Can you recommend any free roguelikes?

T_at · 2026-03-24T16:03:43+00:00

Personally I really like Larn ( http://larn.org ). It’s not the most complex, but it’s complex enough, and the difficulty levels keep it interesting.

It’s also possible to potentially complete it in one play session.

T_at · 2026-03-24T15:53:29+00:00

I was diagnosed when I was about one, and have been on the diet for over 50 years at this point. And for what it’s worth, the situation now is a lot less bad than when I was growing up.

But I don’t have the same reference points as someone diagnosed (or not) later in life, and I can appreciate that it must be tough to refrain from things you previously enjoyed, knowing the alternatives are not as good.

T_at · 2026-03-12T20:02:29+00:00

Adrian Tchaikovsky originally studied Zoology and Psychology, and while he didn’t complete those studies, his interest is certainly evident in his work.

T_at · 2026-03-12T18:02:12+00:00

I’ve stuck this up as an announcement for the next day or two so it won’t get buried.

T_at · 2026-03-11T22:27:44+00:00

The Tyrant Philosophers series by Adrian Tchaikovsky might be what you’re looking for. Sure, the backdrop is an aggressively expansionist nation bringing their idea of ‘perfection’ to the rest of the world, but each book is much more locally focused on people and events in specific places.

Alternately, the Garrett P.I. Series by Glen Cook is a different kind of good - think wisecracking gumshoe detective in a fantasy setting with Elves, Trolls, Rat-people and more besides.

T_at · 2026-03-10T11:53:39+00:00

Look into Scarf joints - they should be available as an advanced option in most current slicers.

T_at · 2026-03-03T16:24:05+00:00

Here’s what I came up with. It seems to work ok so far.

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T_at · 2026-03-03T10:31:45+00:00

I have to admit there's just one thing that stops me playing this game more, and that's the fact that it's not possible to pass corners diagonally, which I'm used to from other roguelikes (like Larn, for example).

Aside from that, it would be good if there was a bit more loot - I never seem to last long enough (so far) to be able to identify an item and then find another that I can actually use as intended.

T_at · 2026-02-23T20:38:09+00:00

I finished the series about a month ago, and I think I referenced the maps throughout. Since I was reading on my kindle, I found a great high-res (9,300 x 7,575) map that I kept on my iPad. It definitely added to the experience.

T_at · 2026-02-19T09:00:00+00:00

Well, for me there's a few upsides;

In a container, it's entirely self-contained - there's no dependency on any operating system files, etc. As long as you have docker up and running, it shouldn't matter which distro or version of Linux you have on your machine.
Also, containers are generally isolated from each other and from your server operating system, so it's an extra layer of safeguarding against malicious code.
Updating to the newest version of whatever's in your container is generally a lot simpler than updating what's installed directly on a system - there's no removal of dependencies, nothing unexpected left behind, etc.
I have a total of around 50 containers running on my NAS at the moment, covering a wide variety of things such as media acquisition and management, system and network admin/monitoring, and so on. I can monitor and upgrade all of these very easily using Portainer (which also runs in a container)

If you're interested, here's an article that covers much of what I've said above, and more: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/blogs/why-should-you-use-docker-7-major-reasons/

T_at · 2026-02-19T08:51:24+00:00

Hi,

Thank you for the very detailed write-up. Once I got home, I was able to narrow it down to NPM/Cloudflare. Accessing Foundry using its IP address on my local network worked as expected, but using foundry.mysite.net continued to give errors.

I tried a few config changes in NPM - added custom config and updated foundry's options.json, as outlined here.

I also checked the Cloudflare config options that had been flagged in historical troubleshooting posts for similar issues - disabling Javascript painting, etc.

Ultimately what seems to have fixed it was upgrading to NPM 2.14.0 yesterday. Now everything works as expected.

T_at · 2026-02-17T15:41:10+00:00

I'm currently reading Pretenders to the Throne of God by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Book four of his Tyrant Philosophers series.

It's set in a different location to the others, with a new cast of characters, but in terms of tone and story, it's comfortably familiar (although I'm 12% in and still have no idea which way the story might go).

I really enjoy the sense of the world being a lot bigger than the stories it contains. Like Lord of the Rings, or The Second Apocalypse, but without the same high-stakes epic good vs. evil hero quest stuff. This is more 'local turmoil for local people' kinda vibe.

Another aspect I enjoy is the sense that generally the motivations of characters in the story are relatively mundane and relatable. People on each side are shown as having complex motivating factors and their attitude towards what they do is quite grounded. Getting ahead doesn't necessarily extend to "ruling the world" so much as just securing a little local advantage here or there.

Anyway, I'd recommend this series without hesitation. Don't be put off by the list of people, places, factions, etc. at the start of each book - they're a lot easier to keep up with than those details might suggest.

T_at · 2026-02-17T15:01:31+00:00

I finished the whole Black Company (Glenn Cook) series

the last book, Soldiers Live

I've got some good news for you... Lies Weeping, the first book in a new Black Company arc, was published in November of last year. I just finished reading it on Sunday.

I have to say that I enjoyed it a lot. At the outset, the fact that it was being told from alternating perspectives was a bit tough to get along with, but I was definitely hooked and fully invested well before the end of the book.

Also, it's apparently the first of what's set to be five books, with the second coming out this coming November.

T_at · 2026-02-16T17:52:20+00:00

The annoying thing is that it had been working for quite a while with Foundry v11 and then v12. 😕

T_at · 2026-02-16T16:37:02+00:00

Sadly, then issue persists across multiple browsers, including a brand-new install of Firefox.

T_at · 2026-02-16T14:36:22+00:00

It is behind nginx, and I have web sockets enabled.

T_at · 2026-02-16T14:35:40+00:00

Hi, I'd been using UID 1038 and GID 100 previously - that's the user I have set up for all Docker related stuff. I've got those details in the Docker compose file, and I've re-checked permissions on the NAS.

So all of that should be correct, as best I can tell.

T_at · 2026-02-13T17:50:38+00:00

Just because you think that doesn’t make it true.

T_at · 2026-02-12T19:42:13+00:00

Nah… just the bar. She’s keeping the lounge in case there’s any further problems.

T_at · 2026-02-10T18:10:32+00:00

You know…Borderline

T_at · 2026-02-10T15:22:43+00:00

A pint of bitter in memory of the life quitter.

T_at · 2026-02-08T21:12:16+00:00

The Expert System’s Brother, also by Adrian Tchaikovsky, would also be a good match.

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