Ive been wondering if anyone plays a game called Angband here on TL?
For a little background about the game, Angband is a Roguelike game with an ASCII graphical interface. Its an old school dungeon crawler based on Lord of the Rings lore. Basically, you choose your race and class, start out in town, buy your shit, and start diving into the 100-level dungeon. There are tons of unique artifacts that you can find as dive deeper into the dungeon, along with many unique "boss" monsters that you can fight throughout the game. Your ultimate goal is to get strong enough and find a powerful combination of equipment to kill Sauron and Morgoth, who are on the 99th and 100th levels.
It is ridiculously addicting, but also one of the most difficult single player games ive ever played. The most distinctive trait about the game is the fact that if you die, your character is done. The file is automatically deleted and you everything that you put into it. This coupled with the fact that there are many, many monsters that can kill you in 1 shot from range and out of sight (if you arent careful) can be extremely frustrating. Still, the game is very beatable and very gratifying, especially considering the fact that its all text based.
I heard that games like Diablo pretty much based all their gameplay on games like Angband. I just beat this game a couple minutes ago (after losing like 3 strong chars too...) and was just so damn pleased with myself that I wanted to see if there were others who play this game that I could share this with lol.
Wow, I played this game like 20 years ago, so darn fun but hard! I never got past lvl20 or so but of course I was eight or nine and didn't know much English. Do you have a d/l link? I'd love to give it a go now when I can figure out what the heck is going on.
On February 27 2011 23:51 Longshank wrote: Wow, I played this game like 20 years ago, so darn fun but hard! I never got past lvl20 or so but of course I was eight or nine and didn't know much English. Do you have a d/l link? I'd love to give it a go now when I can figure out what the heck is going on.
I never played the original Angband, but I've played Zangband quite alot, which is the same except with more content as far as I know. I haven't played in awhile now, but I think they're still developing Zangband.
I played ZangBand a while back, it came as a part of a retrospective PC Gamer bonus CD. It was quite fun but I didn't really figure all of it out so I only got like 2 floors into the dungeon.
On February 28 2011 05:24 Ian Ian Ian wrote: I can't pick up a long sword that i found
Inventory full? Might need to drop something.
Angband is awesome for the soul-crushing difficulty. I finally beat it about a year ago after trying off and on for 4-5 years. Amazing feeling. Haven't really played at all since. :p
Its a nice, helpful community (TL is better of course /buttkiss), but the only problem is that everyone there is so knowledgeable that it might be assumed you know things that you dont. Dont be afraid to ask though.
Oh, and you can check out the spoiler sections if you want help on identifying what certain monsters and artifacts can do. Some diehard purists might consider that cheating, but even the guys on the forum don't really care about it.
Heres a general "game manual" that can be pretty damn useful when starting out. Itll go over general basics and have some tips too.
And to answer some of the questions about specific controls, press "q" to use a potion, press "g" to pick up an item youre standing on
Edit: I think its pretty tight that theres people here giving it a go for the first time! Be careful of the frustration of death though. I can tell you from personal experience that each time I lost my char that I spent 20+ hours on, I hated the game and vowed never to play again lol. Gratification on learning from mistakes and eventually winning is huge and well worth it tho (imo)
A basic tip that is counter intuitive is to keep diving and going down deeper and deeper into the dungeons. If you stay up on higher levels too long, you wont get as strong of treasure or as good of exp. Most importantly though, you might get complacent. Since you will start being able to kick everyones asses up at the higher level, youll go down in the dangerous portions of the dungeon with the same mentality. This will get you killed. Stay conservative, dive as deep as you can without killing yourself.
Any other questions, just post em here and Ill do my best to answer!
I played vanilla, Zang and some other variant that i forgot (Eyangband?) and I killed morgoth in ToME. ToME may be a little easier though, as you can find randarts that add to your attacks per turn. Stack rings of extra attacks to turn into a life sized blender.
Mac is probably right. there will always be tons of shit littering the dungeon floor, and a common beginner mistake is to try to pick everything up.
