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Edit3: release wip7e is hereby released. Man, I'm good at that!
Edit2: release wip7d is hereby released. Thank you for your help and please give me some feedback.
Edit: updated various bits and pieces; the source archive is now of reasonable size
As UnAndrew reports on his blog, he's just got a new job and they haven't yet agreed to finance UnAngband, so he is biding his time and becoming rich and influential meanwhile, which unfortunately leaves him with little time for UnAngband at the moment.
Andrew gave me his blessing to prepare an interim release as a Christmas gift to all and to spice up of the heated last stage of the competition. Since GCD managed to overcome Smaug, while we were procrastinating, I've devised to make the new release much easier to beat, so that we can catch up with him. ;D Seriously speaking, generally the game should now be easier at the start (many factors) and end (less summoning), possibly a bit harder in the middle due to lowered drops at all depths. There are also some bug fixes, some new content, some UI goodies.
This will be a work in progress release, so please save often and report bugs. Savefiles are compatible, unless the level you are on has fallen out of the levels range of the current dungeon, so it's safest to upgrade when in Rivendell, Bree, Hobbiton or Bucklebury (their depths are unchanged).
To play the freshly downloaded competition savefile, load the character, quit, start again, answer 'y' to quickstart question and you'll have no problems with some dungeon guardians prematurely dead (those not in the game when the competition savefile was created). Doing quickstart every time you die you'll also get more monster memory, which is OK in this competition (since code-diving is allowed, anyway). Social-status scumming to become a king's only child is not OK.
I'm cluless about releasing Angband variants, so I need you help badly, before I rename the sources proper wip7d, upload binaries and call it a release:
* I don't know if the version of zip program I used does not mangle small and large letters or anything else, so please verify.
* I will be able to make a Linux binary, but I need help with any other ports. Does it compile for you? Is everything you need included in the source archive? Andrew has just written:
> Anyone on OS / X can build the OS/X distribution (.dmg file) using make dist.
> Anyone on windows can build the windows distribution using build_win.bat once it's
> compiled (Ideally they need 7zip and upx - at a minimum 7zip).
* I've heard about problems with fonts on Vista (or was it XP?). Is it OK in wip7c? Are any quick changes desirable right now?
* Any other changes needed? Any obvious bugs introduced in the new sources? Am I missing something embarrassingly obvious?
The preliminary source code is available at [...]
Edit: the official source now at
Linux binaries at
Windows port at
Preliminary changelog below (listing changes from wip7c to wip7e). Some changes are listed as tentative, please test and provide feedback.
### Gameplay ###
- If the player is blocking, he gets a +20 to hit in melee and +15 to hit with bows/throwing. This allows bad melee practitioners to increase their odds of hitting by blocking.
- If the weapon you are attacking with or the ammo you are firing / item you are throwing is not an ego item, artifact, coated weapon or magic item, it will inherit brands/slays from your equipment as follows:
* In melee, your gloves/gauntlets are checked first.
* If you have no gauntlets, instead, your right hand ring.
* Except for blows with your secondary weapon, which use your left-hand ring.
* For throws and ammunition, only your left hand ring is checked.
- Rings of ice/acid/fire/electricity now have the appropriate brand. This makes them highly useful for archers/throwing specialists as well as mage-type spell casters which do not use gloves/gauntlets.
- Modified low-level bard spells, replacing Holy Water with a more bard specific spell.
- Added spells that modify a single round of blows, shooting or throwing.
- Scale down upper end of monster drop sizes.
- Minimise number of townsfolk who drop gold.
- various changes and additions to the wilderness map, guardians, depths; in particular, added the Great Grey Wolf and a slight upgrade to Boldog, the Orc Captain, to have missile attack.
- substituted guardians (e.g. Black Riders) now guard only the first zone and are described as such
- recycled some guardians so that changes to the world, as the game progresses, do not make uniques undefeatable, except a few plot-motivated cases
- ad hoc tweaks to pseudo-id (until this is rethought and rewritten more systematically), in particular, broken items are no longer reported {average} for mages;
- on shallow levels, OOD monster rarer and not so OOD
- moved multiplying monsters (especially shallow but high HP ones) much deeper by increasing their hp rating in the power calculations; giant black louse is thus level 6, not 3 as before (is 7 in monster.txt)
- removed restore potions, made stat potions much more common and cheaper, tweaked prices of starting magic devices
- made traps, potions, etc. that do more than p_ptr->mph/2 damage leave player at 1HP instead of killing him; please revert if this is too munchkinish, but note that it only affects early game, when detect traps and ID are scarce; with this also later in the game test-id and no-trap-detection become viable; tentative
- made apple and berries a bit lighter and berries somewhat nourishing
- you can now die from starvation second turn after travel, beware
- other minor tweaks and additions
### User Interface ###
- Pval modifier is now included in the description of an item.
