Does anyone still play "roguelike" ascii games?

I used to play Angband, but never got past the 50th level or so. I like Rogue, Wizardry and other dungeon crawlers. One of the best I’ve played in recent times is Dark Spire on the Nintendo DS. It was impossible for me to finish without looking up the walkthrough but super satisfying nonetheless.

Does Slash’EM count? However, I do use the tiles.
I also like ZangbandTK but it’s a bit harder to start out.

@kevbo Yeah, I haven’t gotten past level 60 or so in Angband, because it gets really really repetitive and I end up getting too bored to get to Morgoth. I hear theres a version called Quickband that you can play with only 20 levels or so., Not sure how that works, but someday I’ll try it. I haven’t played Wizardry or Darkspire but maybe I’ll give a whirl.

@jerv I want to try Slash EM sometime. It’s really grown a lot since it branched off from NetHack and I’d like to see the changes. Never got into any of the Zangbands, though I’m told that ToME came from Zangband and the main town is similar.

Well, I was unimpressed by Zangband but liked the TK-version, so I would try them both.
I found ToME even more underwhelming.

I play TOME fairly regularly, but only with the Theme mod (which makes it a lot more LotR lore-friendly and adds a bunch of new towns and dungeons). One of the things I like about TOME is that they don’t try to “balance” the classes. If you want to stomp on everything you encounter without challenge, you’re free to play a deathmold possessor; if you want a challenge, any sort of hermit sorcerer will have you grinding your teeth and biting your nails continuously.

I tried to get into Dwarf Fortress, but as near as I can tell it’s been designed for Asperger nerds with control issues who find trainspotting too emotionally engaging.

@SmashTheState—I couldn’t STAND playing a deathmold. Maybe I did it wrong, but I found the constant blinking really annoying. I didn’t even have the patience to get into my first corpse. For a twink class, I liked the alchemist, (at least I think that’s what it was) Being able to start the game making potions of detonation was WAY too powerful. I’d just go off the map, toss a potion at a 3 headed hydra, get up to level 25 and collect all the coins. Then I’d make tons of the potions and scum around high level areas looking for monsters that were one hit wonders for lots of cash, drops and xp.

Oh but that reminds me of another *band I had some fun with—PosBand—posessor Angband. Playing a posessor was kind of fun there. I also liked playing the Quylthulg class. Instead of fighting monsters yourself, you summoned minions to do your bidding. Nothing is quite as satisfying as watching hordes of yeeks let loose on the population.

@keobooks See, it’s a deathmold possessor. You get all the benefits of being a deathmold (like the massive stealth bonus) but you lose all the drawbacks (like the blinking movement) the first time you possess another body. It’s generally agreed that the deathmold possessor is the the cheesiest class it’s possible to play, with an ent sorcerer a distant second.

@SmashTheState ahhhhh so I could kill a mangy leper in town right from the start, rather than trying to actually travel somewhere and kill a decent corpse.

Yes, once you get that first body, you can steal yourself a wand of manathrust and then start upgrading.