Roguelike Roulette [Slot 1a]

It's not really roulette, since the 'slots' proceed sequentially, but it is a way to pass some leisure time. I started over as it had been so long since last time (but had better not do that again, or shall look upon myself with dismay).

Started with AliensRL again, but since there was a newer version of that out, and my attempts to download that newer version repeatedly failed until I was well into the next game on the roster, am going to redo it afterward. Might be more interesting that way.

[looking at the last play of AliensRL, I see I took no screenshots - but my play this time is not interesting enough even if posting purely for myself, which is how I regard these]

So, first up, Angband again. Suspect this may be less interesting reading than last time around, as the game is still going and thus long enough to need multiple instalments, and written in more of an in-universe style, making it harder to include commentary on the game until some sort of epilogue.

Angband 3.2.0
A new version, an out of beta version, even, released 24/12/2010. Big release, lots of changes, and me a novice still. Wonder if I will notice any of them. Was just getting good enough with the previous version to reliably get down to level 10 and be killed by uniques rather than ordinary foes. But perhaps I'd been working with a fortuitous character build. Probably there is no need to screenshot title or town screens, little changed from last time around.

Selecting random character generation options produces Marash, a half-troll priest who looks not long for this world... tempted to run another character after this one, but that would be violate the spirit of this exercise. We shall see if discipline prevails.

The first thing Marash does is browse her prayer book to see which prayers she can learn. Cure Light Wounds, Bless and Remove Fear all look appealing at this stage. Perhaps foolishly, she determines to take those spells in the order listed.

At this point she is reminded who shapes the world, and Remove Fear is placed in her mind by the unrevealed divinity she worships, contrary to her own desires and intentions. She heads to the general store and discovers she cannot afford any spare scrolls of Word of Recall. Instead she purchases a cloak, 2 wooden torches and 5 rations of food to supplement her existing supplies. Marash wraps the cloak around her body, steadies herself, and heads downstairs in search of the Enemy.

 

Level 1: "This place looks uninteresting"
Empty corridors, a large empty room looming before her. 50 feet beneath the surface feels not so bad.

Doors in winding corridors, some already open. No other sign of life, except some potions laying on the floor. She stashes those for now, but does nothing else with them.

Another room, filled with columns, has a pile of copper coins on the floor, and staircases leading down. She does not descend the stairs this time, choosing to explore a little more before descending again.

She returns to a room already visited, noticing a grey mold growing in the corner that was not there last time. She shivers before proceeding.

In the next room she spies a giant white centipede and some sort of floating eyeball. They don't seem aware of her yet, so Marash bravely makes a break for the stairs she found earlier.

Level 2: "This place looks uninteresting"

The stairs come out in the middle of a corridor. Marash heads north but soon notices a fruit bat following her. It flies around her, confusingly trying to take bites out of her. She swipes at it with her mace, and the bat flees.

The corridor winds ahead of her. At its exit she spies a mass of green worms writhing on the floor. With a swallow, she steps forward with mace upraised to squash the worms out of her path.

She strikes, and as she raises her mace to strike again worms crawl off the shaft onto her skin. Everywhere they touch burns with acid. Frantically trying to get rid of them as quickly as possible, they crawl all over her, eroding her cloak with their touch.

When they are finally gone Marash breathes a sigh of relief. She continues onward, tatters of her now-useless cloak swirling about her.

The path north holds a cave spider at rest. She turns south.

South and east she sees a giant white mouse, also sleeping, but there is a scroll in the room. She decides to risk it. The mouse awakens at her approach. Marash kills it quickly and snatches up the scroll, then turns south again. She is feeling recovered from the worms' acid, but what she really wants is a path further down.

Some sort of icky, blubbering thing blocks her way. She strikes that down too and is granted the prayer of Detect Evil as her reward. Or possibly as chastisement.

In the west a small kobold guarded a pile of iron spikes and potion much like one she found 50 feet above.

Emboldened by easy victories Marash runs across the room for another pile of copper coins, when she hears a door smashed open in the distance. She heads north, where she sees no doors to be smashed by whatever that was.

Another giant white mouse down, some wandering in looping corridors, and when she returns to the room she is confronted by a novice priest like herself, wandering the dungeon.

She didn't expect a fellow priest to start hitting her, but quickly got the idea. After a couple of blows from her mace he flees. Marash continues north, leaving him behind. The rogue priest charged her again just as she was about to leave the room.

For the priest's death Marash is granted the prayer Find Traps, Doors & Stairs. There are plenty of doors, one trap, and no stairs revealed to her by this new gift.

Marash continues to wander in search of a path down. Behind her another door bursts open, smashed up by Farmer Maggot's dog Grip. It doesn't look very friendly. A novice mage is eyeing her from the newly opened room too; she swallows and tightens her grip on her mace.

The dog nearly kills her before she can beat it off. She slumps against the wall to get her breath back, but the mage and dog are back on her quickly. When they are both finally down she is given the prayer of Call Light as her reward. The mage's stash of copper coins, she takes as bonus.

Outside the boundary of her last prayer, Marash prays for stairs again. There are two stairs down in her awareness now; she heads for the nearer one.

The first path is blocked by a door that won't open. Heading back for the long path Marash is fascinated by some sort of bizarre clear icky thing. After a few moments watching she kills it on general principle, and immediately regrets when around the next corner a blubbering icky thing crawls on her, poison soaking into her skin with its touch. Luckily the poison is even briefer than the creature's lifespan, and she marches on.

The corridors twist and turn, but Marash finds the stairs.

[To be continued...]