The Curse Of Yendor

gg

This is an excellent traditional roguelike. You can select from three classes, three special abilities, and whether or not you want permadeath. The dungeon is fun to navigate and there are mini puzzles (switches and rolling orbs into holes), power-ups to be gained by destroying enemy shrines, and multiple down stairs - you decide if you want the easier route or stronger monsters but bigger rewards. The inventory can be a bit tiny to begin with and it is RNG whether you come across an inventory size upgrade. You will want multiple types of weapons handy due to enemy resistances. You can employ spells and items like picks to help you navigate barriers - see the tutorial. I highly recommend this games!

Game crashed with error "Array index out of bounds, Index: 46, Array Length: 45 in main.agc at line 2933" and I played for less than an hour so... I don't see myself investing any more time in it right now.

Why does this game not have more reviews? I don't understand it.

Look, I have only played a short time so far, but even that is enough to see that this is a unique, easy to play, and fun rogue-like well worth $4.99. If it does something dreadful in the coming hours I plan to play, then I will update this, but as of now I can't fathom this not being worth the asking price. Geesh.

Talk about a hidden gem.

EDIT: I want to take a moment and give praise to whoever did the soundtrack. I did not expect industrial-inspired ambient. More unexpected still for it to be as good as it is. I continue to be shocked this game is not more popular than it is.

I've been playing traditional roguelikes for most of my life and this one has always been on my bucketlist to play, unfortunately this game I felt had some pretty major design flaws

I played as a warrior of light and I felt the core gameplay loop was not very satisfying, nothing I fought ever really made me think strategically. I could basically just walk up and punch every enemy, if I couldnt then I'd just swap my weapon and then punch it to death with that. Sometimes I'd use magic if I needed to. The puzzles werent interesting from the start, and half of them only serve to trick you. Because of this I was skipping half of them by the third level, the fact that theyre always the same made it even more tedious. There didnt feel like a noticeable difference between any of the enemies. The only time I faced any noticeable challenge wasnt even at any bossfights but instead when a high level spectre made my character terrified which basically instakilled me since I could never become unterrified. Maybe I was missing something, but honestly I was glad the game killed me since I was clearing every level to make sure I didnt get killed by a high level enemy that the game would probably spawn to make me stop chumping every enemy. But I was bored every second of it.

Overall, if you want a majorly combat focused roguelike, play TOME. Otherwise play something like Rogue Fables or ADOM. Stay away from this.

I was a bit disappointed with this game. It has potential but all the classes feel the same for the most part with slight differences. It seems like it could have been more robust in terms of spells/skills. There are just such better offerings out there like Tales of Maj'Eyal etc. I hate to bash it as the developer is very responsive, so I would say its worth trying if you are looking for something to just change it up but imo it cannot stand toe to toe with the better offerings out there. It is just too simplistic.

THE CURSE OF YENDOR a blood soaked journey into malevolent cursed dungeons. Makes me feel like am playing a tabletop game with plenty of modifiers and great game mechanics in a world of magic and supernatural horrors. Even the music captures a eerie 1970's roleplaying vibe. Sound effects harken back to a arcade period in the early 1980's with a dash of Commodore Amiga audio sparkle. The graphics are alive with retro tabletop richness pulsing with unearthly vitality with varied environments where blood soaked walls sing a song of death and agonizing flesh wounding traps of metal and magic galore abound wrapped in occult sigils and arcane symbols. There are many fabulous treasures locked away behind occult barriers which can be opened by finding the proper levers somewhere in the treacherous monstrously dangerous levels of evil pulsing dungeon floors.

User interface is very intuitive with everything but a mouse click away such as healing and destruction spells, inventory management for the endless loot and gear you will discover, selling and buying items when meeting with wondering merchants in the murderous dungeons of Yendor.

THE CURSE OF YENDOR, BUY IT! PLAY IT! Enter a hardcore fantasy world of demons and devils waiting to rip you asunder as you enter their menacing dark domain.

