A traditional roguelike with mechanics that mimic those found in fighting games.

An attack can be one or more of four types: Low, Mid, High, or Grab. Conversely, a character can be in one of three stances: Crouch, Stand, or Tech. The way an attack interacts with a target depends on the stance that the target is in, as shown in the following table.

If an attack hits, the target takes full damage and enters a stunned state. If an attack is blocked, the target takes only partial damage and is not stunned.

This is a console-based roguelike written in plain C. A moldering potato can probably run this game. The potato, however, must be equipped with the following:

• Ncurses

To download the game, find the latest release. Download the version that corresponds to your operationg system and unzip it to a new folder. Launch the game in the build directory.

Zenzizenzizenzic is built using CMake.

In order to compile the game for local testing, run the following commands:

cmake --preset=dev
cmake --build build

The game binary and necessary data files will appear in the newly-created build directory. In order to compile the game with release-level compiler optimizations, replace "dev" with "release." Note that this will disable most compiler warnings and debug hooks.

While both the win and lose state are reachable, the game is still very far from what I would consider playable.

This is a traditional roguelike, and follows the Berlin Interpretation fairly closely. Why not make it even more traditional by writing it in pure C?

In all honesty, though, I simply like C.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: It depends. Save files are written in binary with fwrite(). This means that the save file architecture depends on one's platform, operating system, the compiler that the binary was compiled with, and a host of other factors. It's easiest to assume that a save file made on one computer will not be compatible with a save file made on another.

In the future, I would like to refactor save files to be in human-readable json, but that's a long way off.

Zenzizenzizenzic was influenced by numerous games, the most prominent of which appear here:

• NetHack

• Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

• The Slimy Lichmummy

• Sil-Q