Quirky Japanese Roguelike ‘Elona’ Returns as ‘ElonaPlus’

Roguelike revivals seem to be the story of the day, and here’s one for the freeware-hungry crowd. Elona is a very unique and strange little game. Developed in Japan, although with a parallel English version due to open-sourcing, the game earned a reputation for being completely unhinged, cramming in everything from fantasy staples to Big Daddies/Little Sisters from Bioshock, to Masaki ‘Hard Gay’ Sumitani as an exploding kamikaze enemy type. The game eventually went into hibernation as the developer drifted off to do other things, but has now returned under new developers, and is available under the title of ElonaPlus. Right now, it’s largely tweaks and bugfixes to the original game, but there’s a few notable additions already for you to discover.

I just gibbed a mime with a bronze laser pistol. At level 1. Classic!

You can find the new version over at the Elonaplus wiki.  Here’s a direct download link to the latest Windows build (v1.08). As with previous versions of the game, it’s fully bilingual, although there are some blocks of text that aren’t yet translated into English. Usually flavour text rather than anything important, thankfully. Unlike most Roguelikes, there’s no perma-death in this one, and no death penalty at all until you hit Level 6, so you’re safe to experiment and cause trouble at first. Just don’t go picking fights in towns, unless you like being smashed by guards. Oh, and one last tip: Never drink from fountains. They’re the #1 cause of unwanted alien chestburster pregnancies. Good luck!