ASCII is fine for people who have been playing roguelikes forever, or people who have been playing games so long that they used to play text-based adventure games on DOS. But for people who aren't used to that sort of thing, why go to the effort of learning what every ugly thing means and figuring out what it means when an E is fighting an e when there is a better alternative?

Like Paul I have played with ASCII but I just dislike it. It's less intuitive. It's less clear. It's immensely ugly. I do not want to look at it. So it's not like it's even a compromise, less so still for Jess, because the tileset is superior in every way. It conveys information more easily and rapidly than ASCII, you don't have to spend as long learning how to 'read' the game as you do having to learn the UI, and as was stated in a current thread on the topic on bay12 just a day or two ago;

Quote Originally Posted by atomfullerene
Sorry folks, prefer the graphics all the way, although I have learned to parse the ascii fonts from the wiki and the map archives. I just like using something specifically designed to visually represent the contents of the game, rather than generic symbols originally meant for text document display shoehorned into use as game graphics. It's amazing how well roguelikes make them work, but it's still the equivalent of building a house out of coke cans. It's an impressive achievement, it looks pretty neat, but when you get right down to actually living there it's just not as functional.
Plus I really did play games back in the day when even real graphics looked about the same as ASCII, and they were not good times. Graphics aren't everything, but they are something.

Edit: What I don't understand is how people can play with Fluid Depth display turned off :freak: