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Hey TL,
I've been borderline-obsessed with a roguelike called Sil for the last year, and thought I'd share my love for the game here.
If you're not familiar with roguelikes: They're dungeon crawlers, often ASCII-art based, that have a long heritage dating back from the 70s. They are often excruciatingly difficult. Permadeath is the norm.
Many people are fond of pointing out that the originally Diablo was basically a port of the roguelike "Angband" into modern times.
Sil is a really sophisticated game that involves heavily tactical gameplay. It's also short -- in the unlikely event that you win the game with a character, you'll probably expend 6-10 hours doing so. In comparison, winning a game of Angband will often take several times that. However, there are so many possible builds and approaches to a game of Sil that you can play several hundred characters and still get yourself into completely surprising situations.
Here's the author's description of the game:
+ Show Spoiler +
Sil is a computer role-playing game with a strong emphasis on discovery and tactical combat. It has a simple but rich combat system which allows for a great variety of choice: should you wear heavy armour that makes you easier to hit but reduces the damage you take? should you wield heavier weapons to overcome your opponents’ armour, or wield lighter weapons for more accuracy and a greater chance of critical hits? It depends on the situation and the type of character you become. You will also have the chance to retreat back into shadowy corridors to take the enemy one by one, or to stealthily creep up to your opponent and take him unawares.
It is also one of very few games that stays true to the writings of Tolkien. Carefully researched, it dispenses with many generic fantasy tropes and reveals a different world. There are no wizards or priests, no platemail or magical scrolls. Instead, it is the Norse Saga inspired world that Tolkien imagined, with warriors clad in shining mail, singing songs of rage or sorrow as they slay. The magic of the world is subtle yet powerful: there are songs of fear and of binding, rather than spells of fireball and teleportation.
Sil comes from a tradition of role-playing games known as roguelikes. They stem from a game called Rogue that was written before computers had graphics and instead used symbols on the screen to represent a dungeon filled with monsters and treasure, that was randomly generated each time you played. Rogue also had ‘permanent death’: you have only one life and must choose wisely lest you have to start again. Finally, it had a system of unidentified items whose powers you must discover for yourself. Sil inherits all of these features, though it is much more advanced in many ways.
Who will like Sil?
You will like Sil if you want to play a detailed and well balanced role-playing game with a rich and intuitive system of tactical combat. You will also like it if you are interested in the works of Tolkien, or even just want a less generic role-playing game. The greatest obstacle to enjoying Sil will be its lack of graphics, but if you can overcome an initial reaction and begin to explore the world, your imagination should fill in the details more effectively than a small clump of pixels would.
I love the game so much that I've started making tutorial videos that I've posted to youtube on a dedicated channel. Download instructions etc. for the game are also there.
http://www.youtube.com/user/silstreamer
I hope some fellow TL'ers come to love this game as much as I do!
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well iam not much for playing games like this but it was pretty neat watching your vids that explained it have you ever done a lets play before?
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reminds me of the hours and hours and hours spent on moria
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On July 22 2012 09:53 drivec wrote:
well iam not much for playing games like this but it was pretty neat watching your vids that explained it have you ever done a lets play before?
Nope, this is my first one. Thanks for watching 
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On July 22 2012 10:35 caradoc wrote:
reminds me of the hours and hours and hours spent on moria
Well, Sil is a bastard child of a bastard child of Moria! You're more hardcore than I am, I've tried to play Moria before and it's way too unforgiving for me!
Hope you give Sil a try, it's really a masterpiece IMO. There aren't many people who can stomach games w/ terminal-style interfaces.
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I'll have to try it at some point-- I tend to get hardcore with these things though, and I can't afford another hardcore thing in my life right now 
It's on the to-do list tho!
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How is it in comparison to dungeon crawler stone soup?
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On July 23 2012 04:53 Tobberoth wrote:
How is it in comparison to dungeon crawler stone soup?
Stone Soup is everything that I once loved about roguelikes, which I have now come to hate SS games tend to run long, and you need a lot of esoteric knowledge to play well. SS to me feels like Nethack on steroids, which is awesome if you like Nethack. I played the heck out of that game a few years ago, so I definitely understand the appeal. I'll still watch a live Stone Soup termcast now and then just for fun.
Sil takes a purist, minimalist approach to roguelikes. It's sort of the polar opposite design principle to Stone Soup. There are only 20 floors, games run short (3-6 hours), there are only a handful of monsters and artifacts. However, there are zillions of ability/skill combinations, and each monster or item in the game has something surprising and interesting about it. This leads to a large variety of gameplay with a small set of rules.
