Anybody want to CRAWL?

[Thomkal]

So here I am with my brand new high end computer finally up and mostly running correctly, I've got Civ 5 newly installed and barely played, all those free to play MMO to look pretty on my new high end computer....and I keep going back to playing a Roguelike game, in this case CRAWL.

I've tried Crawl from time to time, but don't stay with it long-it has a food mechanic where starvation becomes a real possibility and it doesn't take long to get hungry, especially if playing certain backgrounds (the equivalent of classes in Angband) or species (races in Angband). There isn't much edible food to be found-you will need to kill and eat some of the monsters you kill.

There's no town to go back to resupply, ID stuff, etc. You will find various shops in your journey down the dungeon but you can only buy stuff there, not sell. Identify scrolls are rarer than food at least at the earlier levels, and items can be cursed which makes trying on stuff (and drinking potions, reading scrolls) dangerous but a necessity. Thankfully Detect Curse, and Remove Curse scrolls are a bit more common. Detect will find a curse on any weapon or armor in your inventory, so a good idea is to wait till you get to the end of a dungeon level then read a detect curse scroll on all the stuff you've found on that level.

So lots of stuff to frustrate a long-time Angband player who likes having an easier time of things early on. But this time around for whatever reason the game is grabbing my interest more. I suck mightly at it still-most of my characters never reach the first important achievement for a new character-finding the level with the entrance to the Temple on it. But there's so many different species/backgrounds that really do play differently from each other-for instance those who like stealthy characters will find several different types to choose from. (and its a big thrill when you are able to sneak up on a monster and successfully take them out with one stab)

I could go on and on but will just send you to the download site-take the tiles version over the console version for a prettier easier to use game. They have a nice tutorial, and then after that I suggest you play one or more of the three different characters the game offers in hints mode-one a ranged combat, one a melee combat, and a spellcaster.

I would suggest a Troll Berserker with your first real character with no hints for melee, a Spriggan Enchanter for magic users, and a Halfling Assassin for you stealthy types to give you something that has a better chance at early survival than most. If you want to go the ZAngband Beastman Chaos
Warrior route, that option is open to you as a Demonspawn Chaos Knight. Pick Mahkleb as your god (yes there are gods and you likely will want to worship one) or if you want total chaos, pick Xom.

Go here to get the game and find various links to helpful places/advice-especially the Crawl Wiki.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Click on the download link to the right on the main screen and download your flavor of Tiles. Be sure to visit the Tavern (link is near the bottom of the main page under Contact) for a great, informative, helpful, and very active group of Crawlers including the ones developing new versions of the game.

I can give some basic advice/help, but still pretty much a newbie myself here, but glad to do so if I can. Enjoy!

[thesloppy]

I've nearly started this exact thread recently. That said, Crawl is freaking hard. I'm certainly not new to roguelikes, but I'm lucky if I can get a Crawl character to last for 15 minutes.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

I've nearly started this exact thread recently. That said, Crawl is freaking hard. I'm certainly not new to roguelikes, but I'm lucky if I can get a Crawl character to last for 15 minutes.

Yep I'm with you there brother. Running away is often a good strategy (especially from named monsters, packs of gnolls or orcs, and especially ogres found too early to deal with safely) Going back up or down stairs to escape something (just don't go up on the first level for you newbies). Kill things that are safe to eat when you are close to needing food so you can save that precious bread/meat ration you start with as long as possible.

[thesloppy]

Otay, I'm gonna start off with Kenny, the minotaur assassin. An unconventional mix of race & background, but the skills actually match up pretty well, and gives you a little more strength and hit points, at the cost of dex. I'ma try and just keep a running diary, as Kenny will surely be dead in minutes.

Started off dropped into a rather innocuous little patch of a dungeon that was thankfully clear of baddies. Eventually Kenny stumbled upon his first taste of combat with: a rat! And down goes the rat. A few feet away I found a lovely ring, and taking an early risk I blindly put it on, and am relieved to find out it's a ring of DEX +4, which can be a big early help to a clumsy assassin like myself. Good start.

...and then I wasn't paying enough attention, and got killed by a gecko.

[JAG]

Hopefully it lowered your car insurance rate first.

I might give this a go, don't have a lot of time for stuff though.

[Thomkal]

death by gecko...how tragic.

[thesloppy]

I must say that the autoexplore feature (keystroke = 'o') is awesome. Though I really don't need any help in speeding up my demise.

Crawl is an interesting conundrum, in that it's got a lot of features and UI advancements that are remarkable for a roguelike, which makes it easy to recommend to friends and folks uncomfortable/unfamiliar with the genre....but it's so freaking hard that it's still just as liable to turn off the great majority of those folks, along with plenty of roguelike vets.

[Thomkal]

Here's the report you get (look for it in the morgue folder) if you do a character dump just so those of you new to CRAWL can get an idea of what the game is like:

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.8.0-a0-4584-gb914d3b character file.
FOFC the Skirmisher (Demonspawn Chaos Knight) Turns: 0, Time: 00:02:54
HP 13/13 AC 5 Str 12 Exp: 1/0 (25), need: 15
MP 1/1 EV 10 Int 13 God: Xom
Gold 20 SH 0 Dex 12 Spells: 0 memorised, 0 levels left
Res.Fire : . . . See Invis. : . a - +2 spear
Res.Cold : . . . Warding : . b - +2 leather armour
Life Prot.: . . . Conserve : . (no shield)
Res.Acid. : . . . Res.Corr. : . (no helmet)
Res.Poison: . Clarity : . (no cloak)
Res.Elec. : . Spirit.Shd : . (no gloves)
Sust.Abil.: . . Stasis : . (no boots)
Res.Mut. : . Ctrl.Telep.: . (no amulet)
Res.Rott. : . Levitation : . (no ring)
Saprovore : . . . Ctrl.Flight: . (no ring)
@: not resistant to hostile enchantments, unstealthy
A: no striking features
a: Renounce Religion