Disregard the time played on this game, as I first came across it at a friend's house. It was so entertaining and interesting, that I just watched that friend play. Finally, they allowed me to have some fun and it was glorious! Who doesn't want non-perma death (or the opposite) and variety of difficulties to select? You can use your mouse or keyboard or even both.

When I finally dusted the game off myself, the first thing that happened was the character ran around the entire place due to fear. Magic is important... one must not forget that fact. Someone also needs to stop that wizard who is on a killing rampage!

I also like that when you level up, your health and mana gets refilled... all the other games I played similar to this, aren't as nice. My worst case was getting stuck in a small room in a great run and unable to leave because my unicorn item bearer ran off and I couldn't drop enough items to save my life... >...< That's me saying: You will have more fortune in this game. Don't forget to actually read what the stuff does: I had mistaken a trap for a spell. That's my genius moment.

Oh and the music is peaceful, but eerie and there is so much stuff, worth hours and hours of fun. Seriously, rogue-likes will take you a long while to fully get everything in. To not irritate yourself and your luck: you come back to it from time to time, telling yourself that "this time... it's going to be different" and it will be.

So keep up the good work and hope you reach past 50+ 100% reviews!!! (No jinx). Thank you!!! :) :> =)

Now let's go play some more.

My memory fades, but as I recall I played Wizardry 1 back in the '90s to completion and had a blast. Then Diablo 1, also fun. Those are the last two crawler or dungeon explorer types that I've played to completion, but have tried lots of others. I know, I'm pitiful.

Curse of Yendor gives me that Wizardry 1 feel - easy to play, no rush, but 'complex' enough to be interesting all the way. I'm just getting started with it of course, but I get the feeling this is going to be third game I actually complete. For the price, you can't lose.

My one dislike with the game is the autosave overwriting the one save file for a character, and the inability to choose other files for a given character. Thus if I make a really stupid mistake, it's not possible to simply quit and load up again. I sure hope the new game the developer is making will not have this feature.

The Curse of Yendor is a compact classic Rogue-like game which manages to streamline the typical processes and user input of the genre, allowing for faster gameplay than most titles on the market. As a benchmark, my usual preferences of these types of games are centered around deep complexity, zounds of options and limitless unique loot to keep the mind reeling through waves of impossible foes and difficult tactical situations.

However, The Curse of Yendor (referred to as CoY henceforth) approaches the genre a bit differently as character development is autonomous through gameplay, requiring no user input to adjust attributes or skills upon leveling up. Your health, mana, buffs and magic power will increase automatically with each character level. This means more time actually playing the game instead of configuring your build, because there's not really much you can customize or control from what I have seen thus far. Now, before some of you stat-tweakers hit the back button, please open your mind and continue reading.

Your character's inventory is also very limited, starting with a paltry three slots to carry loot, in addition to the items you equip to use. However, playing the game will expand the number of inventory slots over time, requiring less trips to the Merchant to sell your gear. As you visit the Merchant to sell loot, items may occasionally be available to purchase, but just don't expect Wal-Mart with isles of products. Again, hardcore players might be getting antsy reading this, but hold on...

The Wizard character is the primary spellcaster of the three available player character options, and yes, the number of spells is limited as well. You start off with ice bolt, fireball and earthquake, and use these in conjunction with melee or ranged attacks, depending on the gear you decide to equip. It's also possible to equip items that are non-specific to class, so if you want your Wizard to tote a Warhammer around, knock yourself out! I have not yet gained any more spells than the default arcana in one run, so I do not know if there are more available in the game at some point. These spells are powerful, though, as the earthquake will level some walls revealing hidden areas and shortcuts, and the fireball can create a massive brushfire if you aren't careful. It's truly amusing to launch a fireball at a foe in the middle of a dead forest, only to regret it due to running for dear life after you set yourself and the fields on fire. It's also quite possible to kill the Merchant easily, so watch your aim! Expert players might be getting impatient, but keep reading!

