Thursday, February 29, 2024

NetHack [3.1]: Rust and Ruin

 
I just can't stop drinking from fountains.
       
After losing Aamanz so stupidly, I took a few days off. When I fired it up again, I created Aaron the Archaeologist (I'm still accepting random characters from the game) who ate a rotted corpse on Level 1 and died before he did anything else of note. Abadan the Samurai followed him, but he died of starvation in a particularly insidious Level 3, on which I could find only a couple of rooms and a long corridor. I know there were secret doors somewhere, but none of my searching could reveal them, and I had to just watch as he starved, fainted, got attacked by a werejackal, turned into a werejackal himself, lost all his armor, fainted again, and was killed by a gecko.
    
Next came Abastunagi the Elf. I felt good about him. My winning NetHack 3.0 player was an elf. They come with two intrinsics that are hard to get otherwise: "Automatic Searching" and "See Invisible." The automatic searching alone saved me from dozens of traps. The elf has a "chaotic" alignment and prays to the god Erevan Ilesere, who comes from Dungeons & Dragons, I believe. He starts with an elven short sword, an elven bow, 30 elven arrows, an elven mithril coat, and two lembas wafers.
     
Nothing much happened until Level 4. I destroyed a floating eye with my bow. (I learned the hard way not to attack them in melee combat; they freeze you and some other enemy always appears.) I ate it and got the "Telepathy" intrinsic. On the same level, I found Adjama's General Store, which sold a blindfold (among some other useful things). I spent some time dropping loot in his store and buying what he had.
       
Killing a floating eye--safely.
      
Level 4 had two ways down again, and the first again brought me to the Gnomish Mines. I killed gnomes and dwarves and soon found myself awash in boots, helms, cloaks, shields, and weapons. It drives me crazy that it's such an effort to identify it all. On Level 8 of the mines, I found the same town setup that Aamanz had found, including a chaotic altar, and I spent an absurd amount of time dragging stuff to the altar, checking its blessed/cursed status (cursed items flash black) before trying it on. I eventually ended up with some +2 hard shoes and a +2 cloak, giving me a fairly low armor class (-5) for this early. One of the dwarves also had a pick, which I consider necessary for my ascension kit. Unfortunately, eating a poisonous spider (I was trying to get the "Poison Resistance" intrinsic) cost me 3 points of strength.
      
My biggest liability in NetHack is the inability to wait before trying things out. When I have several unidentified scrolls and potions, I can't help but find a safe space and try them out, hoping for the best. For that reason, I lost a bunch of my potions when I read a Scroll of Fire. I also spent most of Level 7 hovering above the ground, unable to reach anything, because one of the potions I tried was a Potion of Levitation.
   
Enemies spawn often enough on the town level that I suspect you could stay here effectively forever, especially since there's a food shop. 
    
The Gnome Mines ended at Level 13. I killed innumerable gnomes, gnome lords, gnome mages, dwarves, dwarf lords, and even a gnome king. I loved getting a bunch of them in a long hallway where they kept killing each other with their own missile weapons. I left so much potentially-valuable stuff on the dungeon floor that it physically hurt. My auto-searching identified a gazillion traps.
       
Look at all the traps on this level.
     
When I emerged from the Gnomish Mines, I was Level 9. My strength, wisdom, and constitution had gone up a few times. I had a +2 Ring of Protection, an unidentified (but not cursed) amulet, two Wands of Magic Missile, a Wand of Polymorph, a Wand of Teleport Monster, a pick-axe, a blindfold, a credit card (for unlocking doors), and a Scroll of Enchant Weapon that I couldn't decide whether to use on my current weapon or wait until I had a better one. I had also found two spell books: "Magic Missile" and "Knock." It wasn't a bad haul, but it could have been better. I never found anything good to sacrifice on the altar for a chance at an artifact. I thought about hanging around the town until something spawned but ultimately decided to move forward. 
   
I returned to the level where the staircases split and went down to "real" Level 5. There, I found something I don't remember from a previous NetHack. A large, rectangular room had a number of centaur statues, which at first I attributed to Medusa. But then I entered the smaller building in the center of the room, where I was greeted by the Oracle of Delphi. You can buy "consultations" from her. I didn't have enough money when I first visited, but later I returned and paid her 50 gold. It appears she just gives hints from the standard pool, which also includes fortune cookie hints and hints you find engraved on the floor. Still, it marginally increases the utility of the economy.
      
That's disturbing in a lot of ways.
      
I went around drinking from her fountains, hoping to get a wish again. I didn't, and in fact I nearly died to a bunch of water moccasins that spawned, but one of the fountains did show me my intrinsics. I gained "Sleep Resistant" and "Poison Resistant" from something I ate. The poison resistance came just in time, as I ran into a nest of killer bees on the same level.
    
On Level 6, I found another new feature in this version: a throne room full of bugbears and gnomes. I'm not sure who the "king" was, but I killed them all. Then I sat on the throne and the game said I "felt better" and restored my health. I got up and sat down again, and it said that I felt "out of place." A third time, and I got a wish! Damn, this version is almost too easy. In moments, I had my Grey Dragon Scale Mail again and the -11 AC that came with it.
      
Is it just me, or is this version generous with wishes?
     