You are on level 1 of the Dungeon.
You worship Xom.
You are a toy of Xom.
You are not hungry.
You have visited 1 branch of the dungeon, and seen 1 of its levels.
Inventory:
Hand weapons
a - a +2,+2 spear (weapon)
Armour
b - a +2 leather armour (worn)
Comestibles
c - a bread ration

You have 25 experience left.
Skills:
+ Level 4 Fighting
+ Level 1 Polearms
+ Level 1 Armour

You cannot memorise any spells.
You don't know any spells.
Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations
Branches:
Dungeon (1/27)
Altars:
Message History
Welcome, FOFC the Demonspawn Chaos Knight.
The destiny of this world depends on the Orb of Zot. Go down and get it!
Xom says: A new plaything!
Press ? for a list of commands and other information.
#####
...###..$###...#
.......@.......#
...###...###...#
#####

There are no monsters in sight!

Notes
Turn | Place | Note
--------------------------------------------------------------
0 | D:1 | FOFC, the Demonspawn Chaos Knight, began the quest for the Orb.
0 | D:1 | Reached XP level 1. HP: 13/13 MP: 1/1
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note that I'm a toy of the God Xom. The other gods in this game you can influence positively and negatively (with subsequent rewards and penalties) with your actions, sacrificies, etc. Not good old Xom. There's nothing you can do to affect how he treats you and basically how he treats you is completely random-just like the Chaos Warriors patron in Zangband. You're just there for his amusement basically and there's a wide range of things that can happen to your character when Xom is in the mood to play. I'll play him a bit and report the more interesting/entertaining events, hopefully not including my death.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

I must say that the autoexplore feature (keystroke = 'o') is awesome. Though I really don't need any help in speeding up my demise.

Crawl is an interesting conundrum, in that it's got a lot of features and UI advancements that are remarkable for a roguelike, which makes it easy to recommend to friends and folks uncomfortable/unfamiliar with the genre....but it's so freaking hard that it's still just as liable to turn off the great majority of those folks, along with plenty of roguelike vets.

Yeah I'd start a person new to the genre on Angband. Classes and races are limited compared to the numerous variants and its much more newbie friendly than it used to be. You can just hit the Enter key now I think to get a list of actions that your character can do in that space-I'm too accustomed to the roguelike keyset to use it myself, and it isn't very newbie friendly.

[thesloppy]

...second try. Might as well stick with the minotaur assassin, since I only got about six minutes out of it last time. Let's name this guy Slim. Slim starts off in a dungeon with a little stash of nearby fruit, nice! Provided he can outlive Kenny's massive lifespan, he might actually even get to eat some of it. Found some darts as well, and any missile weapon can be a big help, especially for an assassin who has some throwing skills, and may allow me to whittle down a monsters hitpoints a little bit, before they get toe-to-toe.

Afyer dishing out the hurt to a handfull of snakes, newts and kobolds, Slim manages to actually reach 2nd level. Along the way, he also picks up a couple loaves of bread, so Slim is pretty much set for food for the first couple levels. Eventually he explores the entirety of the first level, and heads for the heady dangers of the 2nd floor. Yay, slim!

On the second floor, slim got a little more brave and began fighting baddies with more regularity, making it up to 3rd level without much challenge. Eventually though, a snake bite poisoned slim, and took him to the brink of death, forcing him to sample unknown potions in search of an antidote or a health potion...thankfully health potions are rather plentiful, so drinking the potions which you have the most of is usually your best bet, and slim gets lucky on the first try, which cures his poison, but also costs him one of only two healing potions.

After a little bit of relatively tame action, Slim clears the second level, and finds himself perched above the stairs of level 3. I've got a dozen different unidentified scrolls, and a good amount of food, but that's about it. I'm still wearing the robe and cloak I started with, and though I've turned down the opportunity to pick up simple chain or leather (since they would affect my ability to dodge), I sure would like to find some armor of moderate quality soon, or I'm going to be in some trouble. Ditto for my weapon, although that's less of a concern, since Slim started out with a +2,+2 dagger, which will do for a while. Onward, Slim!

On the third floor, Slim takes exactly one step from the stairs to find himself cozied up, directly next to his first named foe: Ijyb the goblin, wielding a glowing dagger. This shall be a test for slim, as there's no point in running now, and he's just going to have to trade stabby-stabs in close proximity. It takes about half my hit points, but eventually Slim triumphs after an extended match of you-stab, I-stab with Ijyb the twisted goblin, and reaches 4th level along the way. Ijyb leaves behind his glowing dagger, and being my weapon of choice at the moment, I might as well try to identify it. I get lucky and pick an identify scroll with my first try (much like healing potions, read the scrolls you have the most of first), and identify it as a +1,+0 dagger of holy wrath. Neato, but less useful than what I'm already wielding (which isn't much of a surprise). Regardless, it's nice to slit the throat of a named dude, and pick up some magic loot.....of course, this being Crawl, I can't sell it or anything, so that warm fuzzy feeling is somewhat deadened when I just toss the 'loot' back on the floor, before continuing onward.

GAH! ORC! I run up the stairs and hide like a baby, back on the 2nd floor, waiting for my wounds to heal. I chug a potion of might, just to inflate my odds, before heading back down to give the orc a heaping helping of hurting, Slim-style. The orc goes down relatively easy, and a quck search of the level reveals there must be a hidden door(s) somewhere, as what Slim was able to discover is pretty small. So, back up to the second level I go, to find a different downward staircase, which should lead me to an unexplored part of the third level, without requiring me to blindly search every wall for secret doors.