Its been a while since I played a roguelike that isn't dwarf fortress fortress mode, but one thing I suggest people use when playing angband is the extra windows. My memory is quite fuzzy but you can create new windows and tell the game to display information on that window. Just move your eyes and you can see your inventory, the description of the thing you're looking at, etc. The "hud" is very customizable which I wish more games had. it improves the interface a lot if you have a decent sized monitor.
Macros are also great later on but I don't remember much of what I did with those except autodestroy bad and average equipment when my pseudoidentify abilities are good enough.
I have a question Supamang. What do you think is the best variant to play right now?
Not sure. Ive only played Vanilla and Moria, which was a less in-depth variant way back in the day. I heard ToME and Zang were pretty fun, but then again they all seem pretty awesome.
I enjoy angband and variants every now and again, but the prominence of stairscumming (many good players simply go up and down stairs to regenerate the level and wait for something interesting) really turns me off. The steampunk variant (I forget the name) is a lot of fun as well but even harder than Angband imo.
Nethack is fun for the unitiated into roguelikes and a gamer should definitely ascend (win) a character before they die. It's just something you should do. Also, dying because you threw a cockatrice corpse up in the air and you weren't wearing a helmet is just some shit you won't find elsewhere.
My current favorite roguelike is Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, which is a more action-oriented game with many choices for races and classes.
http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/ is the link if you're interested. The great thing about Nethack and Dungeon Crawl is that they can be played on a server where they track your stats as well as others so that you can see what everyone else is doing and even watch their games in progress. Angband unfortunately doesn't have that.
As the above mentioned, ToME is great as well. I think it's really gotten beyond the realm of an Angband variant (even if that's what it technically is).
Edite Note: Also, for extremely action-oriented roguelikes, try the Doom Roguelike. It's a lot of fun. http://doom.chaosforge.org/
Will have to check this one out - always been hesitant, though have ascended a few times in nethack and am close to victory in DCSS so it'll be good to have another win under my belt.
Have to ask though is it close to nethack in the fact that pure knowledge of the game can win it for you? And please tell me their is no E word.
I totally thought that darkgod just stopped developing ToME. I checked the old ToME site and its a wasteland with tumbleweeds blowing about, and assumed that ToME development stopped.
Have any of you played ToME 4? did it feel "finished" or is there still a LOT of work to be done?
edit: well I played tome 4 and it still needs work... the latest version has selling removed. I can't handle that
On February 28 2011 12:23 Nub4ever wrote: I tried playing it and god its confusing, and the wiki is damn long so I'm a little hesitant to read
Yea, it is pretty in depth. If you do end up deciding to give it a shot, i would just skim through most of the wiki. Just focus on the races, classes, stats, and controls. Quickly read through how fighting works, and just know that there are bad/horribad items, neutral items, good/magical items, exceptional/ego items, and artifacts/uniques.
On February 28 2011 13:37 MOOG wrote: edit: well I played tome 4 and it still needs work... the latest version has selling removed. I can't handle that
It's removed intentionally, I agree, the 4.x is a vast departure from the Angband/Zangband/ToME 2.3.5 that we've probably come to expect, but it's good in it's own right.
Selling isn't 'disabled' you simply can't sell the 'junk' you might normally have to pack-mule for cash. Only Gems and artifact or Rand-art is viable to be sold. Normal white, green, blue stuff can't be sold off. With the latest additions of a a permanent identify effect (and a trigger ability to ID artifact level stuff) you can simply leave most of it where it lies.
It's 'different' than what many roguers may expect, but I think it's still quite good. Unfortunately, some of the more 'advanced' classes require actual achievement like effects to be done within the game. This means that for newer players, the options available are a bit limited to others.
There are ways around this though, if you care to search for them. Beyond that... Tome 4.x is HARD. Though new versions are coming out almost monthly, some with some significant changes (the no selling stuff was a recent one), there are relatively few 'winners'.
That and the various classes have some true defining differences, though granted you don't get access to many of them straight off.
its good to hear that tome 4 is hard. I was afraid that it would be made much easier, as it seems that everything was simplified. the inclusion of a default tileset, no need to identify every single thing you come across, and snazzy interface gave me the irrational notion that the game would be much easier.
