"You manage to teleport yourself to Slaeter's Sea. You are hit by a hatchetfish; you die. You zap yourself with a wand; you die. You grow an extra finger; you die. You commit magical genocide on a race of bats, heavenly rangers appear; you die. As you continually perish, the game deletes your save file but keeps your ghosts around to torment you; literally a case of anti-experience points. The more you lose, the harder it gets. Become careless and the forest outside the village screams with ghosts and zombies, former selves come back to punish you for not being strong enough."
Christian McCrea explores the brutal, punitive and utterly Nordic world of Ragnarok.

Once Peaceful and Thriving

I love roguelikes. Based on your description of it, though, I can't tell what (aside from the Norse flavor and the quest system, and presumably the graphics) makes it different from, oh, any other roguelike.

Its only different in a couple of subtle ways from most roguelikes of the era, but the tight gameplay, mood it perpetuates and the setting elevate it into greatness. The imaginative world is woven together very neatly, which is very different to the raw unbridled chaos of your Nethacks and Rogues. It matches anarchy with law, basically.

Download a version and have a peek. (its Freeware.)

wolvesevolve:
Its only different in a couple of subtle ways from most roguelikes of the era, but the tight gameplay, mood it perpetuates and the setting elevate it into greatness. The imaginative world is woven together very neatly, which is very different to the raw unbridled chaos of your Nethacks and Rogues. It matches anarchy with law, basically.

Download a version and have a peek. (its Freeware.)

Ah. That makes quite a bit of sense.

Is there, say, a link to it? Google doesn't know what I'm talking about.

Google likes me best ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnarok_(roguelike)

talks about the game has link to site with versions to download at bottom.

TomBeraha:
Google likes me best ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnarok_(roguelike)

talks about the game has link to site with versions to download at bottom.

Many thanks.