- added dungeon level names (only about half of dungeons, please contribute)
- more information in the dungeon knowledge menu; the location blocked by a guardian revealed
- some info about dungeons reachable via one step of travel, in particular, warning if no way back or if no escape via maps
- overhauled and sorted visited dungeons listing in the character dump; tentative
- added link to map and to dungeon knowledge from the travel menu
- overhaul of the main screen UI, especially of the no-sideboard mode; the town level is now one line lower, I hope this does not break anything; tentative
- corrected layout of the top line inside shops
- warn about starvation, especially after travel
- changed default wrap column to 80 now that we have long texts to print, e.g. dungeon descriptions; some are still 75 column, e.g. ego powers, because they are subordinate to their main item descriptions; tentative
### Bug fixes ###
- Fix for Bug #12538 Chain-summoning Termite Mounds.
- This also modifies the 'power curve' of monster ecologies so may have far-reaching effects.
- Fix for Bug #12570 bards "Find Hidden Traps/Doors" =|= "Find Traps".
- Fix bug Bug #12569 browsing spellbooks "prerequsite" => "prerequisite"
- Fixed by Bug #12568 Priest Cure Moderate Wounds required mage Cure Light Wounds as a pre-requisite.
- Fix for Bug #12457 Rings of tele not activable when identified via ring spec
- rings of teleportations should now be always found cursed
- Fix for Bug #12567 Potion of Detonations .. broken ?
- Prevent loading a character from marking worthless items as broken.
- corrected the destinations of maps (the ones bought, sold, etc.)
- fixed a bug that made all MFLAG_STRONG monsters twice as strong as intended (I think); these included (some?) low level uniques
- as a temporary fix to the problem of empty Nature book and others, I've removed the books of Negations, Nature, Space, Annihilation, the Void, Immolation and Gambits; please report if any of the books worked for you in earlier versions
- some code cleanups, minor fixes and changes to the engine under the hood
- crashes when inspecting bags, etc. fixed, I hope
- fixed another crash with bags and lack of equip term refresh when canceling item selection from a bag
- gmake from Vanilla that allows both native- and cross-compiling using mingw
- Windows build packaging script for use on Unix, to complement build_win.bat
Edit2: release wip7d is hereby released. Thank you for your help and please give me some feedback.
Edit: updated various bits and pieces; the source archive is now of reasonable size
As UnAndrew reports on his blog, he's just got a new job and they haven't yet agreed to finance UnAngband, so he is biding his time and becoming rich and influential meanwhile, which unfortunately leaves him with little time for UnAngband at the moment.
Andrew gave me his blessing to prepare an interim release as a Christmas gift to all and to spice up of the heated last stage of the competition. Since GCD managed to overcome Smaug, while we were procrastinating, I've devised to make the new release much easier to beat, so that we can catch up with him. ;D Seriously speaking, generally the game should now be easier at the start (many factors) and end (less summoning), possibly a bit harder in the middle due to lowered drops at all depths. There are also some bug fixes, some new content, some UI goodies.
This will be a work in progress release, so please save often and report bugs. Savefiles are compatible, unless the level you are on has fallen out of the levels range of the current dungeon, so it's safest to upgrade when in Rivendell, Bree, Hobbiton or Bucklebury (their depths are unchanged).
To play the freshly downloaded competition savefile, load the character, quit, start again, answer 'y' to quickstart question and you'll have no problems with some dungeon guardians prematurely dead (those not in the game when the competition savefile was created). Doing quickstart every time you die you'll also get more monster memory, which is OK in this competition (since code-diving is allowed, anyway). Social-status scumming to become a king's only child is not OK.
I'm cluless about releasing Angband variants, so I need you help badly, before I rename the sources proper wip7d, upload binaries and call it a release:
* I don't know if the version of zip program I used does not mangle small and large letters or anything else, so please verify.
* I will be able to make a Linux binary, but I need help with any other ports. Does it compile for you? Is everything you need included in the source archive? Andrew has just written:
> Anyone on OS / X can build the OS/X distribution (.dmg file) using make dist.
> Anyone on windows can build the windows distribution using build_win.bat once it's
> compiled (Ideally they need 7zip and upx - at a minimum 7zip).
* I've heard about problems with fonts on Vista (or was it XP?). Is it OK in wip7c? Are any quick changes desirable right now?
* Any other changes needed? Any obvious bugs introduced in the new sources? Am I missing something embarrassingly obvious?
The preliminary source code is available at [...]