I dont understand the orb of scrying at all-perhaps its the identify function you talked about. Also, do you get a house to store your stuff?
I'm also glad that its being updated. I looked at the variants listed in thangorodrim and it seems like many of them are dead.
If any new player can't deal with the ASCII-interface of Angband and it's variants, you could check out ZangbandTK. It's got actual graphics and it's super easy to install. You can even use the mouse! Sadly the creator hasn't updated it since like 2004 or something, but it's still pretty complete.
I'll just +1 for DoomRL as being a fun roguelike, and a lot easier to get into than the *bands.
They're brilliant games if you've got the time to spare, but I think a lot of people don't have the time and/or patience to really appreciate RLs like Angband and Nethack, or at least that seemed to be the case when I mentioned them to gamer friends.
I downloaded it once, will do so again, I looked around, seemed interesting but I was much more into Nethack though. I will tr it again though since I barely played it.
I never played any of the 'roguelikes'. But, being old, I did play hundreds and hundreds of games of the original Rogue. Actually bought it the first day it showed up on the shelf at my local Egghead Software. Damn Amulet of Yendor always out of my reach...
On March 02 2011 21:00 gameguard wrote: ok im using that zangband isometric view... but my guy keeps running like 10 squares at a time when i push the arrow to move. Whats up with that?
In ZangbandTK the arrow keys makes your character run by default, it basically speeds up the games until you get "disturbued" somehow, perhaps by a spotted enemy or running into a wall.
Use the numpad for movement, this way you only move one step per press. If you are on a laptop, I don't know of a solution (believe me I've been trying to find one)
EDIT: Actually, I don't think it's running... I never use the arrow keys, but I remember dying to crows in less than a second when I first started playing, by using the arrow keys. Either way arrow keys suck.
On March 02 2011 21:00 gameguard wrote: ok im using that zangband isometric view... but my guy keeps running like 10 squares at a time when i push the arrow to move. Whats up with that?
In ZangbandTK the arrow keys makes your character run by default, it basically speeds up the games until you get "disturbued" somehow, perhaps by a spotted enemy or running into a wall.
Use the numpad for movement, this way you only move one step per press. If you are on a laptop, I don't know of a solution (believe me I've been trying to find one)
EDIT: Actually, I don't think it's running... I never use the arrow keys, but I remember dying to crows in less than a second when I first started playing, by using the arrow keys. Either way arrow keys suck.
you can use the windows keyboard I guess. xD on winXP: start>programs>accessories>accessibility>on-screen keyboard
yea, I can't do ascii either, I played zangbandTK a long time ago, it was fun, but damn hard. (maybe because I like clearing whole levels, and that's a no-no @.@)
I'm liking the way Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup looks, no ascii. Tales of Maj'Eyal and T-Engine4 still has some ascii, but I might try it as well.
damn.... yea im on a laptop. I guess id have to do num lock. But then its inconvenient when i want to access the regular keys. I cant believe there is no option to toggle run/walk.
I got to lvl 4 with troll warrior lol. Just got massive str and high con/dex + a whip. Raped all mobs in one hit until i got into a room with some small spiders. But then they kept multiplying until they filled the whole room. T_T
Orb of Scrying - A tool that you have to use to ID artifacts and randarts (and some higher end 'blue' objects). The rest is automatically IDed.
There is a 'home' of sorts, but you don't get access to it for awhile.
Stone Soup is a true representative of the 'random as fu&^' genre. You never know what your going to get and you can get screwed on food very easily. I've been playing it a bit myself, and I'm not so sold on most of it. I actually prefer to be able to control my surroundings a bit more.
You can enable vi-key (yuhjklbn) movement for Angband if you don't have a number pad.
@Obsidian: I have in all my time playing Crawl only once had a serious food problem. I don't know what you're doing to run into food problems. It's very rare that I die in Crawl and consider it not my fault.
Hey, I hope everyone in this thread is still playing *band or some other Roguelike. Considering that I've been playing Angband on and off for the last ten years or so, I assume you are...
Considering that Angband is still being developed and the community is as strong as always (here be dragons), it might be time to revitalize this thread.
