Chaos and comedy. Death and rebirth. Luck and, uh, running out of luck. A good roguelike doesn't treat the player like other games do. Roguelikes won't guide you helpfully along a path, or let you cinematically snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. They're more likely to dangle you deep between the jaws of defeat and fumble the rope until you go sliding down defeat's hungry gullet. This is their beauty, and it's a part of why we keep coming back for another go. Next time everything will go right. Next time you'll find the right pair of poison-proof loafers, the perfect co-pilot for your spaceship, a stash of stronger, better ropes. Next time.
Here's our list of the 19 best roguelikes on PC you can play in 2024.
]]>The Steam store page for top-down roguelite sequel Streets Of Rogue 2 has gone live, and has some screenshots and a wee GIF of the game in action. This time, the immersive sim shenanigans are going open-world. The Steam page also provides some inkling of what else is coming when the game launches in 2023. Did I mention it’s coming out in 2023?
]]>Many of you are by now bathing in twinkling neon ravelights and swooning into the metal arms of Cyberpunk 2077's humourless unhunks, who stalk the streets of Night City like animatronic pizza restaurant mascots gone feral. That is fine. There are worse places to find oneself in the labyrinthine hell of video games. Places such as these. Here are 9 neighbourhoods you wouldn't want to bring up your children in.
]]>Streets Of Rogue let you get away with some pretty daft stuff. Want to make a profit on the zombie apocalypse? Sorted. Feel like possessing the clone of a scientist to kill his genetic source? Gotcha. But developer Matt Dabrowski reckons there's even more mayhem he can throw into the Streets Of Rogue blender, and has announced plans for a sequel to deliver just that. After all, what if you could fit those five bloodthirsty gorillas in a truck?
]]>2019 was a great year for PC games - aren't they all? - but you might not yet know what the very best PC games of 2019 were. Let us help you.
]]>Four weeks ago, in the disgusting heat of old August, we told you we can’t stop playing the chaos-fuelled micro-muckabout Streets Of Rogue. And since then we've not stopped banging on about it. It's sort of embarrassing. We spoke to its creator, we praised its tabletop-ish freedom, and we enjoyed having a totally normal one. But listen, we’ve got to move on. It turns out we actually can stop playing this gangster-blasting chimp sim. But not before we deliver a final verdict.
]]>Friends are the worst. One minute they’re stuffing delicious bananas in your mouth to heal your wounds, the next they’re flailing at your head with a police truncheon. But what would life be without some friendly fractures to the skull? In Streets Of Rogue, the anarchic roguelite we can’t stop playing, you can still harm your fellow players in co-op mode. That means lots of accidental pal-murdering.
But that’s not how you should play this with friends. You should do it like we did, with a plan. There are a lot of characters in the game, each with their own abilities, so you can easily build a crew of delightful degenerates. Here are some co-op recipes we came up with, guaranteed to provide a good time.
]]>Streets Of Rogue is a tiny Deus Ex about being stupid. It’s good. If you haven’t heard us shouting about this teeny-yet-turbulent roguelite, then you haven’t been paying attention. To add to the cacophony, I spoke to its creator, Matt Dabrowski, about troublesome bodysnatchers, rampaging giants, vague sequel plans, and how he went about brute-forcing as many silly ideas as possible into a tiny toy city.
"If I have a cool idea,” he says, “I'm going to try to find some way to get it in there."
]]>Streets Of Rogue is a chaotic playground of cunning tricks, slapstick violence, and endless, endless laughter. We've been playing it together muchly here lately, in fact you could say we Can't Stop Playing it.
An important feature we've not discussed yet is the custom character creator. This lets you combine the wacky traits and abilities from other characters to make your own little pixel person. It is brilliant. Streets Of Rogue wants you to have fun, to the extent that there's little to stop you from, oh, I don't know, recreating characters from your favourite novels and films. Let's see how that went.
]]>I love Streets Of Rogue. Loads of us here at Rock Paper Shotgun do, it's why we Can't Stop Playing it. I wanted to dig a little into why I enjoy it as much as I do, and I think a really good way of communicating why is comparing it to rules-light tabletop RPGs.
]]>You may have already seen us bellowing about Streets Of Rogue, the tiny but flavourful immersive sim full of chaos and angry gorillas. That’s because we can’t stop playing it. This week, the pod squad are gathering to chat about why they think it’s so bloomin’ good. But also their favourite characters in the game, from a drug-addicted investment banker to a tiny naked body snatcher.
]]>Ah, these familiar, everyday streets. It's a comfort that Streets of Rogue’s city and its many mundane simulated districts are so utterly ordinary. You can keep your Farming Simulators and your Solitaires. It's here that videogames truly reflect our simple reality.
