From Tales of Maj’Eyal to Elin

A Whirlwind Tour of the Roguelikes I'm Taste Testing

As the time drew ever later today, without landing on a specific game to discuss, panic levels grew. Because dang it, today is the day for gaming discussion.

But… I haven’t quite landed a single game to focus on. As is often my way, I’ve been jumping around a few. Each is in the same wider genre of “Roguelike”, although with something of a sliding scale of… oddness… to them. In no small part due to the insane scope.

Scopes I’ve barely scratched the surface of.

But in something of a ‘grab bag’ style approach, in order of most normal to “What on God’s green Earth…?”, here we go!

Tales of Maj’Eyal

Without a doubt, ToME is the most ‘normal’ of the three I’ve been taste testing. It launched on Steam in 2012, but was an open-source, freely available game even before that. I don’t know exactly how long before Steam’s launch I played, but I know that I did at some point and found it enjoyable enough at the time.

What brought it to mind again now was a comment from Jeromai¹, talking about how the game is often quite relatable to MMO players, with a somewhat familiar skill and stat system.

I’ve rolled a Bulwark (Tanky Warrior), as I had dim recollections of doing very well with this class back in the day. And so far, seems like a good choice! Very strong, very simple.

The trolls of the first area have all fallen before my shield and array of other weaponry I’ve tried, and I’ve just made it out to the world map and into the next dungeon/point of interest, so fairly early on in my current run.

Caves of Qud

Qud… Gets wild. Really wild, from what I’m given to understand. But honestly, from how far I’ve gotten so far, it’s all pretty normal.

… Well, as long as I take for granted that mutating extra sets of arms, or perhaps a stinger tail, or a myriad of psionic powers is ‘normal’. Which, on reflection, to some degree, I clearly already have.

Aside from being an ever-evolving mutant, there are also all your more typical combat, survival and crafting skills. And if mutating spontaneously isn’t really your thing — you can play as the ‘True Kin’ faction instead, with more of a cyberpunk-esque cybernetics system, which I’ve not so much as touched yet.

In my current game though, I rolled as a Mutant Warden, focusing on a Sword and Board combat style. (Huh, bit of a theme there, what with ToME as well.)

Since starting, I’ve also grown a scorpid-style stinger which can poison, and the ability to enter a state of precognition. Under this state, I can play out a limited number of turns to see how they go, then decide whether or not to reset to the point I activated precognition.

Super powerful, and it has saved my bacon a couple of times already, but incredibly long cooldown.

I’ve dealt with the Girsh issue in the Red Rocks dungeon area and moved on to the aptly named Rust Pits. I’m unsure if it is just time spent here, or whether attacks from certain of the flora and fauna of the area are doing it, but every so often, an item in my possession will ‘rust’.

It doesn’t appear that you can simply clean this off with water, as with many other statuses, so I’ll perhaps need to look at that in more detail when I get back to the village again.

For now?

I’m happy to keep soldering on, and in fact, I’ve almost collected enough of the copper wire I was sent here for anyway.

And I managed to locate a Carbide Long Sword here almost immediately upon entering, which I believe is immune to rust and has much better stats than what I was using before.

For all this, though, I know I’ve barely scratched the surface, so I’m curious to see what else Qud has to offer.

Elin

Elin is … It might be easier to say what it isn’t, but let’s give this a try.

Elin is a roguelike. You can turn off permadeath though, but it otherwise carries many of the same trappings. The world moves when you do — say still, and you can think through your actions as long as you’d like.

But within the framework of a game, it can also be a Stardew Valley-like, where you live a peaceful life on your farm, occasionally travelling to town to meet the locals and trade goods.

Keeping on the cosy theme for the moment — it could also be a Recettear-like, and you can set up a shop where you can price and sell goods, try building up your shop (or, village… or… town)’s renown, attracting customers or even tourists from far and wide.

For my first run, I created a character with the ‘Farmer’ background and intended to start out by seeing how the peaceful version of the game plays out.

But uh… It isn’t all roses and cosy times.

There is something of a RimWorld soul in there, too.

For the uninitiated… Well, cannibalism and slave trade are options you can engage in if you’re not too fussed with your karma and reputation. There is a pantheon of Gods you can learn about and choose to align yourself with, or be punished by, I would suspect, should they not appreciate your choices.

I’m perhaps three hours in, and if I didn’t know better, like Qud, I’d expect this to be a pretty regular run-of-the-mill ‘normal’ game, albeit with an already impressive scope with the mix of life-sim, roguelike, and colony-sim aspects.

But even with an eye to avoiding too many spoilers, from what I have heard so far, I know that the item tags and simulation of the game run pretty deep, and gets to some pretty nutty places.

If the cannibalism and slave trade notes didn’t give it away already, probably not a very kid-friendly game. I think it may even have some content of a lewd nature, but I just really don’t know yet — it’s also possible that it was only introduced by modders and isn’t part of the base experience.

So!

Like I said under the first screenshot for Elin, ‘When I know, I’ll tell you!’, as at this point at least, I do still intend to play more.

This was posted during Blaugust 2025, the annual blogging event normally hosted by Belghast, with a twist this year of being hosted by Krikket. Blaugust is an event aiming to welcome new blogger blood into the fold and revitalise those who’ve been at it a little longer.

The Blaugust Discord is still available to join in, year-round!

1. Come to think of it, Jeromai predicted in that comment the slew of Roguelikes to follow, too.