ASCII vs graphical tiles?

[Kaerwek]

As a rather old gamer, I used to play roguelike games that used the ASCII tileset. When I started TOME, I immediately switched to ASCII. However, while watching videos I've noticed that people tend to prefer the graphical tileset mode. So tried switching back to the graphical mode. It's quite beatiful, and sure, monsters look a bit more interesting, but quite quickly came to the conclusion that I had difficulty to see the 'empty' tiles where I could move to, as certain tiles were so high that they partly conceal the tile above them.

I find myself bumping tiles just to see if I can walk there. :/

Which one do you prefer?

[Davion Fuxa]

Personally in this day an age I prefer Tiled graphics over ASCII. ASCII might have it's place as a developers tool to put together their ideas and concepts but I don't consider their games finished unless they take their ASCII placeholders and start replacing them with more identifiable tiles. This is doubly true if the ASCII tiles start to show their limits in what you can do with your game too.

[Faeryan]

In ToME 2 the ascii (as in not drawn tiles but actual ascii characters) was the thing, just like Nethack and the like.
When I started ToME 4 I briefly tried the ascii tiles and they were horrendous.

[phalaris]

I play mostly with ascii. It is better when using 32x32 on a small monitor. I found I was missing things on the screan when using shockbolt tiles, especially when playing fast.

[Kaerwek]

I've now tried the Shockbolt a bit more. And a few things I've noticed.

1) I got used to it, and it's frankly not too bad.
2) In ASCII mode, I had no way of telling whether I had explored a dungeon. In Shockbolt, the dungeons have the shimmering effect that help telling whether I've been there or not.

[Sradac]

Shockbolt, there's no point in using ASCII graphics because ToME4s UI looks like shit with ASCII.

I will play roguelikes designed around ASCII in ASCII without any problem (ADOM, Crawl, ToME2, DoomRL, etc.) However ToME4 has clearly put fancy graphics first so I will use those

[Dreadwolf]

I really wanted to like the better graphic but i just cant, i think its just habit, im used to ascii and the extra just get in the way for me.

[PowerWyrm]

ASCII is quite ugly with the engine. It works better with oldschool roguelike like ADOM or Angband, although these also take the graphical route nowadays...

[Kaerwek]

Frankly I did not find ASCII ugly with the engine. As I started with it, I found it quite nice, as it felt like the games I played so many years ago.

[kyuubee]

ascii
tome tiles may be pleasant to watch but honestly they are hell to play, tiles should generally be simpler

[Grey]

ASCII is quite ugly with the engine.

Oh? Even on other games using the engine?

[Marson]

In general I prefer the tiles, but I find some environments difficult to navigate. For those, I may switch to ASCII while there.