The throne was still there, so I tried sitting again. I got teleported to another room. I returned and tried again, and a voice yelled, "A curse upon you for sitting on this most holy throne!" and I was blinded for a couple hundred rounds. Still worth it. When I'm blind, I can see monsters elsewhere in the dungeon (due to telepathy), and I saw a bunch of hill orcs and uruk-hai spawn in one of the rooms and slowly head towards my room. I shot arrows down the corridor as they approached. After I killed them all, I took some of their stuff back to the altar, checked it for curses, and ended up with a couple more +2 items, bringing my AC to -14.

Level 8 was pivotal in a few ways:
   
  • A magic fountain increased my strength by 1.
  • I found another store where I spent a bunch of time, killed a couple of mimics, and bought a "Remove Curse" spellbook.
  • I killed a gray unicorn and got its horn, an important healing item.

Before I killed the unicorn, I used the "identify" command to look at it and make sure it wasn't black (I remember from the previous version that killing unicorns of your own alignment is bad luck). This reminded me of the extensive monster identification system that NetHack uses. You get a full paragraph about each creature and its strengths and weaknesses. 
      
This is awesome, but . . . "France"?
     
I was in no particular hurry to leave this area of the dungeon, but I had two Scrolls of Teleportation by now, so I decided I'd explore until I encountered something hard, then spend time on the upper levels building my kit. But with my high AC and my magic-resistant armor, nothing really challenged me. I killed owlbears, apes, soldiers (one of whom had an elven cloak, which increased my AC to -15, which a subsequent Scroll of Enchant Armor increased to -17), rope golems, dwarf lords, ettin mummies, rothes, xans, spotted jellies, jackals, giant spiders, hobbits, gelatinous cubes, gnome kings, and other assorted monsters without losing more than 15% of my maximum hit points except when I kicked open a booby-trapped door.
   
As I arrived on Level 11, I got a telepathic message from someone named Earendil that my "help is urgently needed at the great Circle of Earendil!" I have no idea who Earendil is or why he has his own circle. The message went on to say that I should "look for a [something] transporter." Shortly after, I was attacked by a flesh golem, killed it, ate it, and got (I think) the "Fire Resistant" intrinsic.
      
That's what this means, right?
      
I soon came to a room with a # symbol on the floor. As I walked across it, the game said that I activated a portal. "You arrive in familiar surroundings. In the distance, you see the great stone Circle, the place of worship to Erevan Ilsere. Something is wrong, though. Surrounding the circle are orcs! And they've noticed you!"
      
Somehow, I missed that text screen, but I captured this one.
    
Let me pause to ask: why isn't there more of this in roguelikes? I would love it if there were a little text introduction to every level, or at least the special ones. Maybe even for some rooms. Why are there not more multi-line encounters instead of just quick lines of text on the tops and bottoms of the screens? Has anyone ever created a hybrid between a roguelike and a text adventure? I'd eat that up.
    
I was on a special, almost completely open map titled "Home 1." It had a circular structure in the center with a bunch of NPCs wandering around. Orcs, goblins, and uruk-hai came swarming at me, but even without the ability to funnel them into a single line, I was able to withstand them just fine. When I reached the center, the NPC in the middle of the circle (Earendil?) said that I was "too inexperienced to withstand the demands" of their quest, and that I should return when I reached "Arandur" level. I was automatically teleported back to Level 11 of the dungeon.
       
I love when enemies kill each other while trying to get to me.
      
By Level 12, I was using the familiar strategy of arriving on a level, immediately putting on my blindfold, and identifying any monsters I didn't recognize. I got a point of strength from a fire giant corpse on the same level. I had two pressing problems by this point. First was a lack of ability to identify things. I had three unidentified rings, an unidentified amulet, four unidentified potions, and several unidentified weapons. I had found three scrolls of Enchant Weapon--one of them blessed--but I didn't want to use them until I had a "forever weapon" or at least one that I respected more than my +1 short sword.
       
Playing it safe with my blindfold and ESP.
      
Second, I had no light source, and more and more of the dungeon rooms were dark. I thought about pressing forward until I found one, but I decided to play it safe and retreat up to the Gnomish Mines, where there was a shop selling nothing but light sources. I figured I might meet enough random encounters on the way back that I'd reach the level necessary to take the quest. I did end up gaining one more level, but it didn't raise me to "Arandur."
   
I made it back to the Gnomish Mine town. There was a hill orc roaming around when I got there, so I decided to try sacrificing him on the altar to my god. I got a message about a four-leaf clover, which I assume means that I gained luck, but alas did not get an artifact weapon. Unfortunately, the guy selling light sources had nothing but candles, which don't last very long. I bought everything he had; one of them turned out to be cursed.
      
Can't do this in any other RPG.
    
My other problem was solved on the way back up. I stopped into the store on Level 4 just to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I had. The shopkeeper had a chest for sale, and I hadn't bothered to open it to see what was inside. It turned out that he had a Scroll of Identification. I agonized over what to identify with it. Yes, I know that I can find or create a blank scroll, find a marker, and duplicate the scroll, but I hadn't found any markers, and I was desperate. I decided to prioritize the rings. But when I read the scroll, it turned out it was blessed, and it identified everything I had that I hadn't already identified. My rings turned out to be Regeneration, Fire Resistance, and Teleport Control. I put on Regeneration for now, but Teleport Control is going to come in handy later.
       
I wish I knew what kind of ring I had before I said "no" to this message.
    
Heading back down, a hill giant corpse got me some more strength, and I got a second horn from another gray unicorn, but I soon hit a wall: I couldn't find an exit from Level 13 of the dungeon. I searched and tunneled everywhere, including into a vault where I looted the gold and killed a guard that showed up. Nothing. 