I never find myself mindlessly spamming keys in Sil. There's very little scumming/repetitiveness at all. I've played hundreds of games already, and I'm still encountering new situations each game.
FYI, I've posted the first part of the next series of videos, outlining a different build type that is good for beginners! Here:
+ Show Spoiler +
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On July 24 2012 02:31 mikedebo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2012 04:53 Tobberoth wrote:
How is it in comparison to dungeon crawler stone soup? Stone Soup is everything that I once loved about roguelikes, which I have now come to hate SS games tend to run long, and you need a lot of esoteric knowledge to play well. SS to me feels like Nethack on steroids, which is awesome if you like Nethack. I played the heck out of that game a few years ago, so I definitely understand the appeal. I'll still watch a live Stone Soup termcast now and then just for fun. Sil takes a purist, minimalist approach to roguelikes. It's sort of the polar opposite design principle to Stone Soup. There are only 20 floors, games run short (3-6 hours), there are only a handful of monsters and artifacts. However, there are zillions of ability/skill combinations, and each monster or item in the game has something surprising and interesting about it. This leads to a large variety of gameplay with a small set of rules. I never find myself mindlessly spamming keys in Sil. There's very little scumming/repetitiveness at all. I've played hundreds of games already, and I'm still encountering new situations each game. FYI, I've posted the first part of the next series of videos, outlining a different build type that is good for beginners! Here: + Show Spoiler +
After reading your post here and checking you videos a bit, I decided to download and test and so far, I really like it. I've been playing DCSS for a bit (terrible at it) and I like that, but this feels very different. I like how it feels a lot easier to get into and get good at, while still staying challenging. I feel that unlike DCSS, Sil is a game I can introduce my friends to, even if they aren't hardcore at all. The fact that it's properly based on Tolkien helps with this as well.
I'm sort of worried that the game will get boring since the lack of complexity means less variation. You play different builds, sure, but nothing in comparision to the many magical schools in DCSS, the different gods and how some races in DCSS makes the game very different, such as vampire or mummy. On the other hand, since this game is less complex and games are faster, it's much easier to play "casually" in a pick-up-and-play manner.
Will definitely spend more time on this.
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Glad to hear you like it! Thanks for giving Sil a try.
Like you mentioned in your post, I feel one of the best qualities of Sil is that you can spend just a little bit of time familiarizing yourself with the rules, and feel like you have a shot at doing well. Games like DCSS and Nethack sort of force you to learn "hidden mechanics" either by dying a LOT, or reading the wiki. There's a lot to learn in Sil as well, but it's more about tactics, when to engage and when not to, when it's safe to add something to your build, etc. A lot like SC2, I guess
The game will get richer over time, as well. The next point release (1.0.3) is set to introduce new artifacts, new curses, some new monsters (I think), in addition to some balancing changes. The game is still being very actively developed.
FYI, I just released another video!
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I'll check it out. I had a lot of fun with DCSS, but I preferred to play a random viable race/class combination rather than playing one of the popular builds, and never really got too far. Was going to try out tome, but I like the sounds of this game.
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I love Angband and I still play Tome/TomeNET but what's different about Sil? Shorter, and more Tolkienized?
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On July 25 2012 13:28 starfries wrote:
I love Angband and I still play Tome/TomeNET but what's different about Sil? Shorter, and more Tolkienized?
From what I gathered (haven't played neither Angband nor Tome), Sil is also more simplified, and it really feels that way. Combat rolls are shown clearly to the player, and armor/weapons have their modifiers clearly shown, so it's very easy to know how an item helps you, if it's worth switching etc. It's as if Sil has removed everything but the bare minimum of a roguelike and then made it look really sexy. Unlike most roguelikes where it feels you learn the basics and then play with the hidden mechanics being the big challenge and having a wiki at hand is a must, you can pretty much read through the Sil manual (which isn't even all that long) and you'll know exactly what's going on the whole time.
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I refuse to play an Elf and I have not made it passed 150'. Thanks for the heads up though, I played a lot of NetHack a while ago. I recently picked up Dredmor, but that never really did it for me. This will fill the void NH left.
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On July 25 2012 16:09 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2012 13:28 starfries wrote:
I love Angband and I still play Tome/TomeNET but what's different about Sil? Shorter, and more Tolkienized? From what I gathered (haven't played neither Angband nor Tome), Sil is also more simplified, and it really feels that way. Combat rolls are shown clearly to the player, and armor/weapons have their modifiers clearly shown, so it's very easy to know how an item helps you, if it's worth switching etc. It's as if Sil has removed everything but the bare minimum of a roguelike and then made it look really sexy. Unlike most roguelikes where it feels you learn the basics and then play with the hidden mechanics being the big challenge and having a wiki at hand is a must, you can pretty much read through the Sil manual (which isn't even all that long) and you'll know exactly what's going on the whole time.
