S.C.O.U.R.G.E. (2007)

by Gabor Torok

"S.C.O.U.R.G.E." is a rogue-like RPG in 3D. Here's what the developer wrote about it:

"Life is comfortable in the quasi-medieval city of Horghh. In fact it is so comfortable that a group of aging adventurers - having no monsters to slay, young people to rescue, or tree-stranded pets to fetch - decide to incorporate into a dungeon janitorial services company. After renting a run-down office-hovel on the shady side of town, the group accepts missions from a line of increasingly dangerous low-lifes. Our heros are hired by overlords, evil sorcerers, and underworld bosses to exterminate pests occupying old dungeons, haunted towers, and other future centers of world domination. While working for the daily mutton, group members battle alcohol addiction, low self esteem, non-existent self-confidence, and total loss of integrity. It is a grandiose battle of epic mental and psychological proportions, to which most players will relate.

S.C.O.U.R.G.E. is a rogue-like game in the fine tradition of NetHack and Moria It sports a graphical front-end, similar to glHack or the Falcon's eye. I tried to design the 3D UI as a best of both worlds from old to new: It lets you rotate the view, zoom in/out, view special effects, etc. On the other hand I've always liked the old-school isometric games like Exult or Woodward.

Features
-Multi-level, random, scrolling dungeons. Populated with many, fearsome vermin for yer exterminatin' pleasure
-Control a group of four ex-adventurers as they try to find dignity in their new profession
-An interactive world of items, characters, spells, enemies and traps
-Multiple missions per level, so you decide which dungeons to enter"

The whole game works in real time, but when you meet an opponent during a mission it automatically switches over to turn-based battle mode. Special about "S.C.O.U.R.G.E." is that it is quite non-linear. There are lots of missions you can accept and play, but most of them are not story relevant. So you can decide yourself if you like them and if you need to play another mission to level up before you go on with the story.

The world of "S.C.O.U.R.G.E." is complex and there are lots of dungeons to explore as well as lots of different characters, classes, spells, weapons and other items to use. If you like that you will be entertained for many hours (once you get used to the controls which are a bit odd at first).

Screenshots

Ratings

Downloads

• Scourge.zip (140.60 MB)
  Version 0.21.1 (Windows Executable)
• Scourge-Mac.dmg (140.02 MB)
  Version 0.21.1 (Mac OS X Other)
• Scourge-Linux.tar.gz (135.51 MB)
  Version 0.21.1 (Linux Source)

Reviews

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Discussion on our forums on S.C.O.U.R.G.E.

• Pater Alf on 24.01.2009:
  Version 0.21.1 of "S.C.O.U.R.G.E." has been released.
  
  Changes:
  - Storyline is completed, the game can now be finished.
  - Substantial frame-rate improvements: scourge can be played on low-end systems as well.
  - New icons, music, textures, item models
  - New outdoor themes
  - New container ui-s
  - New summon monster spell
  - New outdoor house models
  - many bugfixes and optimizations (esp. texture loading)
  - updated translations, translated to Spanish
  - New intro movie
  
  You can download the new version (for Windows, Linux and Mac) from our game info page:
  
  http://curlysworldoffreeware.com/game_i ... gameid=200

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• Pater Alf on 26.06.2008:
  All files on our download site have been updated to version 0.20:
  
  http://curlysworldoffreeware.com/game_i ... gameid=200
  
  "The SCOURGE Development team has been hard at work making the next release something very special! Among the many bugfixes and playability enhancements here is a short list of features being developed:
  
  * Translations to languages other than English!
  * Outdoor Levels with villages and real terrain!
  * User Interface has a new default color scheme and is now themable!
  * New Models and Icons!
  * Weather and ambient sound has been added for more engaging fantasy!
  * New Monsters, Levels, Traps, Secrets and Story Additions!
  * High Scores may be uploaded to SCOURGEweb!
  * Walls in dungeons areas now become transparent in front of the camera!

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• eMTe on 22.05.2008:
  Version 0.20 released.

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• Scythe on 16.03.2008:
  Kudos for a game that is playable in v0.19.
  
  What this game really needs:
  - Pathfinding. Everybody is always in the way of one another. Sometimes three characters get grouped together and stop moving altogether.
  - I have yet to figure out how to use items/cast spells in turn based. It works fine in real time, but I can't trigger the actions in turn based. There must be a way, but it's not obvious to me. Consequently, I'm going to get rid of the magician and get another man-at-arms...
  - For money to make sense. Need money? 1. Plunder your HQ. 2. Sell everything. 3. Save/Reload. 4. Repeat. Or go to a dungeon, kill two monsters and get overloaded with treasure.
  - Large enemy bug to be fixed. Sometimes you're unable to melee large opponents. They're always out of reach. Occasionally you can solve this by moving away and setting a new path to attack them, but that wastes your precious action points and may not even work.
  - Fixed weight rates. A helmet weighs 20. Out of my most powerful character's 55 limit. 20?! Holy cripes... that's more than a shield...
  
  What does it have, then? Random dungeons, lots of skills (if not so many character classes), tactical combat (with limited tactics), and, heck, even a story if you choose to pursue it. Lots of (pretty repetitive) non-stop questing. Some humour in the quest descriptions.
  
  It's not bad, really. It's not very far along the development path, but it's totally playable, if a little hard to get into at first.

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• Pater Alf on 16.03.2008:
  It's a bit hard to get into this game as there are many options, lots of different characters, classes, spells, weapons and other items. But once you're in, know what to do and how to act and fight it's quite addictive.
  
  What I like best about "S.C.O.U.R.G.E." is that it is quite non-linear. There are lots of missions you can accept and play, but most of them are not story relevant. So you can decide yourself if you like them and if you need to play another mission to level up before you go on with the story.
  
  Bad tings about the game are the controlling (I really had big problems with it in the beginning of the game and even now I know ho it works I have trouble from time to time) and the fact that fighting in the dungeons gets a bit repetitive after a while.

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• eMTe on 06.04.2007:
  Life is comfortable in the quasi-medieval city of Horghh. In fact it is so comfortable that a group of aging adventurers - having no monsters to slay, young people to rescue, or tree-stranded pets to fetch - decide to incorporate into a dungeon janitorial services company. After renting a run-down office-hovel on the shady side of town, the group accepts missions from a line of increasingly dangerous low-lifes. Our heros are hired by overlords, evil sorcerers, and underworld bosses to exterminate pests occupying old dungeons, haunted towers, and other future centers of world domination. While working for the daily mutton, group members battle alcohol addiction, low self esteem, non-existent self-confidence, and total loss of integrity. It is a grandiose battle of epic mental and psychological proportions, to which most players will relate.
  
  
  
  S.C.O.U.R.G.E. is a roguelike game in the fine tradition of NetHack and Moria. It sports a graphical front-end, similar to glHack or the Falcon's Eye. Game lets you rotate the view, zoom in/out, view special effects etc - in other words this is roguelike, but visually a bit enhanced.
  
  Project admin (?): Gabor Torok
  
  Download:
  
  http://curlysworldoffreeware.com/game_i ... gameid=200
  
  Site with more info, user guide and download:
  
  http://scourge.sourceforge.net/
  
  Official homepage:
  
  http://scourgeweb.org/tiki-index.php
  
  Latest version: 0.19

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