It’s finally here, our episode on one of the major traditional roguelike cornerstones: Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. Humanity’s greatest desire is to drive crudely built, ascii-tiled cars in open source videogame projects. That and escape from zombies, of course. Tune in as we spend half an hour trying to open up menu systems and try to see just how big this fantastical world of “New England” really is. There’s only so much time to listen to this episode before XE037 finds you and adds you to the blobular collective!

As noted, we’ve done a few developer interviews for CDDA which you can find here. Thanks to the devs for taking the time to answer some of our questions!

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Transcript

1:30 - game stats

5:12 - one sentence description

6:37 - »»CDDA fans trigger warning alert««

11:20 - Game story setup and multiple apocalypse scenarios

15:30 - Tutorial video requirements and learning curve comparisons

22:15 - Dwarf Fortress comparison and menu system complexity

28:45 - Character creation praise and detailed trait systems

34:20 - UI/UX criticism and accessibility problems discussion

42:15 - Simulation depth vs playability debate and system complexity

48:30 - Story expectations vs reality and emergent gameplay

55:45 - Target audience analysis and programmer appeal discussion

1:03:02 - rankings and final thoughts

1:17:52 - similar games

Next episode: A GROGPOD fight club special episode to celebrate our 1 year anniversary of the podcast! We’ll be tackling the topic of “What Is A Roguelike?” There will be blood!

Contact us at [email protected]!

https://grogpod.zone

Intro music: Hal Leonard Jazz Ensemble - Ain’t No Sunshine

Outro music: CDDA Chesthole Soundpack - Ambient Track 1