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Re: Angband variants
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Harriet Bazley
Aug 8, 2021, 11:24:22 AM8/8/21
to
On 8 Aug 2021 as I do recall,
Chris Gransden wrote:
> I did a quick port of Angband 3.3.2 to RISC OS. Should run on RISC OS 3.7+.
> Available at https://www.riscosports.co.uk/downloads.html.
>
It works!
First impressions - wow, is that really what Angband looks like on other
systems? :-(
I like the way they give you hints as to the various racial/class
bonuses during character generation. I'm amused that the default name
for your character is "Riscos"!
Are those the graphics tiles? How do I switch them off again so that I
can actually see anything? (Options: graphics None. Phew!)
I can set up subwindows within the terminal emulation to display message
history and inventory as usual, but you have to be careful as they have
an awkward habit of disappearing when you click in the window to give it
the input focus (presumably because non-RISC-OS always forces the input
window to the front...)
(Hmm, no, this really isn't working, as the windows keep obliterating
each other, e.g. when you use the help key. Best to pretend it's in
full-screen mode. I'm guessing that was one of the things the 'Angband
porting package' did; redirected terminal output into actual desktop
windows.)
We have new keypresses for buying things in the shops... including one
that tells you what an item actually does before you spend money on it!
Ooh, you get a sound for buying things. It's a *very* long time since
I've played any variant with the old sound feature enabled (I had a huge
collection of somewhat silly sound clips for uniques at one point).
The Look command now gives coordinates, e.g. 1 square west x 2 squares
north. Seems a bit unnecessary when the thing you're looking at is
already highlighted by the cursor, but maybe the idea is so that you can
tell whether a spell of given radius will affect it?
'+' and '-' cycle through all the significant (i.e. non-wall) objects;
that's a handy new feature.
How do I pick things up with auto-pickup off??? Oh, it's 'g' for 'get'.
(I think it always was, but I never used it.)
Hobbits get auto-ID of mushrooms. :-D
Ran away from an OOD black naga on Level 1 and escaped up the stairs by
the skin of my teeth!
Interesting - potions now stack, so you find little clusters of two or
three potion bottles on the dungeon floor while exploring. ;-)
Do I *really* need a display on the main character screen for how many
game turns in total I have spent resting, alongside such important
information as my current speed and the number of XP required to reach
the next character level? :-(
I'm enjoying myself throwing useless potions at monsters, although sadly
the feature where throwing a potion of Slowness at an opponent will slow
him down seems to be a variant-only thing. Makes sense, I suppose, as
being doused in fluid isn't the same thing as ingesting it....
My muscle memory keeps telling me that Ctrl-keypad5 used to be a command
for 'rest until healed', so I managed to work out the interface to
create new keypresses ("interact with keymaps(advanced)")
I'm not sure if I can save this in a user-acn.prf file for automatic use
on this system, though. (The game always defaults to suggesting the
current character name to save/dump pref files, which really isn't
useful unless you play all your characters with the same name!) Using
'append keymaps to a file' didn't do anything, even when I tried
'user.prf'. which definitely does exist. 'user/prf', which is of course
the actual file name, is not accepted as an option. ;-p
Oh, wait, it's looking in <Choices$Write>.Angband, and the files *do*
successfully get created there :-D
What are these strange green things in the wall? How do I look at
something that *hasn't* been defined as 'significant'?
(Well, they don't show up under 'feature knowledge' as either 'walls' or
'streamers', and if I try to tunnel into them it says 'you try to tunnel
into the granite wall', so I suppose they must be... green granite?)
When I put on a pair of leather sandals I find on the floor, they get
auto-inscribed as {worn}, which I was interpreting as a criticism of
their condition! But since the unidentified potions I was throwing have
also been auto-inscribed as {thrown}, I think it's probably intended to
inform me if I subsequently take them off that I've tried wearing
them (and that nothing terrible happened, i.e. they're clearly not
cursed sandals).
"You have no books that you can read" is a misleading error message - I
was afraid I'd accidentally dropped my prayer book. :-(
Ouch. I really do not want to be in a room full of Cave Spiders and a
shrieker mushroom patch!
Fortunately the game seems to be using the 'intelligent' monster AI that
tells them not to pursue you out of an open space and into a narrow
corridor, despite the fact that this would be a pretty lethal thing to
do under the circumstances....
Oh, all right, it did work. :-D
Killed on Level 2 by a Cave spider.
--
Harriet Bazley == Loyaulte me lie ==
There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.
Chris Gransden wrote:
> I did a quick port of Angband 3.3.2 to RISC OS. Should run on RISC OS 3.7+.
> Available at https://www.riscosports.co.uk/downloads.html.
>
It works!
First impressions - wow, is that really what Angband looks like on other
systems? :-(
I like the way they give you hints as to the various racial/class
bonuses during character generation. I'm amused that the default name
for your character is "Riscos"!
Are those the graphics tiles? How do I switch them off again so that I
can actually see anything? (Options: graphics None. Phew!)
I can set up subwindows within the terminal emulation to display message
history and inventory as usual, but you have to be careful as they have
an awkward habit of disappearing when you click in the window to give it
the input focus (presumably because non-RISC-OS always forces the input
window to the front...)
(Hmm, no, this really isn't working, as the windows keep obliterating
each other, e.g. when you use the help key. Best to pretend it's in
full-screen mode. I'm guessing that was one of the things the 'Angband
porting package' did; redirected terminal output into actual desktop
windows.)
We have new keypresses for buying things in the shops... including one
that tells you what an item actually does before you spend money on it!
Ooh, you get a sound for buying things. It's a *very* long time since
I've played any variant with the old sound feature enabled (I had a huge
collection of somewhat silly sound clips for uniques at one point).