My guess is that I have to solve the quest first, which means killing more monsters. I returned to "Home 1" because it seemed that orcs were continually regenerating there. This session had treated me pretty well, with my character hardly ever in danger, so it was time for a classic blunder. While messing around on the level, I accidentally bumbled into a water square. No, I didn't drown, thankfully (though I nearly had a heart attack in real life), but when I pulled myself out of the square, all my weapons and armor (save my scale mail) were "very rusted," all of my potions had been turned to water, and all of my scrolls had been blanked. I guess it could have been worse.
    
My somewhat unfortunate inventory at the end of this session.
     
I'll keep fighting monsters and hope to deal with this special quest next time. As usual, I'm amazed when I think of all the stuff that they managed to pack into NetHack that still hasn't shown up in the typical commercial RPG of the period, including complex item interactions, monsters able to pick up and use equipment, monsters damaging other monsters, and, well, falling into the water and ruining half your stuff. It really goes to show what developers can accomplish when they're not so obsessed with graphics.
   
Time so far: 11 hours

83 comments:

  1. I remember playing a version that had these quests (the Home 1 map) but I don't recall it having the Gnomish mines - must have been something in between.

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    1. The Gnomish Mines and the Quest were both added in Nethack 3.1.0, as part of the introduction of a branched (rather than just linear multi-part) dungeon.

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  2. Earendil is from Tolkien's work. He's one of the rare half-elves in the setting, bearer of one of the Silmarils, father of Elrond, and great-great-etc.-ancestor of Aragorn.

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    1. AlphabeticalAnonymousFebruary 29, 2024 at 4:14 PM

      As I recall, in the mythology the Silmaril bound to his brow is also effectively the planet Venus (the morning/evening star). And he's condemned to sail his ship throughout the heavens for eternity. Still, a better end than many of his compatriots met.

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    2. In all actuality, "Earendil" has more connections with Venus than simply a Silmaril bound to him "being" Venus. The whole of Tolkien legenadrium kinda began when Tolkien had read a poem in old English which spoke of "Earendhel", Bright Wanderer - this name is also known as "Aurvandil" in some other countries, and basically amounts to "Light-bringer" or Lucifer. Only, not as in "evil devil Lucifer", but as in "Jesus Lucifer Christ" or, sometimes, "John Lucifer Baptist". This meaning, that as Venus comes before the Sun and Sun's light, heralding the end of night and start of day, so John heralded the coming of Jesus, while Jesus himself heralded the new age of "more godly" life on Earth. At the very least, the poem Tolkien read referred either to John or to Jesus himself. In any case, "Earendil" in Tolkien's lore functions as a herald of new day in the night/mediator between day and night, as he pleads for the suffering mankind and elvenking of Middleearth before high-and-mighty, but somewhat aloof Valar (angels/gods) of the world. His arrival and the consequent Valar interception ends the age of ever-night and total power of Melkor in the Middle-earth. (which Valar kinda tolerated as long as this power didn't reach their own land.) So, yeah, Earendil is kinda very intertwined with "Venus" mythology. Also, he is not condemned, but rather assigned a task of carrying the Silmaril - and not "for eternity", but only "for as long as the world exists", and the world will surely meet its end one day (and Melkor will be finally defeated for good then).

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    3. Lorigulf, that's wonderfully grand. Tolkien's legendarium is so sincere and dignified.

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    4. To quibble just a bit, Lorigulf, Melkor is already good and defeated. He never had a serious chance against the Valar. The reason they didn't do something about him sooner is that they didn't want to wreck Middle Earth in the process of dealing with him. It wasn't until Earendil showed up in Valinor and said, "No, please wreck the place, I'm begging you" that they changed their minds.

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  3. > Unfortunately, the guy selling light sources had nothing but candles, which don't last very long.

    Oh boy.

    You are going to regret having used those candles.

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    1. Chester is really gonna feel the Birthday Monster's wrath when he doesn't have enough candles for the cake.

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    2. fortunately you can wish for 7 candles.

      Kind of hurts tho.

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  4. > : I couldn't find an exit from Level 13 of the dungeon.

    Uh, weird.

    Maybe it's a feature of 3.1 i don't know about, but in 3.43 (when i started playing it) you certainly didn't need to do the quest to reach the Dungeon bottom.

    (Are you sure than the downstairs aren't hieden under an item, maybe?).

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    1. The quests are optional, you do not have to do them. The stairs down are on that map somewhere, there's plenty of blank space on it for there to be another room or two hidden behind a secret door.

      There are also other ways to go down from most levels that do not involve using the stairs.

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    2. I should add though that the rewards you get for doing the quest are usually worthwhile.

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    3. A side branch like the Gnomish Mines is optional. (I think there may be only one other optional side branch in 3.1.0, which isn't even guaranteed to exist; the other big side branch that shows up early in later variants doesn't exist yet.)

      The quest you reach through a magic portal is very much not optional. But typically you don't do it when you first encounter the portal, you need to level up and prepare. The difficulty of the quest and the reward varies a lot from role to role (I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that if you're not an Elf, you don't get Earendil). There's one role where the wiki suggests you might want to explore the whole top half of the dungeon before you do the quest.

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    4. The stairs definitely aren't hidden under an item, and I've hacked away at most of the blank areas, but I didn't realize you could tunnel down with a pick-axe, so I'll try that next.

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    5. Sounds like it would make it hard to get up again, unless you find the real stairs in the lower level.

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    6. No reason the stairs up should be hard to find. And he could always qevax n phefrq cbgvba bs tnva yriry.

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    7. That would require actually finding one. You could as well say he could always use a scroll of mapping on the previous level. :)

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    8. He's got more room to find the thing I mentioned below the level than to find a scroll of mapping above it! (Be znxr vg, gubhtu nypurzl erdhverf gubebhtu fcbvyref naq V qba'g rira xabj vs vg jbexf evtug va 3.1.0.)

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  5. AlphabeticalAnonymousFebruary 29, 2024 at 2:14 PM

    NetHack always sounds like a truly fascinating game that's far too complicated for me to dive into. Yesterday I beat the roguelike 'Brogue' for the first time ever -- if that alone took me more than a year, I could see myself spending the rest of my life on NetHack without winning. I'm just glad someone else is playing it and narrating the experience.

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    1. Congrats on beating Brogue! It took me an awful long time to do it the first time... now I'm kind of obsessed with playing Bullet Brogue (on brogue.roguelikelike.com), which is a full game of Brogue... compressed into three levels. It can be massively unfair in either direction; sometimes you spawn next to an ogre, sometimes you can liberate a tentacle horror right next to the stairs down from the first level, one time everything lined up right and I won in 70 turns.

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    2. Have you also tried the variant Rapid Brogue, a less extreme condensation into 1/4 of the original size? (It's included in the main game under 'Change Variant'.)

      For my taste there's too much walking around, trivial combat against weak enemies and general fussiness in roguelikes. I find it hard to muster the patience. If I play anyway then it's hard to stay alert to notice in time when I've maneuvered myself into a dangerous situation. I like that these situations sneak up on you due to your own mistakes, in contrast to games with handmade levels where the designers often foreshadow the upcoming danger, making things too predictable. But still I'd rather not blunder around with only half of my attention, so any attempt to condense these games is interesting.

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    3. I do think Brogue does well with alleviating the walking around problem by having far travel with the mouse that usually takes an intelligent path (for instance, favoring squares that you know are untrapped) so you don't have to yuhjklbn your way across an entire level. Also the hunger clock is reasonable enough that you have to make progress. The thing that got me when I tried NetHack again wasn't the profusion of commands, it was that I spent a lot of time traipsing back and forth between various stashes; since you can survive on eating what you kill, the game encourages this kind of loot-shuffling.

      All that said, I seem to wind up playing the shorter versions of Brogue a lot more. (And Rapid is much more balanced than Bullet, while still being pleasantly compact.)

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    4. Thanks! Rapid Brogue sounds like a good choice then.

      I also prefer games to restrict me from too much backtracking. It's essential for a game like Ultima Underworld but in roguelikes I'd prefer not to have to choose between 10 minutes of backtracking to create a better weapon in a forge on an upper level, or worrying that my character will die because I didn't backtrack for a better weapon.

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    5. Your instincts are good. I'm not active with NetHack at the moment, but when I was, I probably played on and off for at least a decade, and have never gotten close to ascending!

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    6. > like a truly fascinating game that's far too complicated for me to dive into.

      Nethack small little secret is that it's, in fact much, much simpler than it looks to win.

      While there are lots and lots of little details and interactions in it, you don't really need to know any of that to win.

      When i first played nethack, ten years ago, i obsessed over those details - nowadays, with 53 ascensions of my belt, i can say with confidence that the only thing you really need to win is what you need in any rpg - a good weapon, and good armor. The only particular thing you really need to know is to get poison resistance, magic resistance, and Reflection. Everything else is just a bonus.

      There is a reason why Dwarven Valkiries and samurais are generally considered the easiest classes to win with, and that's just because they start with a good weapon and a good armor.

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    7. If you like compressed versions, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup has the Sprint versions, that compress the entire game into a single level!

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  6. "It really goes to show what developers can accomplish when they're not so obsessed with graphics."

    Hm, I don't think you can blame developers for focusing on things that would help them sell games, especially in that period. And even ignoring the resource allocation issue, there's also the question of how many players would actually, positively want to deal with highly complicated item management, thousands of weird interaction corner cases, an infinite inventory and random destruction of huge parts of that inventory (etc., etc.).

    Personally, I admire the virtually endless possibility space of roguelikes. However, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have the stamina required to *exhaust* this space, which is pretty much a necessity if you want to prevail - a factor exacerbated in a world of permadeath. Then again, permadeath and possibility space are probably two sides of the same coin, because restarting the game dozens of times is only fun if you can try something different each time. Most RPG players, though, would rather start the game a couple times at most, get to the end of the story eventually, and head on to the next game. While they do appreciate a certain possibility space (e.g. party composition, talent trees, random treasure), it only has to be large enough that the game doesn't feel like a railroad. And even then, more players will enjoy/buy a pretty railroad like Lands of Lore than something like Ragnarok, which you covered a while ago.

    RPG players, that is. The general approach of trying to devise the optimal strategy from a wealth of possibilities should cater more to players of Civilization/Warlords/Master of Magic, right? From what I know, these players also don't care much for fancy graphics. But they do care for unlimited game saving... so, sorry Nethack ;-)

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  7. Has anyone ever created a hybrid between a roguelike and a text adventure? I'd eat that up. - Legerdemain (https://nathanjerpe.itch.io/legerdemain) purports to be exactly that (although it doesn't have a parcer). But its first release is 2005, so it'll take you some 10-20 years to get there.
    Newer roguelikes (e.g. ADoM or ToME) generally tend to be more plot-heavy; whether that's a good thing for a roguelike, given how many times content has to be repeated, is a different question.

