Tales of Maj'Eyal

Theres something Special about this game. Its sort of simple but it has a lot of charm. I enjoy turning off the bonus lives it makes it more enjoyable for me that way but I can see why that would be a nice feature for some people. This is the first Rogue like I played where I can feel myself getting better with each playthrough. A lot of times you play these games and you spend the majority of your time in the first levels but With TOME i found myself reaching as high as level 30 before being killed and having to start over. The creator updates the game often enough and engages with the communtiy over the server chat. One time he was giving out free gifts to players and I made a joke abou it and he struck my character down with lightning it was surprising that happened but i guess he has a kill command in the game so be careful what you say lol.

A fantastic, highly approachable Roguelike that cuts the most tedious parts of the genre while keeping nearly all the depth and replayabilty. The first few dungeons are a bit on the easy side, and the late game is a little long in the tooth but these are all minor quibbles when you consider the sheer depth and breadth of ToME.

I have been playing this game for a very long time. All I can say is get it. There is too much replayability in it and you will get your moneys worth within the first week of owning it.

Tales of Maj'Eyal is hands down one of the most intricate and well thought out games I have played, on top of being a well crafted Rougelike game! I do not own ToME on GoG but I have many hours logged on it through Steam but it is a good idea to buy in either place to support DarkGod (aka the creator who has now spent almost 20 years working on the game). The main bulk of the game is just trying to survive the randomly generated dungeons and lordy! That is quite the challenge if you play with Permadeath on. The game has a way of making you think about what you will in enocunter in any given dungeon and how you should deal with it without screwing up your cooldowns. On top of cooldowns, you have to do a little resource management to make sure that you can continually keep using skills. This sort of feature can be hard to pull off in most rougelike games, considering how many you can have at any one time, but since the game is entirely turn-based, it works very well! All in addition, the number of classes/races and unlocks you can acquire keeps the game fresh and drives you to keep playing. I mean, who doesn't want to be an Oozemancer, amiright? Don't get me wrong, the game isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Even after all these years, bugs still pop up here and there. For example, not too long ago I found a bug where if I used a skill to move 4x faster and tried to move too much, the game would crash. Granted, these bugs are few and far in between, but something to keep an eye out for (they may cause you to die but just about 90% of your deaths are gonna be your fault). The game can also pull a fast one on you too. Due to the random nature of the dungeons, sometimes it will throw a stupidly hard monster at you and you will rage a lot (trust me on this) when you die. The graphics are, well, dated. They were created on a game engine made in the 90's so keep that in mind. Overall, this is diamond in the rough! I HIGHLY recommend you get this if you enjoy rougelikes!

Second only to Desktop Dungeons, is Tales of Maj'Eyal. I almost never get 100% completion in a game, but I went for that in this game, I enjoyed its deep mechanics so much. It has been over 5 years since I played this, but is still stands as the second best indie game I ever played. Its OST is also outstanding, and I still, occasionally, pop on this playlist; it's right there with the best indie game OSTs: Braid & Hollow Knight: Gods & Nightmares. This is must play for all roguelikers.