When comparing Sprouted Pixel Dungeon vs Nethack, the Slant community recommends Nethack for most people. In the question“What are the best open-source games?” Nethack is ranked 29th while Sprouted Pixel Dungeon is ranked 70th. The most important reason people chose Nethack is:
Nethack is a game that you can play for hundreds of hours and still not master. But you'll have tons of fun attempting to master it.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Ad-free
Pro There are significant improvements compared to the original Pixel Dungeon and Shattered Pixel Dugeon games
- Much larger levels creating a different gameplay and strategy experience;
- Mobs drop monster meat to facilitate longer and more in-depth exploration of the larger levels;
- Dew system has been revised to create a currency for upgrade opportunities;
- Dew vial has been reworked as a new pivotal resource for exploring the dungeon;
- Wraiths and grave hunting is now a major part of the game progression;
- Boss fights have been completely reworked to be more intense and challenging requiring completely new tactics;
- Mobs now adjust strength as you go deeper into the dungeon to stay balanced with upgrades;
- New levels are accessible at each stage with Four additional levels available at the end of the game;
- New levels include unique enemies, items, and rewards.
Pro Free and open source
Sprouted Pixel Dungeon is a free open source turn-based roguelike RPG game that builds upon other open source Pixel Dungeon modifications with permission from the developers.
Pro Potential for enormous skill growth
Nethack is a game that you can play for hundreds of hours and still not master. But you'll have tons of fun attempting to master it.
Pro Depth
The gameplay is very deep due to the amount of skills and systems present in the game.
Pro Over two decades of constant development
Nethack was first released in 1987. The latest version, 3.6.0, came out in December 2015.
Pro ASCII and tiles available
Nethack is able to run on simple ASCII graphics or use graphic tiles instead.
Cons
Con Burden of knowledge
There's simply too much information that the game expects you to know before you can properly take advantage of the systems in the game.
Con Feature creep
NetHack has an overwhelming amount of features mostly because the development team found them cool at the time, but with little thought of their greater impact. For example, a Nethack staple is Sokoban as a built-in minigame, which feels out of place in a dungeon crawler.
The extremely large amount of items and abilities break the game's balance and coherence.
Con Outdated controls
You need to study a wiki just to learn the most basic controls. The game is broken in this regard.
Con ASCII Art
Con Run of the mill story
The story of the game is pretty generic fantasy fare. It features orcs, elves, and trolls in an effort for the hero to save the world. While it does not detract from the gameplay, it does seem very familiar to those interested in the genre.