Spurred on by a very convenient, albeit delayed, cease and desist letter from Bethesda’s parent company Zenimax, Jupiter Hell – aka. the DOOM roguelike – has passed its funding goal on Kickstarter.
Jupiter Hell is a spiritual successor to DoomRL, a fan-made roguelike which had been kicking around for over a decade. It wasn’t until right before The Game Awards that its creator Kornel Kisielewicz revealed that Zenimax’s lawyers had gotten wind of the game, and demanded it be shut down.
So… Zenimax have just written to me demanding I take down the DoomRL site… :-/ pic.twitter.com/tXAwdq59Zz
— Kornel Kisielewicz (@epyoncf) December 2, 2016
Of course, the timing was helpful: Kisielewicz had just launched the Kickstarter for Jupiter Hell. And thanks to Zenimax’s move, the code for the original roguelike is available for all on GitHub.
Jupiter Hell is a turn-based affair with a grid-based movement system. There’s also an ASCII version being developed concurrently, if you like the Dwarf Fortress/pre-3D graphics feel:
But for most people this will be more up their alley.
There’s an appropriate heavy metal soundtrack, and you can pause at any time or just skate through rooms if necessary. All of the levels will be procedurally generated, as any good roguelike should. And if you want a good idea of the gameplay, AliensRL (which Kisielewicz also made) is happily kicking around, sans legal threats.
Jupiter Hell is currently scheduled to hit Early Access in November 2017.
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