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    1. I played a bit of Legerdemain back in the day, and I think Chester would eat it up. It's not quite roguelike, in that the maps are constant, and it doesn't quite have permadeath either; you can save at inns (you encounter one pretty early) and then death restores you to the save. Which is another thing Chester would eat up.

      I got stuck not that far in; there was an artifact that I never figured out how to use, but I think the main thing was that the game broke on my computer--there was a point where I seemed to have worked my way through to another dungeon, but it didn't activate when I walked into it the way it was supposed to. However this doesn't seem to have happened to anyone else. Also I remember not being able to run the itch version because I'd need to install Java, but that shouldn't be an issue for Chet.

      Oh and in the comments Nathan mentions a config menu... though it may be just for switching between numpad and vi-keys. Alas.

      Also Caves of Qud reminded me a lot of Legerdemain, though every time I've tried Caves of Qud I've wiped out fast. I should get some help because, it's not like I'm terrible at roguelikes in general, there's probably some mental block I'm having.

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    2. If I remember correctly (I didn't get terribly far) the inn saves are a one-off thing: if you die and get restored, the save is gone and your next death will be permanent (unless you check in and pay the price again).

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    3. That every character death costs money is good because otherwise the player could start from the save location and throw himself repeatedly against an enemy he's not equipped to handle, for free, just on the off chance that the dice rolls go in his favor.

      But how different is Legerdemain, really? Watching the gameplay video all I see are some occasional atmospheric text descriptions of rooms and things. It's not clear that the player did something with that information. I saw no quest-givers or encounters with multiple choices, such as "You see an orc patrol walking by, with a prisoner in chains. [A]ttack to free the prisoner, let them [p]ass by, or [f]ollow them?"

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    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    5. Some of the messages are much longer and provide lore bits and clues to solve the main quest. It also has NPCs and a keyword-based dialog system. No CYOA-style encounters though, as far as I remember (matt may correct me on that).

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    6. Legerdemain, yes I came here to say just the same thing. I think you'd like it. Downloadable from itch.io for free, by Nathan Jerpe. https://nathanjerpe.itch.io/legerdemain

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    7. No multiple-choice encounters in what I saw, but there are indeed longer story bits--besides the NPCs and other things, there are some things marked as Longer Texts or something, which include things where the PC begins to remember their backstory (ok, ok... it's an amnesiac hero game) and at least one sermon about the general atmosphere of the game.

      There are definitely quest givers too, although the one quest that I solved, I did by wandering around the map before I managed to talk to the quest giver and get the clue to where I should go. (The map starts closed off in various ways and opens up some. I presume. Didn't get far enough to open it up.)

      Another thing about Legerdemain is that it doesn't have the usual D&D bestiary. Like maybe the Doobah Boogadah are really goblins but they're not called that, and other monsters are also different. The one that lowers your strength can get lost, though.

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    8. Vampire: the Masquerade - Night Road is exactly this. Interactive Fiction with a full character sheet. The choices you have depend on your character's stats. Most choices lead to dice rolls that determine success or failure. You'll fail at stuff a lot and often in a spectacular way, but the game takes a "fail forward" approach, so it isn't an issue. It's great! Excellent story and lots of replayability.

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    9. By the way, if anyone has managed to get Legerdemain running on a recent Mac, let me know. The readme says that I need to put it on the "Macintosh HD" level (I think) but I don't seem to be able to put anything there. I'm pretty sure that there is an issue with filepaths but I'm not sure how to fix it.

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    10. Update on Legerdemain and Macs: I was able to get it running by using Wineskin Winery (which lets you run Windows apps) and setting the executable to the .bat file.

      Gory file details follow: The thing about putting files on the "Macintosh HD" level turned out to be a red herring--it was preventing me from running a file that automatically entered the campaigns needed to run it in the terminal window, but even when I manually entered the commands I got an error about a missing .TheApp file. I suspect that someone who knew Java would be able to create the .TheApp file themselves and run it that way, but I am not that person.

      I should warn anyone that if you are playing on a laptop with no numpad you have to switch to the dread vi keys. I'm also trying to figure out if I can switch the graphics from tiles back to "everything is letters with various accents." But Chester, did I mention that this is a roguelike-style game with story content, death with real consequences but not permanent, Ultima IV-style character creation, and Ultima-style dialogue trees?

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    11. "automatically entering the commands needed to run it in the terminal window"

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  8. "It really goes to show what developers can accomplish when they're not so obsessed with graphics"

    Blasphemy! It's a well known fact that you can't look on graphics that are two years old because your eyes will bleed. God forbid playing thing from dark pre-2020 age. You will die or lose your mind.

    Seriously, obsession with graphics is weird. I remember when I said to my friend - "Hey, play Planescape Torment, it's really good". I showed him intro. I saw on his face that he was truly disgusted. I though he will throw up. It was just weird.

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    1. One advantage something like Nethack has, graphically, is that it doesn't age badly. It never looks like out-dated/old graphics, it just looks deliberatey simple.