I just got my month old pet Gnome Mage killed by a Night Mare (bad horsie) and I'm already fighting homunculi with my next character... so, perhaps some other TL'rs might want to join me. Yet, I have to warn you, the developers are somewhat misleading:
Getting started with the game is easy.
That ease lasts right until the installation process concludes... One doesn't play Angband like a browser game, or Diablo, where you just mindlessly click on things and mistakes lead to 10% durability loss. Getting a geared up adventurer into the dungeons requires you to spend quite a bit of time learning the game and its mechanics. Just press enter at first, and start learning. As always, you'll find the knowledge quite liberating. But, this isn't to say that your new-found knowledge will in any way change your fate. You will die a horrible death on your first play-through, and second, and ... well, you get the point. I haven't beaten the game once yet, and yet I've some of the most fun playing games with Angband.
So, if you're to the challenge, go here and choose the version of *band that appeals to you the most and fire it up. I play vanilla, but I doubt you'll enjoy the other versions less.
And when (not if) you've found yourself immersed in the wonderful world of roguelikes, go check out this comic: Tales from the Pit.
Whoops, posted this in an Angband blog, meant to post it here. I just started playing this. I'm too scared to go to lower levels, so I'm just grinding out levels and treasure at the upper levels. Level 7 so far, have already died countless times to farmer maggot's dog. So far the only combat I know of is just hitting stuff til they die. What are some more advanced stuff youc an do?
I'm playing the version on the ubuntu store, I think its based on vanilla?
ToME 3 is the best Angband variant out there. Huge world, way more uniques, classes, monsters, vaults, quests, you name it. You can make really broken builds too:
Possessor - I possessed a Marilith - a 6 armed demon, which grants different wield slots - 3 swords all +3 attacks, thats like 33 hits per attack. You also get to wield 3 shields (makes getting resists up easy). Oh yeah and Marilith has Summon Demon ability, which at deep dungeon levels will often give you a greater demon (U) or even a pack of them, which can have Summon Demon, which will summon MORE friendly demons, eventually overrunning the entire level. Many of them have wall-grind ability too so you'll crush everything pretty quick.
Sorceror - I played Death Mold because why not, insta reposition/phase door/swap/recall is very good on a caster, not to mention the bonus CON. Looting was kind of a pain but it was worth it. +53 speed with every buff you can imagine, healing, regen, debuffs, teleport. Oh and I took Necromancy from the lost adventurer quest so I could get a second lease on life the few times I did die.
ToME 4 is kind of interesting too, but basically everything is completely different. It seems cool but I didn't see the potential to be utterly broken like in 3. It could be there and I just don't know about it because I haven't been playing it since I was 10 years old...
Umm... regarding regular Angband, it's a bit less exciting - use a lot of arrows at low level to avoid meleeing dangerous monsters relative to your level (such as maggot's dog). Regardless of what class you are playing, you need to make sure that you get your resists up as soon as possible. Certain monsters can kill you almost instantly with ranged attacks if you don't have the correct resist (IIRC Drolems start to spawn around depth 24 and they can kill you from offscreen with poison breath).
Also I save scum because its a single player game and I don't give a shit. Although TBH I only died a few times (<10) total on my Sorceror, it still took me like 3 years of playing on and off to beat the game and I couldn't be arsed to reroll because I did something stupid.
Final Edit: Regarding ASCII vs non-ASCII, I can't play without ASCII. The colored text is a lot clearer than a sprite mashed into a tiny 8x11 space, which often results in complete loss of picture fidelity. Most of the sprites end up looking like an unrecognizable blob. And while I might be able to identify that there is a pack of dragons on screen, realizing that there is an extremely dangerous shard-breathing dragon is not as easy as with color-coded ASCII.
On February 12 2015 09:14 fishjie wrote: Whoops, posted this in an Angband blog, meant to post it here. I just started playing this. I'm too scared to go to lower levels, so I'm just grinding out levels and treasure at the upper levels. Level 7 so far, have already died countless times to farmer maggot's dog. So far the only combat I know of is just hitting stuff til they die. What are some more advanced stuff youc an do?
