GROGPOD Roguelike Podcast

(Play along for now) Ah yes Inscryption! A completely normal game of deckbuilding between you and a crazed lunatic in a desolate cabin. A winner of numerous game awards for … totally normal reasons … we celebrate the end of Spooktember with sacrificing squirrels for blood to feed our science experiment grizzly bears. (Hit the download button) You’re also looking at your podcast feed thinking “ah but this isn’t a roguelike game!” You might be right, but at least a solid third of this game is, and we felt it important and interesting enough to round up to being an honorary inclusion in the conversation. (Rate the podcast 5 stars) That being said, this is a completely spoiler heavy episode! So if by some happenstance you haven’t played it, we strongly recommend you do so before listening. Don’t fiddle with that shackle around your wrist, we have some Transcending to do!

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3:45 - game stats

5:50 - final warning for spoilers!!!

6:44 - one sentence description and honorary roguelike candidacy

15:19 - act 1: our story begins

34:28 - act 2

55:58 - act 3 and finale

1:24:11 - rankings and final thoughts

1:36:00 - similar games

Next episode: Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer

Contact us at [email protected]!

https://grogpod.zone

Intro music: Dan Wilson - Vessels of Wood and Earth

Outro music: Jonah Senzel - Deathcard Cabin

Oy, Gary! Is that you? Join us this week as we rehydrate some prisoners for derelict spaceship looting zaniness with Void Bastards! A 2.5D space shooter with more mutated freaks than the typical bus stop in Yoker, we try to appease the voice from the Stanley Parable with some bureaucratic busywork in the form of gun shooting. All the while fending off space pirates, space whales, and assessing if that gas station sandwich you just spent your credits on is or is not going to give you a parasite to start talking with a Glaswegian accent, aye?

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1:19 - game stats

2:33 - one sentence(?) description

10:45 - our story begins

1:03:48 - rankings and final thoughts

1:12:37 - similar games

Next episode: Inscryption

Contact us at [email protected]!

https://grogpod.zone

Intro music: Chip Whickham - Space Walk

Outro music: Ryan Roth - Walk the Plank!

Caw caww!! It’s almost every episode that we reference Slay the Spire in some way, so what better time to finally cover it for the podcast than on our 50th episode spectacular?! Listen in as some Spire pros educate some Ascension 0 players on skills, powers, potions, relics and attacks. Every card is a block card if you try hard enough in this episode, but is Claw, in fact, Law? Who watches The Watcher? Why didn’t my Fairy Bottle trigger? With about 1,200 hours of gameplay under our Champion Belts, surely we can Slay these questions along with the beating of that hideous Heart! But will this game be the one that finally ascends the Spire that is our rankings list? You’ll have to tune in to our longest (and therefore highest quality) episode to date! Or just skip ahead to the rankings timestamp with those fancy Wing Boots of yours.

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2:24 - game stats

3:33 - one sentence description

12:37 - our story begins

23:32 - the characters and archetypes

47:20 - general gameplay

52:00 - ascension mode

1:03:00 - ideal win percentage

1:08:00 - Slay the Spire 2 wishlist

1:11:52 - Downfall

1:16:00 - music and art

1:18:50 - victory…?

1:26:46 - rankings and final thoughts

1:44:57 - similar games

Next episode: Void Bastards

Contact us at [email protected]!

https://grogpod.zone

Intro music: Dave Brubeck - Take Five

Outro music: Clark Aboud - Exordium, The Guardian Emerges

Hey everyone look, an old man is talking! This week we feel the weather change via our bones as we play the turn-based colony sim roguelite dotAge, created by solo developer Michele Pirovano! Listen in as we battle omens on the horizon of time and try to swiftly shuttle our pips and pippins to ward off the impending evils that await the village. And remember: the gift quote must be met, as Santa won’t accept ANY excuse! Now where was I? Oh yeah! The import thing was: I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn’t find any white onions, because of the war. The only thing we had were those big yellow ones…

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2:06 - game stats

3:02 - one sentence description

22:50 - our story begins

1:10:03 - rankings and final thoughts

1:27:58 - similar games

Next episode: Slay the Spire

Contact us at [email protected]!

https://grogpod.zone

Intro music: Marian McPartland - I’m Old Fashioned

Outro music: Luigi di Guida - Je Vivroie Liement

It is a good day to dice! This week we polish up some D6’s for the dungeon crawler Slice & Dice and throw them against all sorts of hideous monsters. We’re talking goblins, zombies, exploding skeletons, bloodthirsty fanatics, and so many more. In a game with modes on modes on modes, we try to navigate being cursed, blessed, and blursed while slaying dragons, succubi and undead samurai. Can our party of housecats and an over-levelled wizard save the day or will all of our dice be turned to stone and we get swarmed by imps? Ready to roll out!

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1:46 - game stats

3:27 - one sentence description

18:00 - our story begins (??)

1:02:39 - rankings and final thoughts

1:10:04 - similar games

Next episode: dotAge

Contact us at [email protected]!

https://grogpod.zone

Intro music: Thelonius Monk - April in Paris

Outro music: Louigi Verona - Ancient Books of Magic

Demonic presence at unsafe levels, podcast in effect! For our listener request week, we summon a granddaddy of the traditional roguelike pantheon: DoomRL - Doom: The Roguelike. But we couldn’t talk about a game with a 20+ year legacy without also crash landing on its gorgeous modern 3D remaster: Jupiter Hell. A traditional roguelike with…graphics? Voice acting? A b-b-budget? Come listen in on how to configure .ini files, assemble tactical rocket launchers, and learn how to be a sailor-mouthed hellish freight train on wheels. That’s how we do things downnnnntownnnnn.

