AliensRL 7DRL++ – Aliens-themed Roguelike
A little game for the coming weekend, as promised to the gnome 
Discovered AliensRL, another fun tactical roguelike by Kornel Kisielewicz, from rougelike magazine which stated that they were going to do a review of AliensRL in their upcoming issue for April 2007.
AliensRL is currently a work in progress and the version available for download was an entry for the March 7DRL (7 Day Roguelike) contest. That being said, it’s still perfectly playable in the current version. AliensRL, like the rest of Kornel’s roguelikes based or heavily influenced by familiar universes like Doom (see my article for DoomRL here) and Diablo, is inspired by the Aliens movies.
You get to choose your character class from the Marine, Heavy Weapons Specialist, Scout, Medic or Technician classes. The classes determine the modifiers to the amount of experience required to upgrade your abilities. My favourite is the Scout class because Sidearm training upgrades cost 20% less experience.
You can equip yourself with a sidearm, a primary weapon (all classes get a submachine gun as the primary weapon by default) and a heavy weapon – haven’t found one yet 
– as well as frag and krak (anti-armor) grenades. You can only keep a single weapon for each category. My favourite combination has to be a .44 Colt and a 9mm MP5 SMG.
The game is pretty simple to pick up because it’s primarily a combat-oriented roguelike so there’s only a few keys to remember. You can view the keys at any time by entering ?.
The keyboard layout is very intuitive – Move with the cursor keys or numpad keys, shoot with f, pick up items with g, use medikits with m, reload weapons with r, switch to sidearm/primary weapon with s and p, throw frag grenades and krak grenades with 1 and 3 – that’s essentially most of the important keys you need to remember.
There is no levelling up per se for this game, instead you check your experience (enter C) and upgrade your abilities at any time when there is sufficient experience accrued through combat and exploration.
Some tactics and tricks I learned from my first few games.
For more ASCII goodness, check out the ambitious strategy/sim Dwarf Fortress.
Tags: Games Games Downloads
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Ahh, brilliant. If only I had the time…
i loved my alien films, this looks so interesting…. (calculates work rest sleep ratio….) hmmmmmm!
Mrh?
It’s a short game gnome. Only a few minutes of your time. Just a few
I’m been playing this game over the last weekend, trying to complete it to no avail 
Ha! I knew it was a time sink!