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    2. Yeah, that's true. But, to be hones, I'll never understand why old graphics should be such a problem. I enjoy lot of things that are before my time. To be honest, I couldn't get into 80s cRPG-s, but not because of graphics, but controls. But Wasteland changed everything - when I played it, I was hooked, and I get used to 80s controls. Because of Wasteland I played such gem as Pool of Radiance. Eh, but it's kinda offtopic, so I'll end here. :)

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    3. Luckily the PC game market has become so big that even pretty hardcore turnbased roguelike games with relatively static tile-based graphics can become quite successful nowadays. For example, Cogmind, Caves of Qud, ADOM. Turns out that niche genres are not necessarily that small.

      For me it's also the case that the controls of 80s CRPGs are a higher hurdle than the graphics. I'd love remasters that take the old game logic of e.g. Ultima V and put new semi-abstract 2D tile graphics, sounds, UIs and modern keyboard/mouse/gamepad controls on top of it, in the style of Cogmind or Caves of Qud. I'd prefer that to more elaborate remasters with 3D graphics or suchlike.

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    4. "I saw on his face that he was truly disgusted. I though he will throw up. It was just weird." That might be the end of our friendship if it was someone I knew.

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  9. For the love of Izchak, don’t use the candles for light! I felt a collective gasp from your nethack experienced readers when I saw that! Let’s just say you are going to need them later, and as you noticed they are a poor light source.

    The last level of the Gnomish Mines contains a powerful magic item that you missed. A Scroll of Magic Mapping would have helped you find it. There’s also a very dangerous magic item there as well. They are hard to tell apart and if you grab the wrong one you’ll be kicking yourself.

    You need to be at least experience level 14 to go on the quest, but the game doesn’t block you from going deeper in the main dungeon branch. The stairs were probably hidden under an item. You could have always just dug into the floor with a pickax or a wand of digging, dropped to the next level, and found the stairs back up! Digging down to the next level with a wand of digging is also an excellent escape method fwiw.

    The Oracle gave you a good clue about a new dungeon feature I’m surprised you haven’t encountered yet.

    Yes, you can basically stay on the Minetown level forever. I like to stay there and just sacrifice monsters, regardless of power, until I get a good weapon.

    There are ways to rustproof your metallic weapons and armor, and there’s also multiple ways to fireproof your non-metallic weapons and armor. The easiest is to just include “rustproof” when you wish for something. You can’t rustproof or fireproof scrolls and potions, but you can store them in a bag. But don’t put wands in a bag!

    Certain things increase or decrease your luck, but over time your luck reverts to a mean of zero. There are items that will prevent this reversion. The sacrifice that resulted in clovers increased your luck. Having good luck helps a lot when you do risky stuff like drink from fountains or sit on thrones.

    I re-read your earlier posts on Nethack. Your past self has some good advice in those posts for your current self. I’m not going to rot13 tips that you wrote about before. In particular:

    You can pseudo-ID stuff by pricing them in stores. There’s always one scroll that’s cheaper than all the rest by a significant margin. It’s usually between 6 and 15gp. You want to read that one.

    Blessed Scrolls of ID have a 33% chance to ID your entire inventory. So once you find a Scroll of ID, you want to bless it by dipping it in holy water. You make holy water by putting a stack of water potions on a co-aligned altar and praying. Making more holy water is even easier. Just dip a stack of water potions in a potion of holy water. For the cost of one potion of holy water, you can make X new potions of holy water. Make potions of water by dipping worthless potions in a fountain. As you said in the past, most potions are better as water than as potions. Minetown conveniently has fountains, altars, and an endless supply of monsters who can generate with items.

    You know about engraving Elbereth. Engraving with certain wands will make the engraving permanent. Engraving with unknown wands is relatively safe (safer than drinking potions or reading scrolls!) and a good way to ID wands. Of course, you might waste a charge.

    Good luck! It's all playing out like your post about the pushups!

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    1. I can't shake the feeling you've played this game before.

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    3. The Candle stuff must be new to this version. I don't remember that they had any importance in the last one.

      When you say that "you can pseudo-ID stuff by pricing them in stores," that really only works if you've built up a list of sale prices using known items from previous plays, or if you consult spoilers. I've been going back and forth on whether to consult spoilers for this version. I ultimately did for 3.0, but I thought I'd play this one straight until I lost my first 10 characters.

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    4. Yes, the candle business is new in this version. I think candles are the only aspect of this that is likely to trip you up in this way, but late-game spoiler (rot13):

      Gb trg gb gur ybjrfg yriry, jurer gur Nzhyrg vf, lbh arrq guerr vgrzf; n oryy gung lbh trg ol pbzcyrgvat gur Rnreraqvy dhrfg, n obbx gung lbh trg sebz gur jvmneq bs lraqbe, naq n pnaqrynoehz gung lbh trg sebz iynq gur vzcnyre; obgu bs gur ynggre gjb ner qrrc va truraabz. Gur pnaqrynoehz gnxrf frira pnaqyrf. Lbh znl or noyr gb svaq pnaqyrf ryfrjurer va gur qhatrba, vg'f n ovt qhatrba naq gurer jvyy or ybgf bs ybbg qebcf naq zber fgberf gung zvtug unir gurz; vs jbefg pbzrf gb jbefg lbh pna jvfu sbe frira pnaqyrf, gubhtu gung fhpxf. Va 3.6.0 gurer ner thnenagrrq pnaqyrf jurer lbh trg gur pnaqrynoehz, ohg V nz snveyl fher gung vf abg gehr va 3.1.0.