GAH! GHOST! As soon as I go down the second staircase of the third floor I'm confronted by the ghost of a dead character. Not a good thing. I suppose I could go pick up that holy dagger I left behind, and see if that would give me the upper hand against the ghost, but I think I'll just play it safe, and go back to the other set of stairs and go straight through to the fourth floor.

GAH! OGRE! Man, Slim's luck is starting to slide. On the fourth floor there's an ogre waiting to greet me right at the stairs, and my attempts to flee back to the third floor are stymied as he runs up the stairs with me, arm in arm. We dance around for a while, as I try to get a step on him and run for the stairs, which I manage to do after playing ring-around-the-rosey for a few minutes. Whew! I take a few breaths, happy to be in relative safety for a second or two, but my last few encounters (and subsequent fleeing) again make me question whether I will survive for much longer without finding something special.

..onward, Slim!

[Thomkal]

-FOFC's first kill is also a rat. Use the C key to cut it up if you are hungry and can eat flesh/meat-you won't need to do this right away, but around the end of the first level of the dungeon I'll start doing this-most will rot, which won't matter if you are playing a species that can eat rotten meat, but with hunger being such an important game mechanic, you should try to hold on to you bread/meat rations/various fruit and veggies etc for as long as you can because they will fill you up more and not be poisoned or make you sick.

-The first item FOFC finds is a glowing dwarven hammer. Weapons and Armor come in many different flavors. Many will be plain descriptions (just a dwarven hammer as an example and not be anything special though I think they can have small plus and minuses to hit and damage for weapons and plus and minus to Armor Class for Armor. The labeled items (such as glowing, runed, shiny, etc) are the items you want to pay attention to. They can just be more heavily plussed than a regular weapon/armor of that type or be a special weapon or armor. You won't know till either you Identify it with a scroll or take fate into your hands literally and put them on. The danger here is that some are cursed and will not allow themselves to be removed until you find a way to remove it (remove curse scrolls). Ammo for various missile weapons in the game, and Jewelry (rings, amulets, etc) can also be cursed. My strategy is to wait till the end of the level and test all my unknown scrolls to see if any are detect curse. If not, I'll try things on then, crossing my fingers while doing so of course...

Anyway as a Chaos Knight of Xom, I think Xom will be pleased to see me trying on all sorts of unidentified stuff and laughing no doubt when I draw a cursed item, so I'll wield the hammer and....I still don't know what it is other than it being uncursed. Xom definitely was curious though because he checked me out as I put it on and the air sizzled with energy (whatever that means). If it is a special weapon/armor you usually will be told what it is when putting it on. So its likely I just have a weapon with some slightly higher plusses on it.

-A hammer is in a different skill set than the spear I started off with, which is in the polearms skill group. You start out the game with some skills depending on species and background (hit the letter m to see yours). You can "train" certain ones by turning off some or all of the others and doing an action that would improve that skill till you get it to the next level. FOFC only has three, Fighting, Polearms, and Armour which will train themselves basically with all the fighting I will do, and all three are important so I keep them on. If the hammer had been something really good, I would have wielded it, turned off the polearm skill, and hope that my continued use of the hammer would give eventually give me level 1 training in the mace and flail skill group which is hammer's group.

[thesloppy]

..after wandering the 4th level for a bit, Slim comes upon a clearing with a bunch of plants and a golden staircase downward...ah yes, the Temple! Down I go for a little rest...and conversion to the cause of Warmaster Okawaru, the God of battle! An obvious choice for a fine minotaur assassin, like Slim. I've also managed to find a wand...let's identify it! It's a wand of slowing...could be worse, I guess, but it's certainly not going to turn me into a killing machine.

After taking some time to rest and heal in the temple, Slim headed back to the 4th level, in search of adventures. Somewhere along the way, I picked up two books, which would be truly remarkable if I were a spellcaster of some sort...but I ain't. Ooooh, whassat? It's Menkaure the Mummy! I don't think I've ever run into him before...a right-click reveals he has all sorts of resistances, but is slow and susceptible to fire. I don't have any kind of fire though...kinda wish I'd kept that holy dagger now. He's also resting, and hasn't noticed me, meaning I might be able to get a critical hit on him before he wakes up, if I can sneak up on him. Hmmmm....tough spot. I think I'm going to try and take him, thinking that he doesn't appear to have any obvious badass spells or weapons, and he's slow, so I can perhaps pepper him with ranged weapons and run if he turns out to be a badass. Go slim!

I was doing pretty well, just chucking darts at his raggedy ass, until he suddenly called on the powers of Hell, wracking my body with pain and cutting my health in half immediately. I chugged a potion of heal wounds, and zapped him with the slow wand, and continued to chuck darts. I nearly got him down, until he called on Hell again, and I had to repeat the above process. Slim eventually won out though, but it cost him all his healing potions and as Menkaure died he cursed my cloak. Bastard! The rest of the 4th floor was relatively tame, and Slim takes a moment to collect himself before heading down into the 5th floor, none the better equipped, but now without means of healing and with a dwindling supply of food.

A shop greets me on level 5! It's a wand shop, and I spend most all of my gold on a wand of flame, and a wand of magic darts, hoping they may give me a combat edge that I can't currently get from my weapons or armor. I also manage to find a wand of lightning on the floor, a few steps away (dissatisfied customer?). I also find a large shield and a runed mace....I could now be a properly equipped fighter, or a powerful wizard, but I'm still a kinda crappy assassin. Hey, there's another shop! And it's an armor shop! And it's got all sorts of cool stuff in it! And I already spent all my money on those stupid wands! boo. I can at least afford a stupid orcish helmet. I put it on, and pout....or rather I try to put it on, until I'm reminded that there's a pair of horns on my head that are getting in the way. I can still pout.

