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3 reviews · 4 essays
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Torneko's Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon (1993) — A Dragon Quest Shopkeeper Wears Rogue's Cruelty
On September 19, 1993, Chunsoft released Torneko's Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon for the Super Famicom, smuggling the punishing design of 1980's Rogue into Japanese living rooms wearing the face of a beloved Dragon Quest shopkeeper. The Mystery Dungeon lineage it launched is still running today — as of December 2024, playable on Steam in Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island.
Inside Michael Brough's Philosophy — Shrink the Board, Keep Only the Choice
A study of Michael Brough—maker of 868-HACK, Imbroglio and Cinco Paus, and the designer whose name became the genre label 'Broughlike'—drawn from four of his own interviews. We read the paradox that shrinking the board sets design free, his obsession with paring a single mechanic down to its heart, the failure of over-ambitious unfinished roguelikes, the dilemmas of commerce versus authorship and his discomfort with violence, and his influences in mathematics and Rogue.
Does Play Have a Point? — Camus and the Roguelike Death Loop
I've died 38 times in a roguelike and I'm still diving back in. I bring home almost nothing I built up, so why is this repetition fun? In this matching installment I lay Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus — his head-on argument about endless repetition — over the death loop of Hades.
Counterpoint on Blue Prince — Reading Through the Negative Reviews
Komugi rated Blue Prince 9.5/10. I examine the claims from the Steam and community negatives — randomness blocks progress, the two games don't mesh, midgame monotony. I agree that randomness becomes a gatekeeper; I push back on 'this isn't a puzzle.'
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Desktop Dungeons: Rewind
A turn-based puzzle-roguelike on a single screen of dungeon, where revealing unexplored tiles is what heals you, so every fight is a resource problem. QCF Design's 3D remake of their 2013 Desktop Dungeons, with a rewind for taking moves back and the kingdom-building layer carried over.
puzzleroguelikestrategyIsle of Arrows
A puzzle-leaning tower defense: place randomly drawn tiles onto a floating island, grow the paths yourself, and line up towers against the waves. Unwanted tiles can be skipped, one at a time, for coins. Gridpop's crossbreed of board game and tower defense.
puzzlestrategyroguelikeDuskers
You send drones into abandoned spacecraft, scavenge fuel and parts, and move on to the next hull. Every order is typed, and all you see is one camera feed plus a sensor blip that says something is there without saying what. A single-player game of planning in the dark from Misfits Attic.
puzzleroguelikestrategy
