Kerkerkruip

I may as well nail my colours to the mast: I'm a big fan of roguelikes, and Kerkerkruip does an excellent job of transferring the roguelike dungeon-crawl experience to a text medium. It reminded me a lot of "The Reliques of Tolti-Aph", another game I love (though I recognise that it's an acquired taste), but is easier and less unforgiving. The enemies and many of the items are innovative.

It's not the kind of game you play for the prose or the mood. The writing is workmanlike a lot of the time, but that doesn't mean that it's bad (in case anyone were expecting bad writing from Gijsbers): there are some excellent descriptions (I particularly like the mirror room and the phantasmagoria). Battle descriptions are nice and varied. Humour is sparse, but excellent.

Is it a perfect roguelike? Is anything on this earth perfect? No. The small size of the game world, while necessary (and obviating the need of a map, or of hours of free time) means that the game doesn't have one of my favourite features of roguelikes: the exploration. The randomly generated dungeon means that there is no real sense of build-up: it is possible (at least in earlier versions) to spawn in the room next to the final boss. There is no complex plot, and little sense of the wider world of the game, other than some scattered sword & sorcery tropes. (Though, again, this isn't a game you play for the plot or worldbuilding.)

Those quibbles aside, I love it. Highly recommended if you enjoy RPGs and have fifteen minutes to spare. And finally, kudos to mynheer Gijsbers for continuing to develop and upgrade this game. He has created something innovative and wonderful.