For example, that time four giant gorillas crushed the entire city into dust.
]]>I hope you like shenanigans. Or at least antics, or capers. Streets Of Rogue is about all those. It’s an anarchic roguelike about ascending a tower block while everything around you erupts in a comedy sci-fi riot. It’s like that Dredd film, but instead of credits as the city’s currency, there are chicken nuggets. It’s also the first game to get our Can’t Stop Playing stamp. This is basically our way of saying "this game has us in its thrall, and you should join us". You’ll see more articles about the silly top-down street fights and pixel drug-huffing of this game in the days to come, all marked with the Can’t Stop Playing tag. But for now, let’s just celebrate what makes Streets Of Rogue deserving of your hard-earned McNugs.
]]>The streets are in chaos. There is a police officer beating a slum dweller. A red-shirted gangster has started an ill-advised stabbing match with three members of a rival blue gang. And an ape, recently escaped from captivity, is calmly watching it all, unable to speak the language of these terrible people. Amid such bedlam, what do you do as a player of Streets Of Rogue? You tell a joke. Your character is a comedian after all, it’ll make everyone happy.
“Make it stop!” they shout. “Get out of here!” they cry. “Ughhhh.”
]]>Rural life is disgusting. All those shrubs and trees, how awful. You should pack your checkered pouch and head into the big smoke. The shining cities of videogameland are calling to you, and the team of the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, will be there to help you get settled in to your disgusting, overpriced flat no matter which giant urban maze you choose. Trust us, life is so much better in the city.
Ignore the rats. You'll get used to them.
]]>After nearly three years of early access evolution (and the occasional wild mutation), Streets Of Rogue is out now. A real passion project by Matt Dabrowski, it's a roguelite immersive sim -- think Deus Ex demade for SNES, or Mega Drive Shadowrun -- for up to four players, local or online. There's a corrupt mayor to be overthrown (by stealing his hat) in a randomly generated multi-level city. Whether the prized chapeau is claimed through guerilla warfare, bribery, gorilla warfare or just zombifying the town is up to you. Below, a sassy but informational launch trailer.
]]>Urban chaos sim Streets Of Rogue has added its last level, and finally lets you conquer its cyberpunk randocity in a fair and just way - by becoming mayor. It's been in early access for a while but the roguelite can now be completed from beginning to end, whether you are an angry gorilla revolutionary or a cocaine-addicted investment banker. All you have to do is wear the mayor’s hat and make a speech at the city's electoral podium. That's the beauty of democracy.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.
Accidental death simulators are wonderful. In Streets of Rogue, you can slip on a banana peel and set off a land mine. You can hack a computer and get caught by a policeman, who’ll cave your head in. You can set a bunch of stuff on fire but then run into the fire and die in the fire because it is a fire why did you run into that?
]]>Every week we send Brendan out to the slums of early access to see what goodies he can find in the rubbish bins. This time, the absurd chaos of Streets of Rogue [official site].
“You better pay this back,” said the bartender as I took the money from him. I left the bar in silence and went looking for some cocaine. It’s not often you get to play as an investment banker in a roguelike, and I am enjoying it. This one has the special ability to convince shopkeepers and bartenders to lend him money. I made great use of this skill in every bar or shop I came across. “You better pay this back,” each of my "investors" said to me. A couple of levels later, I was suffering withdrawal and trying to find a drug dealer for my fix when a gang of ninjas came out of nowhere and tried to assassinate me for being so deep in debt. “Phew,” I thought as I escaped their attacks and rounded a corner. Then I ran into the killer robot. He was also hunting me, and I’ll say this for him: he has much better aim.
]]>If you fancy freeing a gorilla to murder some scientists so you can use their cloning machine to create a gang to do in a bartender, you might fancy a crack at Streets of Rogue [official site], which is free to try this weekend. Ignore the name: Streets of Rogue is not a beat 'em up, it is a curious emergent sandbox roguelikelike inspired loosely by games including The Binding of Isaac and Deus Ex. I've run through a few missions myself and yeah, even in its early access state it's an interesting one to prod.
]]>"I played it very briefly and made a bunch of idiots kill one another by dropping rage poison into the ventilation system outside their hideout," Adam tells me about the free alpha for Streets of Rogue [official site]. It's almost enough to make me stop grumbling that Streets of Rogue isn't a roguelikelike beat 'em up. Instead, it's some sort of stealth-o-action top-down 2D game with all manner of opportunities for immersive sim antics. Oh fine, that does sound interesting - but it better have neon punks and hot grooves.
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