Rogue Fable is a traditional roguelike you might ever actually finish

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It has a free demo to convince you.

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(Image credit: Pixel Forge Games)

Hello! Do you love the idea of traditional roguelikes such as Nethack, ADOM, Caves of Qud, or Cogmind? 

Well, how about Rogue Fable 3, a traditional roguelike that's designed more for a tight, cohesive, and replayable experience rather than a sprawling ultra-complex text sprawl that makes your brain go all soupy?

Rogue Fable 3 just released on Steam after three years in development (kismet, that), and it bucks the traditional roguelike trend by focusing on being a tight, deep experience that's still short. It has those same qualities like depth and complexity, but instead of a sprawling hundred-layer dungeon or vast overworld focuses on a challenge that can be tackled in an hour.

The neat part is that the depth isn't sacrificed to get to the speed. There's still a ton of weird items to use and combinations to exploit and obscure ways to get yourself blown up... just... you can do it in an hour or two.

It's got 10 classes, 8 races, lots of powers, hundreds of monsters, items, and the like. It's also got some pretty widely varied environments, 13 in all, including government-mandated poison swamp and volcano regions. Can you retrieve the Goblet of Yendor from the depths of the dungeon? Yes, you probably can. Can you do it over and over?

Jonathan Bolding
Contributor

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.