Appearently my first experience with a Roguelike was back when I was 9 years old

[BlueTsunami]

http://www.consoleclassix.com/gamegear/dragon_crystal.html

I used to play the shit out of this on my Game Gear 

I want to fire it up now

[BlueTsunami]

I definitely liked it. It was the changing layouts and items that allowed for a lot of replayability. I never beat it though. I always got to a point where this alien spaceship enemy would showup and kick my ass. Though, retreading through the game has got me interested since I'm older and have experience with games of the same type.

[tiesto]

Yeah, this was my first roguelike too... I may have been a few years older than you when I played it. But I hated the fucking game, lol... Azure Dreams was my second roguelike experience. I just find the genre way too punishing, who wants to lose 4 hours worth of gameplay due to pure randomness?

It's a bit of a stretch, but couldn't Toejam and Earl be considered a roguelike? If so, that was technically my first.

[BlueTsunami]

I know it as a game that has random level layouts, items for each level. Perma Death for your created character, as tiesto stated, very punishing gameplay.

[pilonv1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike

The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement. Many early roguelikes featured ASCII graphics. Games are typically dungeon crawls, with many monsters, items, and environmental features. Computer roguelikes usually employ the majority of the keyboard to facilitate interaction with items and the environment. The name of the genre comes from the 1980 game Rogue.

Check out the CRAWL thread if you want to play a great one.

[BlueTsunami]

I'm playing this now via a Sega Master System emulator. Still fun even though it doesn't have as much items as Crawl Stone Soup.

[Eric P]

my first roguelike was on some compilation five and a quarter inch floppy that they used to give away with PC mags.

shit was rough, but i was addicted.  loot + exploration = the bomb.

now i don't really have much patience for true roguelikes, but i enjoy hack n slash.

[recursivelyenumerable]

It's not a roguelike, but I played FFL2/SaGa 2 when I was 9 or so and I think some of its appeal is similar to that of roguelikes.  Shiren even paid homage to it with the monster meat eating thing.

[Enl]

For me I had my first roguelike  experience when I was about 6 (also my first RPG ever). It was the Temple of Apshai Trilogy for the C64. I didn't know what the hell was going on but the more I played it the more I loved it. It's not nearly as deep as Dungeon Crawl or Angband but the basics are still there. The main character death animation used to freak the living hell out of me as a kid. The theme music was also pretty catchy too.

[Joe Molotov]

Not exactly Roguelike, but Rogueish or Roguesque at least, I played a lot of Scott Miller's Kroz on my first computer when I was about 10. Anyone else remember that game?

[tiesto]

Not exactly Roguelike, but Rogueish or Roguesque at least, I played a lot of Scott Miller's Kroz on my first computer when I was about 10. Anyone else remember that game?

Yeah, wasn't it very similar to ZZT?

[ToxicAdam]

I was too young for Temple of Asphai too. Hard game for my age.

I didn't catch the roguelike bug until late in life. Nethack in 2001.

[chronovore]

I was hooked from Rogue on PC - looks like that may have been 1983 or 1984. I loved that game.

[Joe Molotov]

Not exactly Roguelike, but Rogueish or Roguesque at least, I played a lot of Scott Miller's Kroz on my first computer when I was about 10. Anyone else remember that game?

Yeah, wasn't it very similar to ZZT?

Yeah, I believe so, although I never really played ZZT.