played. The interface is clean, the controls are simple, and there’s a tutorial. The game also supports mouse control and graphical tiles (I may make a tileset, actually!).

What makes the game interesting is its focus on mixing spells and potions. At the beginning of the game, you pick up to two schools of magic that will decide which spells you can learn. Then during the game you can combine potions with a variety of objects to create new ones. Want to become a werewolf? It’s as easy as mixing a Potion of Change with some Hair of Wolf.

Having only made a few runs into the dungeon, I can’t comment too extensively on this system, but my initial impression is quite favorable. It’s a pretty fast-paced roguelike that encourages experimentation without being too overwhelming to beginners. I recommend trying it. (Keep in mind that it requires the .NET framework!).

TIGdb: Entries for Legerdemain, MageGuild

(Source: Slash, via Temple of Roguelike)