Somewhere along the way I also found some exploding darts, which I find out when I chuck them at a couple ogres attempting to ambush me. Taking out a couple of those big boys takes me up to level 7, which is pretty remarkable for me....but I must lament my crappy equipment again. I am not confident going forward, and slink closely to the walls...which is probably a good thing. Hey! Another wand. What's with this place? This one's a wand of digging. Meh.

On to the 6th floor! We're getting somewhat deep here. Immediately Slim stumbles upon a giant beetle, and it's tough carapace is simply too tough for his tiny dagger, and he's forced to retreat to the 5th floor and try a different set of stairs down. GAAAAAH! The next set of stairs leads me to SIGMUND, the bane of all characters with decent potential. A terrible named human, carrying a massive enchanted scythe and a few wands to boot, Sigmund can really turn your day into a bummer, so it's back up the stairs before he can react. On to the last set of stairs left untried (each level has 3 up and 3 down staircases), and hopefully a quick exit to the 7th floor, as the 6th is clearly full of all sorts of trouble.

Thankfully, the stairs are relatively close to eachother and immediately visible, allowing Slim to run straight down the stairs to the 7th floor. Unfortunately, on the 7th floor is another ghost of a former character, and my only option is to beat feet without thought, until I hit the stairs down to the 8th floor...even though that's not particularly where I want to be.

...Slim inches forward, slowly and carefully...

[Thomkal]

-There are traps to be found and hopefully avoided in Crawl. Most of the time you won't be so lucky and you'll find it by stepping on it. Traps can be used for good things though-You can attempt to disarm it over and over till you do or it runs out of ammo-be careful as you will be hit sometimes if you fail to disarm it. You can pick up and use the ammo from the disarmed trap/the ones that hit you-an easy way to get some missile weapons. You can also get monsters to walk over the traps which will affect them as well. FOFC stumbles into a dart trap. He tries to disarm, has miserable luck, but then good luck as he acquires the Dodging skill while trying to avoid the flying missiles. I fail to disarm it, and it eventually runs out of ammo, leaving me with 4 darts to throw. Monsters will throw certain kinds of weapons at you, so be ready to dodge around a corner and make them come to you.

-I enter a long corridor and get poisoned by a dart throwing kobold. Poison is a bad thing and slowly eats away your hit points till dead unless you find a cure or it goes away on its own. I might have had the chance for it go off on its own had it not been for the three monsters that showed up in the corridor starting with a hobgoblin throwing a runed dagger that hit me. I started backing away and didn't keep an eye on my hit points till it was too late unfortunately.

-Not paying enough attention to your status and forgetting to use and/or try things in your inventory are probably the #1 and #2 most common way to die in Crawl. You get a list of your inventory when you die...and hey looki there I had a un-ID'ed potion of heal wounds that might have saved me. Definitely drink your un-Id'ed potions/read your Un-Id'ed scrolls (hoping to get a teleport scroll) when you are near death and appear to have no way out because sometimes they will give you that way out. Oh the glowing dwarven hammer was a +2/+2.

So ends the brief tale FOFC the Chaos Knight of Xom-At least Xom enjoyed my death by laughing at me on my last breath. Perhaps tomorrow I will try again and report on more embarassing ways to die in Crawl.

[thesloppy]

..uh, oh. What's this? Clearly entry to a special level, as a grassy area is surrounded by mushrooms and in the center a gold staircase. Descending tells me "welcome to the Lair of Beasts!", uhhhhh thanks? I'm not familiar with this dungeon, and I could spoil myself and save myself lots of potential trouble/pain/death with a little research....but where's the fun in that? Onward, Slim! Let's see what this joint is all about (I am going to guess: beasts).

Right off, there's a sleeping gecko. I can take that! BOOM! Gecko down! There's also a wand here, near the entrance. , because I could really use another one of those. Unfortunately, I can't identify it anymore, because I've found twice as many wands as I have identify scrolls.

Near the stairs downward, Slim stumbles upon a black mamba who bites him and gives him some powerful wicked poison. Trying to fight the snake AND gobble his few remaining healing potions proves to much of a task for Slim, and he eventually succumbs to the Mamba's powerful poison trying to run for the stairs. RIP Slim, old buddy.

He made it pretty far considering that he really didn't ever find anything of particular use for his background. A list of his ID'ed inventory doesn't reveal anything remarkable, save for a couple of teleport scrolls that coulda got him out of the mamba's immediate vicinity and may have curtailed his death for a few more rounds.

[Thomkal]

Ah poor Slim, we loved him so. I have yet to see the Lair either, let alone conquer it. I've seen a couple portals-the Ossuary and the Sewer. The Ossuary I died quickly when I was surrounded by mummies. The Sewer I had almost completely cleared, but I was dealing with starvation and sickness from eating rats and/or kobold flesh, and the starvation eventually got me.

hint here-if you are a spellcaster and have access to the Mephitic Cloud spell-get it and use it often-even the dreaded Sigmund can be brought low by this spell.

May your next game not be filled with so many wands.

[Thomkal]

So lets see how we can get FOFC2 to die a horrible Crawl death shall we? Same species, background, and god as the dearly departed FOFC1.

He gains the dodge skill this time during his second kill. His first kill was a rat again, I sense a theme starting here. His Polearms skill increases to level 2 shortly thereafter. Xom laughs later on and waves of light pass over my body, Why? what does it mean? I have no idea. He finds a hammer just like his "dad" this one is runed rather than glowing. Bowing to chaos, he puts it on and of course its cursed. One of the un-ID'ed scrolls i read takes the curse off though-nice! It might be worth holding on to the hammer for now until I can ID it-it might have some decent bonuses on it...or not.

-like Sloppy this guy is finding lots of kinds of one particular items-wands for him, scrolls for me. He's found 8 different kinds on level 1 so far. Me likey scrolls. Well except the ones that do horrible things to you of course.