As I was a bit on the fence with all this streamlining, it turns out that this game is remarkably fun, as well as very challenging. With the lack of fiddle-time with character development, stat-tweaking and reading massive chapters of lore and legend, you'll find yourself engaged simply playing the game. With no metagame to deal with, you are left to simply jump in and go...and probably die within ten minutes, because you underestimated how difficult it is to survive in CoY. Similar to most all Rogue-likes, things can be going well with a simple foe here and there to dispatch...until you dart around the corner and stumble upon a thriving lair that is restless due to COVID lockdown. Yeah, the monsters aren't messing around in there whatsoever.

What I really enjoy about CoY is the plethora of tile sets, environments and layouts that are randomized every level. You honestly don't know what you'll get one game to the next, which adds greatly to replay value. Every other Rogue-like is limited in this aspect with the same old graphics, textures and levels that might change occasionally. CoY will have you running through different settings every single level, and I really love that! Variety is the spice of life, and there is plenty to discover and see within those dungeon walls.

Throughout the course of the game you will have minor puzzles to solve, which are mostly the same, that will result in a reward that boosts your stats. As the puzzles themselves are easy, your foes sometimes have other ideas to make you fumble them, causing you to miss out on your bonus if you're clumsy. In fact, the entire game plays like this; rewarding those who are careful and spiting those who rush without thinking. You experts out there will soon be decorating the pavement with the best of them, believe me.

The challenge is indeed present in CoY, and its simplicity through streamlining is a bit deceiving upon first glance. What is clearly evident is the desire to jump back in to start another game, only to die yet another painful, stupid death. And you can do all that without missing dinner! Instead of one more turn, it's one more run. Dead. Done. Dinner time now!

Restoration items such as mana and health are found in limited supplies on the levels through gameplay. You can also rest to restore those levels, but you require food as well. Resting too much will cause a starvation problem, and we all know how that goes. I haven't tried to rally on one level, so I'm not sure if that's possible, but it seems unlikely you'll spend too much time on any one map as food is scarce.

I also found it amusing to mix classic 8-bit game sounds with a nice Dark Ambient soundtrack, and somehow it just works. I usually mute the music for games like this and play my own Dark Ambient music through Steam's built-in music player, but I skip that process with CoY as the music is just right for my taste. It's not overbearing, loud or distracting, it just simply blends in nicely with the scenery. To me, the graphics serve the game well and are colorful and easily identifiable at a glance. I'm not a huge fan of the old-school ASCII character format that leaves me guessing what I'm looking at, so it's nice to have vivid tiles and sprites that look proper.

CoY also requires heavy use of the keyboard for fast gameplay, so you mouse-only types will need to adapt to get up to speed. The mouse can be used exclusively, and there are different movement modes for the character, but keyboard is King with this game. Auto-explore or skipping across the screen is probably a really bad idea in this game as you can get in over your head very quickly.

The price point is fantastic for the amount of fun you'll have, which I absolutely must mention. Whether you pick it up on sale or full price, you're getting a great deal. CoY will definitely reside on my hard drives for some time, probably forever, because it's a very small install, which is another selling point for laptop users, especially. I won't even bother with 30 gig games anymore, it's absolutely pointless when you have great games like this for a micron of the file size.

My next stop is Approaching Infinity next week, which I missed initially, and that offers quite a bit more depth from what I hear. I feel the two games would compliment each other very well, and add to my already very large collection of Rogue-likes.

I'll have to highly recommend CoY for what it is without offering any comparisons, and if you truly love Rogue-likes, you have absolutely nothing to lose at this price. Stop horsing around and purchase it now!

One of the better RL's on Steam. More structured than Tome, Qud and ADOM, but there's so much going on in that I wouldn't call that a negative. I liked it so much that I bought it for my kid's Amazon tablet (after adding the Google store). Now, maybe if you get 50 reviews you could bring this game to ios?

