Encircled

Encircled
Stable game
Developer	SRD
Theme	Positioning, tactics
Influences	Rogue Rage, ChessRogue, PrincessRL, Cellular automata
Released	25 Aug 2012 (release 1)
Updated	()
Licensing	Public domain, Open Source
P. Language	C++
Platforms	Windows, Linux Mac OS
Interface	ASCII, Curses
Game Length	20-60 minutes to die, No wins reported
Official site of Encircled

Encircled is a coffeebreak roguelike

Encircled is a roguelike game written in 60 hours by SRD. Unlike every other roguelike around, actors' ability to do damage is dependent on the terrain surrounding them and their foes. The objective is to survive through 16 dungeon levels, killing a certain number of boss monsters on each one. Several less significant monsters will do their best to hinder and kill the player along the way. As the player goes deeper into the dungeon, enemies will get tougher and deadlier, but the choice of weapons on the floor will allow the player to fight through them better.

Every weapon has a "user pattern" and a "target pattern". The weapon can only be used while standing in a position that matches the user pattern, and the weapon can only damage enemies who are standing in a position that matches the target pattern. Weapons may restricted to damaging adjacent enemies or visible enemies, or may be able to harm enemies anywhere on the map. Some weapons harm every enemy that matches the target pattern and is in range, whereas others can only attack one (random) enemy per turn.

There is no bump-to-attack in Encircled. The player will automatically attack one or all targettable enemies, with both weapons. The player's only controls are where to move, whether to stay still, and whether to pick a weapon up off the ground.

Because terrain and positioning is so important, Encircled has the option to restructure the dungeon. If an actor stands on a numbered tile, then the terrain will gradually change to make that actor's weapon patterns match more locations on the map. Both player and enemies can do this.

The enemies are:

• 'a'. Low health and bad weapon. Will try to block tiles that are safe from enemy attack.
• 'b'. Medium health and slightly better weapon. Will try to get adjacent to the player and prevent movement.
• 'c'. Medium health and better weapon. Will try to block tiles that the player can use to attack from.
• 'd'. Medium health and good weapon. Will try to stay on tiles from which they can do damage.
• 'E'. High health and best weapon. Boss. Killing every one of these that appears is the objective of the game. They will try to make this difficult by running away.

Controls:

• Movement: qweasdzxc, or hjklyubn, or 789456123.
• Replace first weapon with weapon from the ground: 'f'
• Replace second weapon with weapon from the ground: 'g'
• Recolour display to show where player can/can't attack from, and where player can't attack/could potentially attack/can attack right now.

Playing well:

Playing badly (this situation is equivalent to death):