-Xom decides it would be fun to see how I do with a Dexterity of 9 instead of 12. It's not very fun Xom so feel free to restore it anytime you'd like, ok? I find an amulet and when it doesn't curse me, I go through the inventory of scrolls to find an identity scroll. Get one and its an amulet of resist corrosion (protects against acid, both me and my equipment). Nice!

-I finish exploring level 1 (love autoexploring telling me there's nothing left to explore on this level,or that I've explored this portion that I can reach-need to go back upstairs then and take a new staircase to get to other parts of the level), so head to level 2 of the dungeon even though I'm still level 1 myself. Wasn't a whole lot of monsters on this level. I read my scrolls first to see what they can do, nothing extraordinary. The scroll fetish continues soon after I start exploring, finding three scrolls in one room. Its at this point that Xom basically farts on me, leaving behind a cloud of noxious gas. Oh yes that's so funny Xom. Had to go back up to level 1 to find a new stair to go down and when I do right there is yet another scroll, this time a scroll of identity. I normally wouldn't waste it on this when I have a weapon I'm happy with, and I know the hammer isn't anything special, but I'm curious and chaotic in this game so I use it on the hammer...its +0,-1...see ya hammer.

-I finally get myself to level 2 and I pick up a mutation from my demonspawn side. My demonic nature begins to assert itself I'm told, and now I can slide into the darkness of the dungeon. Hitting Shift-A to see my Mutation list, I'm told I'm slightly more attuned to the shadows. I'm guessing that means I got a bonus to my stealth skill-which I currently don't have, but could get as we go along here.

-Yikes I stumble into the home of Crazy Yluf, a named unique that's normally found deeper into the dungeon. I sure hope my newly obtained "attuned to the shadows" mutation will help me escape cause I don't want to fight him as weak as I am. He follows me, but I was far enough ahead that he can't catch up and I get to the stairs up safely. Be careful a monster will follow you up the stairs if they are next to you when you go up! Running away, while cowardly, is a CRAWL way of life so don't be afraid to do it.

[Thomkal]

-heading to the third set of stairs on level 1, Xom tells me I've become a special plaything of his now :::shudder::: Just Xom's way of telling me I've gained enough piety to grow closer to my god-in some cases you will gain powers or the god will gift you with something the closer and closer you get. In this case of course I get nothing...well other than smoke that comes out of my hands for a bit. It likely would have made it difficult for mobs to find me had they stumbled into it. Where were you when I was running from Crazy Yluf huh Xom?

-when I go down to level 2 again, I'm instantly surrounded by 5, yes 5 monsters. Only one is next to me, so I use the stair dancing technique to pull just that one up with me so I can kill it and go back down. Wash, rinse, and repeat. While I rest from the first mob of that pack before going back down-Xom wants to see how I play with lowered Intelligence (13 to 8) and smacks me upside the head leaving me confused along with brain damage. Soon I'll be nothing more than a drooling idiot who can't clean up after himself let alone kill things in a dungeon.

-I pull up three mobs the next time I go down-the worse being a snake that poisons me and takes forever to kill. I chug random potions and get a cure poison one but I'm a 2 hps when I finish off the snake and a giant newt is next in the lets munch on FOFC line. Down to 1 hp for a couple turns before alas he gets to do more than munch on me. I of course forgot about one of my many scrolls, a teleport scroll that would have saved me for a little while at least. Like I said the main culprit for CRaWL deaths-player stupidity, not the monsters trying to kill you.

Join us again soon for another "fun" adventure of FOFC3 won't you?

[Thomkal]

-Have a few minutes before fixing dinner so lets see if I can get FOFC3 killed off by then shall we? Same set up as before. The theme of these characters continues-first kill is a rat, and the first item I find is...a scroll of course! Get Dodging skill and the increase to polearms skill like before. Found some stones which allows me to have a missile weapon to help soften monsters up before they get to me.

-first interesting item I find is a pair of embroidered boots. I must try them on because they look so stylish...They are +1 boots which brings my armor class to 7. You want a higher number here so the more (and better) armor the better, but be warned-armor can affect spellcasting ability and combat so check things out before and after putting new armor on. The increase in AC might not be worth it if one or more spells are now harder to cast as a result.

-Slings are your friend if you a say a halfling hunter or stalker, and the right one you can use right till the end of the game. I found one and some sling bullets so might as well see if they are any good for me. Thankfully the sling is not cursed, cause its kind of hard to hit anybody in hand to hand with a sling stuck to your hands you know?

-my first really big find as a ring I try on turns out to be a +3 Ring of Strength! Gotta be smarter with this guy now so this nice find doesn't go to waste. Sadly an amulet I found soon thereafter turns out to be cursed. I hope its not an amulet of hunger. I attempt to uncurse it, but get a scroll of identify instead which tells me it a amulet of clarity-this is another nice find if I can get it uncursed-it will prevent confusion and some other mind-affecting effects. A good example of keeping formerly cursed items around until you can identify them. The ID scroll also identified a potion for me (some ID scrolls will randomnly ID more than one item for you), and its a potion of brilliance which would be a great thing if I were a spellcaster as it raises my INT and Magic reserves (Mana). I drink it rather than just drop it. My INT goes up to 18. Sweet. Sadly its only temporary. Woohoo found a scroll of remove curse so now my amulet of clarity is okay. A nice start with this guy.

-I reach level 2 after fighting a small snake. My demonspawn heritage kicks in when a pair of antennae sprout from my head. That was painful but at least Xom was amused. I finally find an edged weapon, a dagger, so I can butcher corpses for food. FOFC2 never found one, which was highly unusual. A hobgoblin nearly kills me when he gets a critical hit on me, but I survive Thank Xom. A good place to stop for now.

[Thomkal]

A little CRAWL before bedtime is a good thing right?

