Hydra Slayer is an open source Roguelike game concentrated on one topic: slaying Hydras. The game’s inspiration derives from Greek mythology, Dungeon Crawl, MathRL seven day roguelike, and some mathematical puzzles about brave heroes slaying many headed beasts.
Hydra Slayer features an original combat system, based on mathematical puzzles.
The game offers challenging at different levels. Some of the challenges are short term and others are long term.
Features of the GPL version include:
- Unique (AFAICT) gameplay mechanics.
- Traditional roguelike ASCII graphics, or tiles/3D display.
- 5 player character races with very distinct tactics:
- Human – easy to play, hard to master.
- Centaur – equipped with the unique Bow weapon.
- Echidna – slow and easy to wound, but able to deliver mighty ambidextrous attacks.
- Titan – can carry lots of weapons, but no other items.
- Twins – control two characters instead of one.
- 28 enemy types:
- 10 basic types of elemental hydras (each of them has two special variations).
- 8 types of special enemies.
- harmless mushrooms for strategic advantage.
- 29 types of equipment (not including material and size/power variations).
- 15 weapon materials:
- 10 elements corresponding to basic hydra types.
- 4 gem types for non-elemental equipment.
- 1 mighty special material.
- 18 types of non-equipment items:
- 7 powders to be used on your enemies.
- 3 scrolls to be used on equipment.
- 8 potions to empower yourself.
- 3 game geometries to choose before the start of game:
- traditional 8-directional.
- 4-directional for laptop users.
- hex board.
- 8 level topologies (including the Mobius strip and Klein bottle).
- 12 level generators.
- 2 endings:
- A small one for compatibility with the 7DRL version and for short challenge games.
- A large one for those who want more hydra slaying.
- A “random challenge” mode for quick random games.
- 3 types of traps that you can lead hydras on.
- In-game tutorial.
- Atmospheric sounds.
- Save facility.
- View achievements and the Hall of Fame.
- Cheats are available if you get really stuck.
- Grab screenshots.
- Highly configurable.
Website: roguetemple.com/z/hydra
Support: GitHub
Developer: Zeno Rogue
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
Hydra Slayer is a flagship roguelike for NotEye, a roguelike frontend. NotEye can modify the output of console and libtcod roguelikes, and it also works as a library which allows to easily port old ASCII roguelikes like ADOM.
There is a paid version (not open source) of Hydra Slayer which adds additional features.
Hydra Slayer is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Return to ASCII Games Part 2 | Return to Roguelike Games
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