Dungeons of Dredmor: Losing is Fun!

[Angie]

I pull up Steam yet again and look at how often I've played Dungeons of Dredmor. 269 hours. For a game where my average run only lasts for 10 minutes. The only game that comes close to that amount of play time is Civilization V, which I've clocked 226 hours on. Well, I'm bored, so I guess I might as well talk about one of my favorite games.

Dungeons of Dredmor is a roguelike. How it works is you pick seven skills, get some gear based on the skills you picked (e.g. a weapon skill starts you off with a weak weapon of that type, the Archery skill gives you a crossbow, and you always get some food and booze), and get thrown into a randomly generated dungeon. There's 10 floors, usually, but the Realm of the Diggle Gods expansion adds 5 more for a total of 15. So far so standard, but where DoD shines is the comedy. Everything has a funny description to it, from enemies to items to even the simple dungeon dressing. Like the description for Rusty Caltrops: "Argh, painful Tetanus!" (and then the Rusty Caltrop Emitter has "Argh, lots of painful Tetanus!"). The game keeps you laughing even when you're dying for the thousandth time because you stepped on ANOTHER GODDAMN ARROW TRAP THIS IS THEFIFTHTIMEI'VEDONETHISARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

As you may have gathered, DoD is hardcore an brutal. Roguelikes are known for being tough as hell-you're never going to win straight out, in fact, youre not supposed to. You're meant to do a little better each time, and learn something new, until finally, you manage, with a little luck and a lot of skill, to win. I love the challenge-to me, the greater the challenge, the sweeter the victory.

I have no idea what I hope to accomplish by posting this, but hey, if you like the idea, it's available for pretty cheap on Steam. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to don my Fedora and strap on my full plate as I give the Dungeon another shot.

[Tsenta]

I've had DoD for a while now, I love just how moddable it is.   Crossbow + AoE spellcaster + Blacksmith has gotten me down to the 15's or so before dying.

[Frozen Flame]

I have to play some more of it sometime. It's great fun, but every time I try to start up a serious crawl, something always comes up.

[Dhi]

Dungeons of Dredmor is a favorite, but I haven't played in a while. I'm going to start a new file, Fallon The 3rd (because I can't remember if I've used Fallon III or not)

My build of choice is

Rogue Scientist for gas and ray weapons which cost no mana, this allows me to focus on the survival-oriented Rogue track and gain access to area attacks without bothering with magic stats.
Alchemy which gives me access to healing and late-game enchantments, and increases the damage of some Rogue Scientist attacks. Rogue Scientist in turn gives me more raw ingredients for Alchemy.
Tinkering which is great from beginning to end, increases the damage of two Rogue Scientist abilities, and grants great Trap Affinity for survival, at the cost of requiring some pretty scarce components.
Wand Lore for late game to give me additional attacks while my Rogue Scientist abilities are on cooldown. Once I hit wand of transmogrification I am golden, as I can turn enemies into Tinkering components. And with Alchemy's ability to transmute gems, I rarely run out of those wands. Like the other crafts, it also increases the damage of a Rogue Scientist attack.
Piracy mainly for the increased chance of looting gems, which I can transmute into any type with Alchemy, allowing me to have almost limitless wands of transmogrification.
Perception for finding additional treasure, which fuels my craft-heavy skills.
Burglary which grants additional items, more lockpicks for additional XP, vanish so I'm never caught unaware by a monster zoo, and even more Trap Affinity because I pity the fool who dies to arrow traps fifty times.

It's definitely not a melee build, has no use for mana, and may crash the game if you hit an invisible monster with the gas canister, but I like it.