-I quickly find a runed dwarven sabre. Sabres are considered the best weapon in the "Short Blades" skill group by some-do the most base damage I think. I put it on, but sadly its not special just has plusses on it. Since my spear is the same base damage, no sense in using the sabre right now. Xom shows up right before heading to Dungeon Level 2 to curse my Ring of Strength.

-a fairly uneventful search of level 2 so far, though I did find an altar to on of the gods, Yredelemul in this case. This is how you can worship a god since most do not start out with one. 'p'ray at the altar and after a description of the god and his/her/it's requirements you will be asked if you want to become a worshipper. Somewhere on the upper levels of the dungeon you will find an entrance to the Ecumenical Temple where there are no monsters and you can rest and store stuff safely. You will find altars of several gods here though not all.

-I've been throwing darts and stones around a lot at monsters and it finally pays off as I acquire the throwing skill. I've found some runed darts that has been killing stuff in one throw so curious to see what they are. Xom makes me his Toy (piety gain) by sticking pins in my head and arm apparantly as I lose a point of strength and two of INT.

-finally get burned on wearing armor without ID'ing-some ring mail I found is cursed and I have no scrolls to take care of it right now. I soon gain a level-3rd level now and starting here and every three levels after you get a free point of your choice of strength, dexterity, or intelligence. I pick dexterity this time. This seems like a good place to stop for the night-FOFC3 is doing well, but with no known healing potions or teleport scrolls in my inventory I'm going to have to be real careful.

[Lonnie]

I spent quite a bit of time playing Crawl backing in 2009. After I played the tiles set for a while, I found that you could play online and it had full stat tracking and kept all your log files. After seeing you bring this up, I went back and found my character morgues and dug up my highest character. Level 26 Hill Orc Fighter. I died in the Elvish Halls in the last chamber. I think I could have gone quite a bit further if I would have cleared that level.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/Lo...330-045758.txt

I played 278 games online and never won. Here is my full stat sheet: Londar

Playing online you don't get to use tiles as it is a telnet server, but once you learn what the letters mean it is just as much fun.

Good stuff, I may try a few more descents. I never did get a mage very high level.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by Lonnie

I went back and found my character morgues and dug up my highest character. Level 26 Hill Orc Fighter.

Color me impressed, I'm extremely lucky if I can get a dude to sniff double digits, in terms of levels.

[Thomkal]

+1 color me impressed too. I've heard that last level of the Elven Halls is nasty, a lot have died there. Not that I of course, have come anywhere near the Elven Halls...

I was curious about the online version so I tried it out, but I'm so used to and liking the tiles version it makes it tough to keep my interest up. That would be an easy way to keep track of a Crawl competition though....

[Lonnie]

It would be nice if someone could add telnet to the tiles version that just translated what came across to tiles. They have done a great job on the tiles.

If anyone wants to do an FOFC competition then I'll gladly join.

[Thomkal]

FOFC3 has grown restless so I must play him again. Hunger has become a factor now-I keep trying to kill some animals for temporary solutions to the problem, but I poisoned myself on giant mite meat. This time I had no healing potions, so all I could do was watch myself quickly slide into oblivion. The food mechanic in crawl is a good idea overall but man there needs to be much more non-animal/humanoid kill food at the early levels.

I think I will resist posting future FOFC's here until/if I can get one over the hump here and past the first few levels. I hope the reports gave you a good feel for the game, horrible and stupid deaths alike.

[path12]

I've tried it a few times but as you've all said my characters tend to last around 10 minutes. Been pretty busy lately but I'll find some time to give it another go as well.

[Lonnie]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

The food mechanic in crawl is a good idea overall but man there needs to be much more non-animal/humanoid kill food at the early levels.

If you make it to the Lair there are lots of tasty critters. Past that when you find the Hive you can stock up on honeycombs and your food woes are pretty much over. If you look at my character sheet I posted earlier you'll see I had 10 honeycombs on my and probably 20 more in a stash in the temple.

You will need poison resist before taking on the Hive though.

The food is tough to start, but once you know what is poisonous and what is not you can usually get by pretty easy. Don't think you need to save every bread ration until high levels, eat one if you really need it. Another option is to play a troll that can eat rotten meat. Troll Berserker is one of my favorites, but with the added hunger from beserking you end up eating a lot.

[SackAttack]

My only gripe with the game so far is that I have to restart the exe every time I die since it closes entirely instead of going back to the main character creation screen.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

My only gripe with the game so far is that I have to restart the exe every time I die since it closes entirely instead of going back to the main character creation screen.

Heh, I hear ya. That said, CRAWL is a revelation in terms of UI compared to lots of roguelikes. I've got cramps and headaches from trying to manage Dwarf Fortress, but it keeps sucking up any time I've got.

Any of y'all try IVAN/LIVAN, which also has a similarly nice mouse UI, and even animated tiles! (ye gods! Animated tiles in the 21st century, whoda thunk it?) Also, similarly hard (at least for a play-too-fast retard like me):

Ivanwiki

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

My only gripe with the game so far is that I have to restart the exe every time I die since it closes entirely instead of going back to the main character creation screen.

I've been playing recently with the the TRUNK (the name for the in-development version of Crawl), and I think they may have fixed that.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Heh, I hear ya. That said, CRAWL is a revelation in terms of UI compared to lots of roguelikes. I've got cramps and headaches from trying to manage Dwarf Fortress, but it keeps sucking up any time I've got.

Any of y'all try IVAN/LIVAN, which also has a similarly nice mouse UI, and even animated tiles! (ye gods! Animated tiles in the 21st century, whoda thunk it?) Also, similarly hard (at least for a play-too-fast retard like me):

Ivanwiki

Took a quick look-the small size of the screen on my computer at least is making it difficult to play. Can't figure out how to make it bigger. Never heard of this roguelike, surprising since it seems to have a good following, so thanks for the heads up on it.