Edit: the official source now at
Linux binaries at
Windows port at
Preliminary changelog below (listing changes from wip7c to wip7e). Some changes are listed as tentative, please test and provide feedback.
### Gameplay ###
- If the player is blocking, he gets a +20 to hit in melee and +15 to hit with bows/throwing. This allows bad melee practitioners to increase their odds of hitting by blocking.
- If the weapon you are attacking with or the ammo you are firing / item you are throwing is not an ego item, artifact, coated weapon or magic item, it will inherit brands/slays from your equipment as follows:
* In melee, your gloves/gauntlets are checked first.
* If you have no gauntlets, instead, your right hand ring.
* Except for blows with your secondary weapon, which use your left-hand ring.
* For throws and ammunition, only your left hand ring is checked.
- Rings of ice/acid/fire/electricity now have the appropriate brand. This makes them highly useful for archers/throwing specialists as well as mage-type spell casters which do not use gloves/gauntlets.
- Modified low-level bard spells, replacing Holy Water with a more bard specific spell.
- Added spells that modify a single round of blows, shooting or throwing.
- Scale down upper end of monster drop sizes.
- Minimise number of townsfolk who drop gold.
- various changes and additions to the wilderness map, guardians, depths; in particular, added the Great Grey Wolf and a slight upgrade to Boldog, the Orc Captain, to have missile attack.
- substituted guardians (e.g. Black Riders) now guard only the first zone and are described as such
- recycled some guardians so that changes to the world, as the game progresses, do not make uniques undefeatable, except a few plot-motivated cases
- ad hoc tweaks to pseudo-id (until this is rethought and rewritten more systematically), in particular, broken items are no longer reported {average} for mages;
- on shallow levels, OOD monster rarer and not so OOD
- moved multiplying monsters (especially shallow but high HP ones) much deeper by increasing their hp rating in the power calculations; giant black louse is thus level 6, not 3 as before (is 7 in monster.txt)
- removed restore potions, made stat potions much more common and cheaper, tweaked prices of starting magic devices
- made traps, potions, etc. that do more than p_ptr->mph/2 damage leave player at 1HP instead of killing him; please revert if this is too munchkinish, but note that it only affects early game, when detect traps and ID are scarce; with this also later in the game test-id and no-trap-detection become viable; tentative
- made apple and berries a bit lighter and berries somewhat nourishing
- you can now die from starvation second turn after travel, beware
- other minor tweaks and additions
### User Interface ###
- Pval modifier is now included in the description of an item.
- added dungeon level names (only about half of dungeons, please contribute)
- more information in the dungeon knowledge menu; the location blocked by a guardian revealed
- some info about dungeons reachable via one step of travel, in particular, warning if no way back or if no escape via maps
- overhauled and sorted visited dungeons listing in the character dump; tentative
- added link to map and to dungeon knowledge from the travel menu
- overhaul of the main screen UI, especially of the no-sideboard mode; the town level is now one line lower, I hope this does not break anything; tentative
- corrected layout of the top line inside shops
- warn about starvation, especially after travel
- changed default wrap column to 80 now that we have long texts to print, e.g. dungeon descriptions; some are still 75 column, e.g. ego powers, because they are subordinate to their main item descriptions; tentative
### Bug fixes ###
- Fix for Bug #12538 Chain-summoning Termite Mounds.
- This also modifies the 'power curve' of monster ecologies so may have far-reaching effects.
- Fix for Bug #12570 bards "Find Hidden Traps/Doors" =|= "Find Traps".
- Fix bug Bug #12569 browsing spellbooks "prerequsite" => "prerequisite"
- Fixed by Bug #12568 Priest Cure Moderate Wounds required mage Cure Light Wounds as a pre-requisite.
- Fix for Bug #12457 Rings of tele not activable when identified via ring spec
- rings of teleportations should now be always found cursed
- Fix for Bug #12567 Potion of Detonations .. broken ?
- Prevent loading a character from marking worthless items as broken.
- corrected the destinations of maps (the ones bought, sold, etc.)
- fixed a bug that made all MFLAG_STRONG monsters twice as strong as intended (I think); these included (some?) low level uniques
- as a temporary fix to the problem of empty Nature book and others, I've removed the books of Negations, Nature, Space, Annihilation, the Void, Immolation and Gambits; please report if any of the books worked for you in earlier versions
- some code cleanups, minor fixes and changes to the engine under the hood
- crashes when inspecting bags, etc. fixed, I hope
- fixed another crash with bags and lack of equip term refresh when canceling item selection from a bag
- gmake from Vanilla that allows both native- and cross-compiling using mingw
- Windows build packaging script for use on Unix, to complement build_win.bat
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