Years ago there was a great game for the C64 called Sword of Fargoal. I hadn't heard anything more about it until the 2010s, when talk of a sequel circulated on iOS... The sequel was a huge disappointment.

THIS was the game that Sword of Fargoal II should have been! Right down to some of the sounds used and the font; The Curse of Yendor is a unique type of roguelike just like Sword of Fargoal was. Every resource has it's own ability that never changes, and every floor has a limited number of each resource. The game is more about exploration and completion than most roguelikes.

Check it out!

Very smooth, easy to get into roguelike - and as other reviewers here pointed out, it's a true roguelike in the sense that you've got a grid-based movement, a player centric turn-based system & true permadeath without metaprogression but quite a lot of depth regarding gameplay. If you're considering to venture into roguelikes this is - together with "Golden Krone Hotel" - one of the best starting points here on steam. Highly recommended.

What can I say, I fell in love with IBOLOGY's games when they released the greatest space Rogue-light game of all time; Approaching Infinity. Too bad that game is tied up in bad-publisher purgatory. I only have a couple of hours in Curse of Yendor but I have days in Approaching Infinity.

The Curse of Yendor IS one of the tightest little roguelikes on Steam. Even at full price you can't go wrong.

Report after one permadeath game: nice little classical roguelike that doesn't feel dumbed down.

Right of the bat you face elements like digging through the level and freezing water to advance, dynamic poison gas clouds that expand and shrink around vents, enemies with dangerous abilities like making you dizzy, that you can't just bump through mindlessly. Quite refreshing compared to other "lite" roguelikes where the first few levels are devoid of any challenge.

This is still simpler than a "full-fledged" roguelike as there is no item identification, inventory space is very limited with barely any management, and there seems to be very few item types. It seems that you only get four spells and keep them for the whole game.

Each level I saw had a locked monster zoo, an orb you must push into place for a strength boost, an altar to remove curses, and a merchant. It's pretty neat as it allows you to plan for what you want to do, but it might get repetitive in the long run. The environment for the second level was quite different from the first though, so the game seems to have avoided the "generic same wall tile for 10 levels" syndrome.

All in all, recommended, and most especially if you never tried a real classical roguelike like Linley's Dungeon Crawl, Nethack, TOME, Brogue and the like, and would like to get a taste of what they can offer without learning a lot of keyboard commands.

The Curse of Yendor is a classic dungeon crawling RPG.

Fun Game to play. you can pick from warrors. mage, Thief classes. this game is very much like a NetHack in someways but more newer kind of game.

Cant go wrong 3 pounds for a game which is so much fun.

This is a good, stripped down tactical combat based, classic-era style roguelike. What I mean by this is that it's a straight out dungeon crawl in the style of the original Rogue, but remarkably simple in design. The original Rogue was wonderful but owing to it's early origins on mainframe computers, suffered from over-complexity in it's UI.

This game is perhaps a touch over-simplified, in comparison. That being said, this was clearly a design choice, one clearly made to focus purely on tactical combat. In that aspect, the game seems pretty solid so far.

I've not been playing roguelike games for a long time, but in that period I've pumped hundreds and hundreds of hours into them, and played loads of different ones, and many different types to boot. I must admit I've not really touched on too many of the 7Day roguelike competition entries yet, and I suspect that there you might find many more examples of games of the type that Curse of Yendor is attempting to be. With that in mind, I thought it'd be good to try out this kind of short-play roguelike a little more.

When it comes to these "coffee-break" roguelikes, my benchmark is the superb Brogue by Brian Walker, which I consider to have one of the best thought out game designs ever: not just in roguelikes, but in video games in general. It's balance and replayability are pretty much unmatched in games of it's type. So far, I've not played Curse of Yendor a huge amount but I feel I've gotten my head around how it's likely to play now. It doesn't have the same depth as Brogue, owing to the design choices over the limited magical set: they are two very different games in style, but comparisons can be drawn in that I can clearly see that each game chose it's design in order to create a certain type of experience, rather than play to the old school crowd. In this regard, I think CoY comes across very well.