      ...I would also say that when you are in the very late game, you might want to read some spoilers about how to proceed, because I don't think it's at all intuitive to figure out how it works... and the only rumor I found that helps with it is about the thing we're yelling about.

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    5. Yeah, the candles are new in this version, and there's no way to know at this point that they are important. You won't need them for a long time, but when you do, it would suck to have used the only guaranteed candles for 5 turns of light back in the Gnomish Mines.

      Later versions have the GnomeTown Light Store minded by Izchak, a popular dev who passed away.

      The only scroll you really want to psuedo-ID is the cheap one. The others you'll figure out over time.

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    6. Though if you want to play it straight, it's not the worst idea to start making a list of sale prices from previous plays. You can always name scrolls with the price you bought them for to make this easier to track. (I think.)

      rot13ing: Abg rirel vgrz jvyy unir gur fnzr cevpr sbe rirel punenpgre, orpnhfr punevfzn naq n pbhcyr bgure guvatf pna nssrpg cevpr. Naq V guvax fubcxrrcref enaqbzyl pubbfr gb nqq n crepragntr fbzrgvzr. Ohg lbh'yy trg fbzr hfrshy vasbezngvba. (Nyfb V unira'g purpxrq gb frr vs guvf jnf nyernql gehr va gur irefvba lbh'er cynlvat.)

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  10. As a former nethack player, it is so scary to read your playthrough... I wonder how you managed to get so far while knowing so little about all the trick of the game.
    At least you have an unicorn horn.. Vs V erpnyy vg znxr n qrprag jrncba jbegu rapunagvat (at least in later version)

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    1. I mean, I've won previous versions three times now, so by "the trick" are you referring to NetHack in general or this version specifically? And if the former, what is it that you're saying I don't know?

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    2. There are ways (one primary one) to increase your chances of an a positive outcome and reduce your chances of a negative outcome from things like fountains and thrones. Luckily, you will continue to figure things out over time.

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  11. The unicorn help text mentions France because it's an excerpt from a real-world book. I don't know if every description quotes something like that but most do.

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    1. I Googled the text, and the only results I got related to NetHack. I guess I should have Googled the author.

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  12. It's hilarious that you found a blindfold just after killing a floating eye with a ranged weapon, because if you wear a blindfold (or a blinded by something else) they can't paralyze you, so you can quite safely kill them with melee weapons.

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  13. >As usual, I'm amazed when I think of all the stuff that they managed to pack into NetHack that still hasn't shown up in the typical commercial RPG of the period

    In that timeframe, Nethack was frequently referred to as the game with everything but the kitchen sink. So, in later versions (maybe later than where you are now), they added sinks.

    They're not very useful, but you can pseudo-ID rings with them, if you don't mind losing the ring.

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    1. They added sinks in this version, as you can see in the hint Chet got from the Oracle.

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    2. If you've gotten unlucky and used up all of your fountains then you can convert a sink into one by kicking it. Need to be careful with that, though. :)

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    3. Kicking doesn't turn sinks into fountains, digging down on a sink does.

      Kicking them does, uh, something different.

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    4. Ah, that's right. Man, it's been too long since I played this game.

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    5. I thought there was a chance of breaking a sink and it turning into a fountain when kicking it? Or am I remembering wrong?

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  14. >Has anyone ever created a hybrid between a roguelike and a text adventure? I'd eat that up.

    The 2014 game Kerkerkruip is a fusion of interactive fiction and standard roguelike and it's pretty delightful. Sadly, it hasn't been updated in almost a decade.

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    1. IMO Kerkerkruip is pretty much like Beyond Zork in that it's mostly a text adventure with some light RPG elements tacked on, even if those RPG elements take up far more of the game than in BZ. Winning it requires you to figure out a more-or-less optimal order of fighting the enemies (along with what weapons and other stuff to use against them) and by the time you have done that, the randomization is just annoying, because you need to move around quite a lot to determine where each room is in relation to other rooms and where the enemies and items have ended up. It can be a lot of fun while you are still learning to play it, but it's not very replayable after that.

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    2. Being the main developer of Kerkerkruip, I'm hardly neutral about it, but I don't fully understand why the game would be more text adventure than RPG? There are no puzzles, there's no story to speak of, the only knowledge that carries over from one session to another is knowledge about how the systems work -- all fairly typical for a roguelike and extremely atypical for a text adventure. A good example of a game that specifically looks similar but then is much more adventure than RPG is Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom. (Which I recommend highly.)

      It's my hope and experience that the randomisation in Kerkerkruip actually forces you to develop new tactics and strategies based on what you find, especially on higher difficulty levels where using ment becomes mandatory (but when?) and a well-timed sacrifice to the gods can give you just the edge you need. But if course you mileage may vary! :-)

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    3. Ha, I was just scrolling down to plug Kerkerkruip! It definitely has puzzle-like elements, IMO, but does feel far more like an RPG than a typical piece of IF, compared to hybrids like Reliques of Tolti-Aph where the adventure-game structure predominates.

      Another fun game in this vein is Black Knife Dungeon, which has more of a Roguelite progression system; moving from parser games to choice ones, 5x5 Archipelago is a great Twine ROG that randomly generates its eponymous world.

      (Nice to “see” you, Victor, btw! - this is Mike Russo, I just have a weird pseudonym here because of a legacy WordPress account I can’t shake).