The Look command now gives coordinates, e.g. 1 square west x 2 squares
north. Seems a bit unnecessary when the thing you're looking at is
already highlighted by the cursor, but maybe the idea is so that you can
tell whether a spell of given radius will affect it?
'+' and '-' cycle through all the significant (i.e. non-wall) objects;
that's a handy new feature.
How do I pick things up with auto-pickup off??? Oh, it's 'g' for 'get'.
(I think it always was, but I never used it.)
Hobbits get auto-ID of mushrooms. :-D
Ran away from an OOD black naga on Level 1 and escaped up the stairs by
the skin of my teeth!
Interesting - potions now stack, so you find little clusters of two or
three potion bottles on the dungeon floor while exploring. ;-)
Do I *really* need a display on the main character screen for how many
game turns in total I have spent resting, alongside such important
information as my current speed and the number of XP required to reach
the next character level? :-(
I'm enjoying myself throwing useless potions at monsters, although sadly
the feature where throwing a potion of Slowness at an opponent will slow
him down seems to be a variant-only thing. Makes sense, I suppose, as
being doused in fluid isn't the same thing as ingesting it....
My muscle memory keeps telling me that Ctrl-keypad5 used to be a command
for 'rest until healed', so I managed to work out the interface to
create new keypresses ("interact with keymaps(advanced)")
I'm not sure if I can save this in a user-acn.prf file for automatic use
on this system, though. (The game always defaults to suggesting the
current character name to save/dump pref files, which really isn't
useful unless you play all your characters with the same name!) Using
'append keymaps to a file' didn't do anything, even when I tried
'user.prf'. which definitely does exist. 'user/prf', which is of course
the actual file name, is not accepted as an option. ;-p
Oh, wait, it's looking in <Choices$Write>.Angband, and the files *do*
successfully get created there :-D
What are these strange green things in the wall? How do I look at
something that *hasn't* been defined as 'significant'?
(Well, they don't show up under 'feature knowledge' as either 'walls' or
'streamers', and if I try to tunnel into them it says 'you try to tunnel
into the granite wall', so I suppose they must be... green granite?)
When I put on a pair of leather sandals I find on the floor, they get
auto-inscribed as {worn}, which I was interpreting as a criticism of
their condition! But since the unidentified potions I was throwing have
also been auto-inscribed as {thrown}, I think it's probably intended to
inform me if I subsequently take them off that I've tried wearing
them (and that nothing terrible happened, i.e. they're clearly not
cursed sandals).
"You have no books that you can read" is a misleading error message - I
was afraid I'd accidentally dropped my prayer book. :-(
Ouch. I really do not want to be in a room full of Cave Spiders and a
shrieker mushroom patch!
Fortunately the game seems to be using the 'intelligent' monster AI that
tells them not to pursue you out of an open space and into a narrow
corridor, despite the fact that this would be a pretty lethal thing to
do under the circumstances....
Oh, all right, it did work. :-D
Killed on Level 2 by a Cave spider.
--
Harriet Bazley == Loyaulte me lie ==
There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.
Harriet Bazley
Aug 18, 2021, 7:46:40 PM8/18/21
to
On 8 Aug 2021 as I do recall,
Harriet Bazley wrote:
> What are these strange green things in the wall? How do I look at
> something that *hasn't* been defined as 'significant'?
> (Well, they don't show up under 'feature knowledge' as either 'walls' or
> 'streamers', and if I try to tunnel into them it says 'you try to tunnel
> into the granite wall', so I suppose they must be... green granite?)
>
I think I worked out what the green is - it's something to do with trap
> What are these strange green things in the wall? How do I look at
> something that *hasn't* been defined as 'significant'?
> (Well, they don't show up under 'feature knowledge' as either 'walls' or
> 'streamers', and if I try to tunnel into them it says 'you try to tunnel
> into the granite wall', so I suppose they must be... green granite?)
>
detection radius. You get a 'DTrap' status message at the bottom of
the screen, and it looks as if any mineral veins located on the outside
rim of the detected area go green.
--
Harriet Bazley == Loyaulte me lie ==
Toronto Backlawn
Aug 21, 2021, 12:02:58 PM8/21/21
to
On Thu, 19 Aug 2021 00:39:56 +0100, Harriet Bazley wrote:
> On 8 Aug 2021 as I do recall,
> Harriet Bazley wrote:
>
>
>> What are these strange green things in the wall? How do I look at
>> something that *hasn't* been defined as 'significant'?
>> (Well, they don't show up under 'feature knowledge' as either 'walls'
>> or 'streamers', and if I try to tunnel into them it says 'you try to
>> tunnel into the granite wall', so I suppose they must be... green
>> granite?)
>>
> I think I worked out what the green is - it's something to do with trap
> detection radius. You get a 'DTrap' status message at the bottom of
> the screen, and it looks as if any mineral veins located on the outside
> rim of the detected area go green.
Correct, the green represents the radius of your trap detection, letting
> On 8 Aug 2021 as I do recall,
> Harriet Bazley wrote:
>
>
>> What are these strange green things in the wall? How do I look at
>> something that *hasn't* been defined as 'significant'?
>> (Well, they don't show up under 'feature knowledge' as either 'walls'
>> or 'streamers', and if I try to tunnel into them it says 'you try to
>> tunnel into the granite wall', so I suppose they must be... green
>> granite?)
>>
> I think I worked out what the green is - it's something to do with trap
> detection radius. You get a 'DTrap' status message at the bottom of
> the screen, and it looks as if any mineral veins located on the outside
> rim of the detected area go green.
you know if you are standing in, or outside of, a patch of already-
detected terrain. As you uncovered, the DTrap is the shorthand callout at
the bottom to keep you clear which side of the radius you are on, so to
speak.
Which version of Angband are you playing?
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