Couldn't have answered it better myself The richness in Sil's gameplay comes from the interactions of many well-known and easily-learned mechanics, instead of a bunch of weird unpredictable things that you just need to learn by dying repeatedly or begging for help on IRC.
On July 25 2012 21:04 justinpal wrote:I refuse to play an Elf and I have not made it passed 150'. Thanks for the heads up though, I played a lot of NetHack a while ago. I recently picked up Dredmor, but that never really did it for me. This will fill the void NH left.
Ha! Are you opposed to elves altogether, or just the Noldor? If you can play Sindar, a Falathrim archery build is a reasonable introduction to the game. Otherwise, I'd use the Naugrim with Smithing mastery and make awesome stuff.
I've just posted vid #5! Spoilered:
+ Show Spoiler +
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I'm really enjoying your screencasts. I've attempted nethack and another roguelike or two but was always put off by how esoteic and complex the roguelikes I played were, coupled with how unforgiving they are (I know sil is arguably more unforgiving in that you lack any easy out, but i feel like the game is more balanced around the knowledge/difficulty curve.)
First playthrough I got far enough to encounter that green unique orc mob...
I'm curious though is there a wiki or a forum where there's lots of discussion on the game? I haven't been able to find much other than a single thread on some roguelike forum that appears to be the official thread, and isn't particularly large.
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On July 26 2012 21:19 mikedebo wrote:
Ha! Are you opposed to elves altogether, or just the Noldor? If you can play Sindar, a Falathrim archery build is a reasonable introduction to the game. Otherwise, I'd use the Naugrim with Smithing mastery and make awesome stuff.
I'm more of a fanatic for Tolkien Dwarves than anything. I have only played Naugrim as of right now. I'm going to really experiment with enchanting and smithing. I have so many options that I am not even certain what is best just yet. But, it really has been fun so far. Your videos are great for helping me figure things out.
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On July 27 2012 11:06 Bobbias wrote:
I'm really enjoying your screencasts. I've attempted nethack and another roguelike or two but was always put off by how esoteic and complex the roguelikes I played were, coupled with how unforgiving they are (I know sil is arguably more unforgiving in that you lack any easy out, but i feel like the game is more balanced around the knowledge/difficulty curve.)
First playthrough I got far enough to encounter that green unique orc mob...
I'm curious though is there a wiki or a forum where there's lots of discussion on the game? I haven't been able to find much other than a single thread on some roguelike forum that appears to be the official thread, and isn't particularly large.
Unfortunately, it seems that Sil lacks any form of community. There's a forum linked on the official site, but it's not active at all. There's also quite a few people who have uploaded character dumps, and there's some slight discussion in the comments there, but I haven't been able to find anything else, forum, wiki, chat, nothing.
I mean hell, just searching for Sil on google or youtube gives like, nothing, so it's probably not well spread (but it's still quite new if I understood correctly).
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Yeah, that's what it was looking like to me. I'm generally pretty good at locating communities for things when I look, but I was wondering if maybe there was some hidden place that just happened to be google-resistant or something.
I mean, Sil's a roguelike, and shares enough in common that anyone who's familiar with a roguelike should be able to pick it up pretty quickly, but it's always nice to have a decent community around a game for discussing things, etc.
I'd been hoping there was some way to find a sort of "guide to approaches for builds" per se. I'm not particularly good at figuring things out on my own when it comes to things like specific stat distributions and how they work with different builds, etc. I'm just not hardcore enough to care to take down the necessary information to figure that shit out (although it's not particularly difficult). I prefer to just basically pick things up, make a decision on how i'd like to play my character, and know roughly how to execute that, and basically improvise when necessary.
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Hey guys,
If you go to http://angband.oook.cz and post a thread with "[Sil] My subject title" in the Variants forum, someone will answer you in a hurry. That community played about 400 Sil characters in the space of 3 months, so they've cooled down on talking about it for the time being.
However, questions/posts from new people are greeted with enthusiasm. The games' creators (half and Scatha) are both pushing towards the 1.0.3 release, so they've been quieter than usual, but they will usually chime in as well.
Also, if you scan the Sil character ladder for recent characters OR strong characters, you can get a rough idea of how to sequence your ability purchases and what to forge. Or you could just ask questions here and I'll do my best to answer them!
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EPT