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    4. Yeah, with the caveat that I haven't played Kerkerkruip in a very long time, I'd say that dealing with the randomization once you've figured out some decent strategies is a very typical roguelike experience. Roguelikes are all about managing risk; there's a lot of cases where you can do something that will probably work, but you need to cut down the risk as much as you can--there's a lot of monsters and only one of you, and risk compounds.

      In Kerkerkruip I'm pretty sure that you aren't guaranteed the same weapons or enemies in every game, so it's not like there's some lock-and-key structure with the enemies. Unlike Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom, where there really is pretty much one order in which you need to get items and fight enemies. (If you don't drop the difficulty.)

      (Hi Victor and Mike! This is Matt Weiner.)

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    5. We have quite the crew of IFers here, huh? I’m guessing the Daniel who mentioned the Vampire CoG game above is our Daniel, too :)

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  15. There's a lot to like about NetHack. I really want to like it, but simply cannot.

    I play games to find a (perhaps unearned) sense of progress and of ever increasing value. Setback after setback doesn't scratch that escapist itch.

    Here's just one example: In any other RPG, returning to low-level areas provides a sanctuary from higher level monsters. In contrast, NetHack monsters scale to your level wherever you may be.

    Here's another example: It used to be that, with "haste self," you could strike then step back, then strike then step back, and the monster would entirely exhaust its movement stepping toward you. Why did designers nerf that by randomizing speed burst increments? Now, with Haste, you might get one move and then the monster strikes, or you might get 3 or even more, but you never know when the monster will get in a strike. Why was that nerf so important? Now, haste has much, much less value than it used to have. Nerfs like this clearly highlight designer attitude, even while each one sucks away another miniscule element of satisfying gameplay.

    I still go back to NetHack, maybe once a year or so, until I am again forced to remember why all that enjoyable complexity is mitigated by designer "attitude."

    Some day, in the far future, when you've caught up with every variant, it would be very interesting to hear if you have an opinion on the sweet spot of roguelikes. Where were the challenges interesting and exciting, the path long but not infinitely wearying, in a rogulike that offers the challenge of growth with occasional setbacks, without arbitrary and unavoidable crushings at least some of the time?

    Now, THAT would be amazing.

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    1. "In any other RPG, returning to low-level areas provides a sanctuary from higher level monsters." My recollection is that this is not true in most of the Bethesda open-world games. In NetHack, the ceiling for monster difficulty is affected by your player level, but the floor is derived solely from dungeon level -- so earlier levels should still be a relative sanctuary. Unless you have the Amulet, of course.

      As for the 3.6 speed changes, game developers nerf overpowered mechanics all the time. The previous system made slow monsters trivial to defeat. If anything, NetHack has traditionally been pretty slow to eliminate cheesy tactics, favoring conducts.

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    2. Yeah, I can understand not liking NetHack, but the level scaling thing definitely isn't one of them. Earlier floors absolutely do offer a respite from monsters, at least in this version.

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    4. I vaguely remember that monster level is scaled to a function that uses dungeon level and player level. Something like the arithmetic mean of those two levels. So as you get more powerful, they do scale upwards, but it's still significantly easier to be on DL: 1 than DL: 20.

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    5. I am not a huge fan of resting on earlier levels anyway (nothing against Rangerous's idea, this is personal taste). I'd rather play a game where I mostly keep going forward--as long as it's balanced for going forward. This is another thing I think Brogue does well, the hunger clock is tolerable if you play normally (though you do kind of have to learn how fast is "normal"!) but you'll get in trouble if you pause to regenerate and recharge your staffs after every encounter.

      One thing I was kicking around as a possible mechanic for this is monster spawns. Where do the new monsters come from? One possible answer would be, they get into the dungeon the way you do. Which mechanically could mean, new monsters spawn from the level's upstairs, and the new spawns increase in power with time instead of with dungeon level. That would be a way of keeping the player going that wouldn't require a hunger clock.

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    6. Eugene is exactly correct that DL and XL are the variables relevant to the average difficulty of monsters generated on a level. There is a also a random +/- factor of course to keep you on your toes.

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  16. An example of a genre mix which is coming from the other direction is Moonring, a recent free Ultima-like with a handcrafted open world and keyword-based dialogue, combined with procedurally generated dungeons which must be played through on a single life but with unlimited attempts.

    Since you keep your character, I think it's too far removed from roguelikes to scratch that particular itch, but it's a great game.

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    1. I started playing this today on your recommendation. Thanks. It's a lot of fun so far.

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  17. Nice writeup. I wonder what is your "policy" for roguelike games. To me they are occasionally fun but in general boring and takes too much time especially if one has to "win" the game. I wonder if it is OK to simply play the game for a few days and call it done.

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    1. I don't really treat them differently from other games. After all, it was Rogue that led to this blog in the first place. I never really find them boring, although they can occasionally be boring to write about.

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    2. That's funny. I often find playing traditional roguelikes a bit boring (though punctuated with occasional brilliance, which is why they're interesting), but I do like reading session reports such as yours. I think the unpredictability and the constant undercurrent of permadeath, the rise and shattering of hope, give your articles about roguelikes an edge that normal games can't provide.

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  18. I don't know if this version has it, but if it does you might want to use the n s chain (say n15s) to search instead of holding down the key. Then you won't accidentally miss messages and you'll stop searching if a monster wanders into view or you become hungry or whatnot.

    Apologies if that command was added later.

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