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1:55 - DoomRL game stats

4:06 - One sentence description

20:15 - DoomRL story

35:43 - Jupiter Hell game stats

39:26 - Jupiter Hell story

1:23:35 - rankings and final thoughts

1:30:41 - similar games

Next episode: Slice & Dice

Contact us at [email protected]!

https://grogpod.zone

Intro music: The Geeky Guitarist - At Doom’s Gate (E1M1) Jazz Fusion Cover

Outro music: Sonic Clang - E1M1

Adagio, listeners! This week is our summer special focusing on the wide diversity of music found in roguelike games! From the biggest budget orchestras, to the lowliest growling chants that 1bitdragon can muster, there’s a lot of love to be listened to when playing $5 indie games. We thank the listeners that wrote in with tons of suggestions for us to cover and we’ll definitely have to revisit this format in the future. We also have some listener correspondence to cover on topics from not liking games, randomness, and how long is TOO long for roguelikes at the end of the show. Enjoy and be sure the blast some GROGPOD on the beach for all your friends this summer weekend!

A talking-free version of all the tracks featured today can be found on our youtube playlist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-ShOmyMvd4gaydO4wbNhLsDIFbEsBTUO

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00:00 - Vampire Survivors - Tides of the Foscari

6:39 - Crypt of the Necrodancer - Disco Descent (1-1)

11:19 - The Last Spell - Distant Memories

17:40 - Hades - The Unseen Ones

23:08 - DoomRL - Unholy Cathedral

27:09 - Returnal - Ascend the Spire

32:05 - Caves of Qud - Lazarus

37:23 - Rogue Tower - Orcs Attack

42:04 - Path of Achra - Main Theme

46:13 - Dwarf Fortress - Main Theme

51:07 - Risk of Rain 2 - The Rain Formerly Known as Purple

57:56 - Balatro - Main Theme

1:04:57 - Spelunky - Yeti Caves

1:08:47 - Brutal Orchestra - Feel the Rhythm (Music Man Theme)

1:15:01 - Enter the Gungeon - Enter the Gungeon Rap

1:19:58 - Rimworld - Waiting for the Sun

1:23:36 - Lonestar - Main Menu Theme

1:27:45 - Inscryption - Leshy’s Theme

1:33:00 - FTL: Faster Than Light - Last Stand

1:38:22 - Slay the Spire - The Heart

1:43:28 - Hades - The King and the Bull

1:48:26 - Listener emails (Not liking games)

1:52:13 - Listener emails (Star of Providence updates)

1:55:06 - Listener emails (Roguelike RNG)

2:00:35 - Listener emails (How long do YOU like your gameplay?)

Next episode: DoomRL / Jupiter Hell

Contact us at [email protected]!

https://grogpod.zone

OwO it’s VTuber time! This week we grab out pet aligators and wrap them in a trench coat to investigate the wild world of Holocure - Save the Fans! We’re talking jazzy beats, explosions of color, shrimp simps, skeletons with baseball bats, and (you guessed it!) six-legged monsterific horrors that would be well at home in any HR Geiger film. To navigate this deep sector of internet a-pog-rypha, we’re joined by VTuber and friend of the show Daniru17! We’ll need all the help we can get unraveling the mysteries of the Shubangelion and where exactly that character upgrade tab in the shop is.

Here’s where you can find Daniru17 on the interwebz!

Twitch: daniru17

Youtube: daniru17

X/Twitter: Dani_daniru

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2:02 - game stats

3:07 - one sentence description

25:12 - our story begins

1:07:20 - rankings and final thoughts

1:15:09 - similar games

Next episode: Summer Music Fest and listener emails!

Contact us at [email protected]!

https://grogpod.zone

Intro music: Emmet Cohen Trio ft. Patrick Bartley - After You’ve Gone

Outro music: eufrik - Suspect

Adoro l’aglio! The time has come to suck the blood out one of the most popular roguelikes of all time: Vampire Survivors! A wild tale of a 5-dollar indie game that created its own sub-genre of bullet-heaven one-stick shooters, Vampire Survivors is nothing short of the gamedev dream. We celebrate bizarre Italian nomenclature with returning guest Woody and try to suss out what could possibly be the plot of a Vampire Survivors tv show. Grab some Tirajisú for dessert and strap in for a tasty treat of a game, but just keep an eye out for a gigantic Katamari of skeletons looking to run you over.

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2:42 - game stats

7:25 - one sentence description

18:33 - our story begins

1:06:35 - rankings and final thoughts

1:14:25 - similar games

Next episode: Holocure: Save the Fans!

Contact us at [email protected]!

https://grogpod.zone

Intro music: Giorgio Gaslini - Conservatorismo Puro

Outro music: William Davies‎‎ - The Beginning, Filippo Vicarelli - It’s Raining Minotaurs

Okay, 3…2…1… Let’s Jam! This week we are blasting off across the galaxy in pursuit of scum and villainy to collect some bounties for the space sheriff in Lonestar! With a unique spin on the roguelike deckbuilding genre, we debate over what is red versus orange as we power up our lasers in an epic showdown. Well, when we’re not using our vacation days of course! Build up your outlaw-hunting ship with tons of parts and upgrade those energy points to deal massive damage, or spend those points to defuse the spider mine the enemy has planted on you! Sit down in a space saloon for a nice relaxing card game, but be on the lookout for someone’s pet cat wearing a scouter level eyepiece!

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1:36 - game stats

2:43 - one sentence description

16:58 - our story begins

1:14:23 - rankings and final thoughts

1:22:00 - similar games

Next episode: Vampire Survivors

Contact us at [email protected]!

https://grogpod.zone

Intro music: Sonny Rollins - Way Out West

Outro music: Lonestar - Main Menu Theme