I'm playing the version on the ubuntu store, I think its based on vanilla?
Nice to hear people are still playing it.
Missile weapons, spells, wands/rods/staves are all worth experimenting with as alternative tactics depending on your class. However by far the most important thing to learn if you want to advance further is when (and how) to run away. Until you learn that, your games will likely end the first time a battle doesn't go your way.
Try to always have a stack of healing potions (the best you can afford) and phase door scrolls. When you have a bit more money, staves/scrolls of teleportation are useful as well. Monsters can't follow you up or down stairs so use that to your advantage. Some items can be used creatively to help with this as well - for example you can use a wand of sleep monster to stop orcs from chasing you if you are fighting them in a corridor. Rings/amulets of teleportation might seem useless but can be used as an escape in an emergency.
I like to start the game by buying one scroll of phase door and one potion of cure light wounds (possibly cure medium wounds as well if I can afford it) from the shops simply so that I have them identified and don't waste any others I find in the dungeon.
Finally (and this might sound counterintuitive) you might benefit from diving a bit more aggressively. Angband is all about balancing risk and reward, and the reward on the very early dungeon levels once you've found and IDed the basic potions/scrolls is pretty minimal. It can also get boring, and boredom kills in Angband (you get careless and die to something avoidable because you weren't paying attention). Diving is more dangerous but also much more rewarding, and can pay off very well at times. Plus you'll have quicker games, get plenty of practice at running away, learn more from your deaths, and ultimately advance faster.
Agreed, I usually dive aggressively at first, since the lost time when dying on a new character is much lower. Once I get a character that's off to a good start, then I slow down and take things a bit more methodically.
Interesting, that's what I've been reading elsewhere online as well. Do you guys randomly choose race/class? I'm sticking right now with Dunedain ranger cause he's got such good stats. I was using potions of speed to make a quick get away, I totally forgot about phase door as well. That probably would have come in handy when I got surrounded by those giant white louses that mass reproduce and then hit by a blind spell from an acolyte. I never thought seeing a swarm of the letter "I" could be so horrifying. And I never thought "hallucinating" from eating a random mushroom just so I could ID it (probably not the best ID) could be so horrifying either.
Race/class has a pretty big impact on how you play, so I usually choose manually - if you randomize them then be prepared to reroll if you get a combo that doesn't look workable. There are easy and hard combinations. (I have won the game with a half-troll mage, but I wouldn't recommend it for beginners at all). Dunadan ranger is a good choice for a beginner, although the slow level gain for Dunedain annoys some people. Halfling ranger can also work well, with less of an experience penalty and good stealth (which allows you to pick your battles).
I find potions of speed most useful for giving me an edge in a tough fight where I would prefer not to run away (or can't run away - Bullroarer is a good example, depending on when you meet him). They are great for escaping as well, but your supply of them is usually limited so they aren't my first choice of escape option. Phase door scrolls in contrast are cheap and abundant. You can't read them while blind though, so they wouldn't have helped in your example. Cure Serious Wounds and above also cure most status ailments (blind, confused etc.) as a side effect, which is the main reason to carry a stack of them at all times once you can afford it.
On February 17 2015 06:54 fishjie wrote: Do you guys randomly choose race/class?
I played a lot of Kobold because getting breathed on with poison ain't stopping me. I'm pretty sure that makes me a wussy. Aside from that, whatever race/class combination I think fits.
Ok I tried the deep dive method and it was horrible. I dived down to 1700 ft at level 28, and I got slaughtered horribly by a lich. I was doing slow and safe before that and doing fine. Never again. Oh and the stat drain is such a terrible mechanic too. !@#$!@#%#@Q#%
Also I got a defender weapon early on and was never able to replace it because it gave me sustain dex, all base resists, regen, armor, and free action.
i found numerous other artifact weapons that did more damage, but were useless to me because without sustain dex and free action i would get slaughtered past 1000 ft. what am i supposed to do? i've been swapping to weapons that do more damage when i face enemies that don't stat drain and/or paralyze. ideally i just want to free up the inventory slots
EPT
