Long ago, back in the days of @Play on GameSetWatch, I did an interview with Keith Burgun about his mobile roguelike 100 Rogues.
100 Rogues was lots of fun, but the thing about app store apps is, if you don’t keep them updated and pay their access fee, they eventually fall out of publication. This is an awful fact about mobile gaming, and because of it 100 Rogues has been very difficult to play for over a decade. Well, no more: it’s now available on Steam for $7 from Paw Games, and it’s currently 25% off too!
Well, almost no more. The Steam version currently says it can’t find the executable “100 Rogues.exe”. I am running CachyOS Linux and the problem might be related to that somehow. I do find that if I go to the game’s home folder, ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/100 Rogues, and run 100_rogues_3_0_21.x86_64 out of it, it starts right up. I’ve notified Keith of the problem and they’re working on it. It may be a Linux-only issue, I don’t know if it’ll work right out of the box on Windows. If you get it and it won’t start, that is probably why. They just released this version, so I expect the glitch will be ironed out soon.
100 Rogues is a fun game from years ago that still has some interesting differences from the standard roguelike formula. Characters can’t move diagonally, and attacks happen before movement, so you can walk up to enemies without them attacking you immediately, and walking away from enemies lets them get a free attack at you! Roguelike gameplay has been so iterated upon in its standard form, since 1980, that kinds of bold changes help keep play fresh, to not fall into the same old patterns.
Long time roguelikers might find it a bit easy, at least on normal mode, but there’s a challenge mode included too. Give it a try!
