POSTED BY

Brandon Boyer

AT 11:25 AM
Tuesday May 12, 2009

Web

Wayfarer: Ben Hemmendinger's dangerously addictive Processing rogue-like

wayfarer.jpg

Full disclosure: I'm about as far from an aficionado of Rogue and its various -likes as they come, certainly compared to the ongoing work of people like Andrew Doull and John Harris, but maybe it's to Wayfarer's credit, then, that one quick "oh, what's this Processing-built game all about, then" test click turned into an entirely lost hour.

Ben Hemmendinger's take on the genre (still in alpha) is just the perfect amount removed from the ASCII-abstractions of usual rogue-likes to make it both accessible (especially with that 3D tilt-shift) and still hold retro charm, has just the right amount of humor and subtle touches (the pixel-blood-trails of escaping wounded beasts), and is just kind enough at its lowest levels (read: I didn't instantly die) to very easily make it my new favorite web-time-sink, and the latest of its kind to hook me since I first discovered DND in my innocent youth.

Wayfarer (alpha) [Benhem, via Wiley Wiggins]

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16 Comments

seanjjordan

#1 – 12:12 PM May 12, 2009

This looks neat. And BTW, not all Rogue-likes are bad -- consider Toejam and Earl, one of the oddest and best Rogue-likes ever made... and on a console, too!

Anonymous Anonymous

#2 – 12:34 PM May 12, 2009

This looks pretty cool, but unfortunately it immediately crashes all three of my browsers... (iceweasel/firefox, epiphany and opera)

Brandon Boyer

#3 – 2:10 PM May 12, 2009

Oh, yeah, sean, I certainly didn't mean to slight the genre at all, and Toejam & Earl is surely one of the best evolutions of the form (I actually bought my original Xbox on TJ&E3 launch day specifically for the game).

I just meant to say that I wasn't about to declare it a pinnacle before going much, much deeper into its balance and longevity, as I suspect Doull or Harris will, before long, and meant that -- as I've said before -- it's still that over-simplicity that puts off many newcomers off otherwise incredible games like Dwarf Fortress.

seanjjordan

#4 – 7:32 PM May 12, 2009

Brandon, I have to respect anyone who'd buy an Xbox for that underrated gem. I was astounded at the poor reviews it received.

And I agree with what you're saying, though I haven't tried Dwarf Fortress. I guess I'll have to give it a shot! (Thanks for the tip!)

Felix Mitchell

#5 – 12:35 AM May 13, 2009

I got to floor 4 before being attacked and running away, but accidentily went back down the stairs and died :(

one thing I don't like about these games, losing all your stuff. I know it's a big part of them but I just lost like 2 hours of gameplay, can't be arsed to do it again

amazing game otherwise, much fun

mdh

#6 – 9:05 AM May 13, 2009

one thing I don't like about these games, losing all your stuff.

it really is a big part of the games.

That two hours was 'lost' whether or not you got to 'keep' the pixels you earned.

chris

#7 – 9:26 AM May 13, 2009

doesn't work on linux / amd64

fail : (

apt-get install nethack

Fang Xianfu

#8 – 10:44 AM May 13, 2009

Those looking to get into dwarf fortress may find the play-along tutorial (complete with pretty-looking and pre-configured download) or video tutorial excellent places to start. They do a great job introducing you to the game which, for all its foibles, is EXCELLENT.

Anonymous Anonymous

#9 – 11:24 AM May 13, 2009

#7 - Chris:
Don't blame the game, blame java.

Anonymous Anonymous

#10 – 1:23 PM May 13, 2009

The best roguelike around is Stone Soup. It is awesome, and fun, and quite hard, but really fun. Check it out, and head over to zip.4chan.org/tg/imgboard.html if you want to have a talk about it. That's the traidtional games board btw, and they're very friendly. Much the nicest board on 4chan.

SeattlePete

#11 – 8:44 PM May 13, 2009

I've been playing zangband since the early 90's. I hadn't realized the genre had evolved at all. Good to know.

mlennox

#12 – 4:17 PM May 14, 2009

@ANONYMOUS #9

So you're saying don't hate the game, hate the player? ;)

SamSam

#13 – 5:20 AM May 15, 2009

When I try to go to this game, I get a message from Java saying the the game was signed by "sun microsystems, inc" (all lowercase), but that Java cannot verify the authenticity of the certificate.

Now, if this were really signed by Sun Microsystems, wouldn't Java recognize their certificate? And why was everything, from the name to the city and state of the certificate's origin ("cupertino, california") written in lowercase, like it was typed in by some random person?

And why is this game having their certificates signed by Sun in the first place? My company writes Java as well, and we have our own certificate.

I don't see any reason to think that benhem.com is a scammer, but when I see a trust certificate with that many questions, I don't click "Trust."

Image of the certificate details.

John H.

#14 – 5:04 PM May 16, 2009

"[...]it's still that over-simplicity that puts off many newcomers off otherwise incredible games like Dwarf Fortress."

?!

Anonymous Anonymous

#15 – 10:07 AM May 17, 2009

#13 - Samsam -- it's a Sun problem that started affecting everything that uses the Java OpenGL bindings this month. The author has a note about it on the site now.

Anonymous Anonymous

#16 – 1:06 PM May 20, 2009

Hey, Brandon, many thanks for the mention! It has sparked a lot of interest and much-needed cross-platform alphatesting. Putting along, new versions daily.
#7, Chris -- It should now run on Linux / amd64. - Ben(Hem)

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