It's not a very deep game, with regards to the variety of things you can do. However, the game's tactical play more than makes up for this, I feel. Having a limited set of commands really works to it's benefit: if you're going to go for minimalism, keep it really minimal! CoY is a success in minimal design.

My one request would be an ASCII mode. I know it's probably not so popular with the mainstream Steam audience, but I'm not so keen on tilesets as I find they distract me from the game mechanics. That being said, the graphics here are colourful and meaningful, and they're growing on me! The interface is quite clear and has a sort of late 80's Atari ST feel to them, which helps a lot considering I'm an old bugger who digs that kind of aesthetic!

This is worth the money, I feel, and I'm looking forwards to playing it through to see whether it gets any deeper :)

I love roguelikes and I have been playing them since the 80's. Seems like half the new games coming out are being called "roguelike." However, this is the real deal! It is great fun and I highly recommend it! And at $5, it is definitely a no brainer.

A very nice little roguelike - the UI is quite clean and usable once you get used to it (much better than Dungeonmans, which I love but you're always fighting the UI and graphics).

Mechanics are much clearer than in Dredmor - you can almost always guess, or should have been able to guess, what weapon type or magic type some mob you haven't seen before is vulnerable to.

When you start, it'll feel too lean - OMG, only 3 classes, only three spare inventory slots, no potions, not a huge map? But it opens up - you can find inventory slot expansions, for instance. There are lots of different terrain types, lots of little environmental puzzles, and it's great fun to just blow up the map with your earthquake spells. You'll find out the maps are just the right size - by the time you're tired of this level it's time to move on to the next. And each of the 3 classes is very survivable.

There's also a continuing 'plot' - not a heavy one, but there's a goal, and antagonists who will torment you over the levels... Hell, it's well worth the asking price! If you're bored of Dredmor, Maj'ael, and Dungeonmans, this is your next stop.

This game is a nicely polished jewel. It is simple enough that you can get started playing within a few minutes, but complex enough that you don't get tired of it. Which is good, because you are going to die. A lot. You do know this is a rogue-like game right? I mean, just when you think you are getting the hang of things and building up a powerful character, along comes some necromancer who decides to cast a fear spell on you that sticks.... And at that same moment, a room full of monsters was opened up. Oops! Time to die! The perma-death option makes it so much more fun.

One tip - you can freeze lava with your ice spell. It takes a moment to figure out how, but once you do, it'll open up some nice areas.

This is an indie developer that really deserves community support. He continues to make fun games for inexpensive prices. Let's help him pay his bills so he can continue adding more content and making more games!

Bought Curse of Yendor on a lark with all this extra cash I've got now that Marvel Heroes doesn't want my money any more (BUE bleh).

Yendor is a turn-based rogue-a-like with charming early Ultima graphics. Under the retro hood is a lot of gaming goodness. Besides the usual monsters, loot, vendors, keys and puzzles, there are some surprises.

The procedural, modifiable, tile-based terrain system is what sold me on getting CoY. If you get a pick you can chop through stone walls, or take them down with an earthquake spell. You can shoot thorugh barred windows. You can freze water. Reeds block missiles, but if you cast fireballs in reeds, you can catch yourself on fire. Run away! Destroying the right tiles will weaken the big boss later in the game. I'd love to see a game with triple the variable terrain types as CoY, but for now, this is a lot of fun.

CoY has a clean interface, rebindable keys, multiple difficulty settings and even permadeath for you machochis- er, purists out there. Fortunately, permadeath can be turned off if you have other stuff to do in your life than lose your character right before the final boss fight and have to start over. Best of all, the grind does not feel grindy yet, so here's to many hours of happy hacking.