[thesloppy]

I dunno if I've played the core game, I started and stick with LIVAN and it's just as manageable as CRAWL on my monitor, and offers some sorta graphical mods for whatever that's worth (probably not much)....maybe that'll look better.

I actually went through my semi-annual roguelike search recently, so I've got more links if you want 'em:

Rogue Survivor: A roguelike zombie survival game.
Rogue Survivor: About

DoomRL: A roguelike based on Doom.
DoomRL - Doom, the Roguelike: Features

Gearhead: A mech-based roguelike. Gearhead 1 is complete and Gearhead 2 is an in progress beta.
GearHead RPG

Prospector: A 'Privateer'-based roguelike in space.
http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/

Tome4: I played the hell out of the last version of TOME...still do...and the 4th version was somewhat of a surprise release recently, though it's still pretty young.
Tales of Maj'Eyal and T-Engine4 | Topdown tactical RPG roguelike game and game engine

I am stoked to see roguelikes having a renaissance somewhat...always one of my favorite, most rewarding genres going back to the days of Hack on ye olde Amiga, for me. I haven't necessarily had the chance to give any of those a real sit-down, but they're all at least somewhat highly regarded and current...if anybody gives 'em a try and finds one or more that are particularly awesome, lemme know.

[Thomkal]

I've heard and/or played of all of those but Prospector, so I will check that one out. TOME4 was a major disappointment to me. I played the first three a lot-back when it was known as PernAngband-yes I am a Angband geek! So I was expecting to like this version. But it was just boring wandering through the woods making sure I revealed every part of the map so I didn't miss anything, have to go back and forth through the maze of trees. I picked up a bunch of stuff I couldn't identify and I just got bored and frustrated. I'm sure there's a lot more to the game than that, but that was my initial impression.

[Thomkal]

How's this for a list of actively being developed Roguelikes?

Actively Developing Roguelikes

[thesloppy]

Wowsers, that's a lot of roguelikes! Anything spectacular?

I had much the same experience with tome4, for whatever it's worth. Ponderous.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Wowsers, that's a lot of roguelikes! Anything spectacular?

I had much the same experience with tome4, for whatever it's worth. Ponderous.

I've mostly played the various Angband variants, a few of which are quite good like Z+Angband which we used in the Roguelike Competition here a couple years back and Hengband, the Japanese version of Angband (Magic-Eater is a must play class). The more well known games outside of Angband like ADOM and Nethack. Nothing's really stuck with me outside the Angband ones though till this attempt at Crawl.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

I've been playing recently with the the TRUNK (the name for the in-development version of Crawl), and I think they may have fixed that.

Would be nice. It should at least give me a "Play Again? Y/N" prompt and if I hit 'N,' then kill the exe.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

I've mostly played the various Angband variants, a few of which are quite good like Z+Angband which we used in the Roguelike Competition here a couple years back and Hengband, the Japanese version of Angband (Magic-Eater is a must play class). The more well known games outside of Angband like ADOM and Nethack. Nothing's really stuck with me outside the Angband ones though till this attempt at Crawl.

Bringing this back up because I've found out that Hengband has been updated, sort of. A new variant of it, Chengband, has been created and offers most of what Hengband had plus many new classes and other changes. The game offers classes you seldom (or not at all) find in other Angband variants. Classes like Magic-Eater, Archaeologist, Samurai, Sniper, Blood Knight, Red Mage, Blue Mage, Ninja. Mirror-Master and many more. There's a lot of races to choose from though most are in other variants too.

You can find Chengband at: http://code.google.com/p/chengband/

[JPhillips]

Fuck Xom. I had a nice Demonspawn Chaos night at level eight when out of nowhere Xom surrounds me with hostile demons. I was in a one tile hall with demons three deep on either side. End of that character.

[Thomkal]

Oooof that's rough. No teleport? Or did they gang up on you before it had a chance to kick in? That's the pain/pleasure, or glory/agony that is Xom. Just is fun to kick back and have fun knowing he likely will screw you over at some point, possibly lethally so. But yeah I would have been cursing Xom too.

I've taken a little CRAWL hiatus, but I've been playing human artificiers of late-who are looking to worship another god who likely will screw you at some point-Nemelex and his merry bunch of decks. Of course most die before they see a temple of his, but its still fun.

I've also been playing a Ghoul Monk-don't want to worry/deal with food and all those freaking weapons you find during your exploration? Now you don't have to worry about either. Okay so you have to eat to keep yourself from falling apart, but that's food easily found. And you get pretty good at unarmed combat quickly.

[Lonnie]

My latest irritating death. I was a promising spriggan enchanter. At level 10 I had test wielded an uncursed dagger, that happened to be a weapon of distortion. When you change weapons it has a chance of casting you into the Abyss. For the uninformed, the Abyss is a non mappable level that wraps around and you can only see what is in your line of sight. There are tons of demons looking to do you in. You have to just keep moving, running from the demons and looking for the one exit.

I did not fancy my chances at level 10 so I used the dagger until level 16. I had a pile of nice artifact weapons that my god had given me and decided since I was a spriggan I had the speed and evasion that I could make it out of the Abyss. So I removed the weapon and found my self in the Abyss. I was doing fairly well, but found myself in a dead end with a horde of demons that had been following me catching up and trapping me. So I used the blink spell. On a normal level that would send you to a random spot close by, but in the Abyss it resets the level and places you randomly. My random spot was right in the middle of a crapload of demons. I tried a few spells and quaffed what potions I could, then used a wand of digging to make an escape route. As soon as my way clear was open I died. Moral of the story is if you get stuck with a weapon of distortion just use it forever.

[Mustang]

2 quick questions.

1. Shops are random?
2. Only place to get spells is books?

[Lonnie]

1. Yes - both level and inventory
2. Yes - although worshiping certain gods will gift you books.

[mckerney]

The creator of ADOM is looking to raise money to continue development.

Resurrect ADOM development -- Indiegogo

[JAG]

Not sure what made me think of it, but I saw TOME4 got out of beta in late December. I haven't played the game since it went to 4, but I might download it tonight and give it a try for the heck of it. If I do, I'll give my review here (and maybe a stupid death story).

[Drake]

Originally Posted by mckerney

The creator of ADOM is looking to raise money to continue development.

Resurrect ADOM development -- Indiegogo

That video is strangely, dorkily mesmerising.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by JAG

Not sure what made me think of it, but I saw TOME4 got out of beta in late December. I haven't played the game since it went to 4, but I might download it tonight and give it a try for the heck of it. If I do, I'll give my review here (and maybe a stupid death story).

I tried 4 when it was first being worked on, but it was very different from the previous versions, and not for the better. I'll probably check it out just to see how it is now out of beta.

[JAG]

First impression of Tome4 is not too bad. Kind of annoyed I couldn't start out as a mage, but I rolled up a bulwark (defensive-type fighter) and got him to level 2. They replaced potions with infusions (basically a limitless use item but with a cooldown so you can't just keep chugging them and for example with a healing infusion, the healing is done over time rather than instantaneously) and you have abilities you can activate like in MMORPGs. There's an auto-explore button like in CRAWL so that's awesome. Lots of choices as far as talents and such to choose from so you have a good bit of flexibility in deciding how to build your character.

It took me a little while to get comfortable with what I was doing so I started off pretty slowly. I think I'll be able to move a bit quicker next go-around.

[JAG]

Played another 20 mins or so and went much more quickly, got to level 6 and beat up on a couple of troll bosses. I didn't put a lot of time into trying to understand how things worked, so I'm still off on a couple basic systems. It looks like you auto-ID non-magical and weakly magical stuff (green items, all infusions and charms (scrolls) I found), but then I found a couple of "yellow" items that when I clicked to ID them provided a little description but no hint to their abilities. So I'm going to have to figure out how to find out what they do.

Another thing I couldn't figure out easily was where to view my infusions (other than the hot key bar), so I'm not sure how to swap one out. When you swap in a new infusion, the old one is destroyed, and you can't use more than one infusion from the same area at a time (so even if you equip two healing infusions, if you use one, both end up on cooldown, but you can use a teleportation infusion while you're waiting).

I found a couple charms on the boss, which are supposed to be what they changed scrolls to. Using a charm puts all charms on cooldown, so I think you can only have one effect going at a time.

So far the area I've been exploring has had pretty wussy monsters. By far the toughest guy was the second troll boss (Bill the Stone Troll, good to see him back) and the fight only got minorly dangerous. I haven't faced things with the types of evil abilities like confusion and such yet.

Oh, one other cool thing was that I saw a cutpurse use a healing infusion against me. I think that's been in Crawl for a while and you can tell there's a pretty strong Crawl influence to a lot of the gameplay thus far (in a good way), but to this point I would say difficulty is much easier at the start than Crawl. I don't think a roguelike veteran would have any problem starting out.

[JAG]

Continuing adventures of Marento the Bulwark:

Still going, but there have been a number of close calls. Difficulty ramped up a lot after the first dungeon. In the next dungeon there was a rare skeleton mage who caused some problems running around the battlefield and zapping him. The boss of that dungeon was too tough initially, he snarked off 60% of Marento's hps with his opening spell. So I went to the next dungeon. Not too bad, level 7-9 or so bad guys when out pops a level 28 elite orc corrupter. In fine roguelike tradition, I turned and ran like a little girl. He chased me all the way to the exit, so I wasn't going to go back (persistent levels). I go to the next dungeon. Pretty reasonable until out pops a level 30 demon, so I repeat the Brave Sir Robin running. Now I'm at a bit of a loss. I wander around the world map and find a bandit hideout. That was pretty tough but doable, then I was able to go back and clear away orc corrupter so I could clear out that dungeon (nothing else in the dungeon was within 13 levels of that guy) and repeated that for the other dungeon.

So now my guy has a few artifacts (nothing outrageous, but decent) and a little bit of resistance / saving throws. In hand-to-hand combat he almost can't be hurt, but anything involving magic, fire, frost, and so on can take off hps in a hurry. I've also had three escort quests and failed every one (doh...).

I like some of the changes from Tome2. Hunger was just an annoyance and ID was as well, so I don't mind having those systems essentially removed. Hand-to-hand combat is considerably more tactical and enjoyable than it previously was. The infusion system makes you think about when to use them rather than blindly spamming heal potions. Honestly, not sure I can complain about much to this point, but we'll see how I feel when the honeymoon ends. Up to level 11 now and soon to start on a new dungeon.

[Thomkal]

I've played around a bit with TOME 4 now, and its much more playable than when I tried it before. Has a tutorial (and an advanced one I haven't tried yet). It has its roots in Roguelikes for sure, but in many ways I think its more of a RPG than a Roguelike. That said, I like it for what it is (at least so far), but will still prefer more "traditional" roguelikes to it.

One thing I really hate about it is having to unlock many of the races and classes. Roguelikes are good because they don't have restrictions like that. I've seen what the other races/classes are on their website, and I really want to play the psionicist-but who knows how long it will take to unlock it.

A couple things I really like are the auto-explore and the escort quests-auto explore after experiencing it in CRAWL, I almost can't do without now. Makes exploring the wilderness levels in TOME so less frustrating. Escort quests I like more for the variety of rewards from them than the quests themselves. Thankfully the ones I've got so far (barely into the game) have been easy so haven't failed any yet.