New Master Game List ("What is a CRPG?" Revisited)

There was so much discussion on my master game listing posting over the last few weeks that I decided to take the time to review the list. I ended up cross-checking it against numerous sources (MobyGames, Wikipedia, GOG, a couple of independent sites) and updating it through the end of 2011. I also tried to nail down the specific release dates for the games. The result was a new, updated Google spreadsheet. I did my best to eliminate MMORPGs with no single-player mode and collections, but a few might have sneaked by.

The list now has 1,155 games. I will not, of course, be playing all of them. A game appears on my list if anyone lists it as an RPG; whether I play it will be determined by whether I think it's an RPG when I reach it.

In one of my earliest "special topics" postings, I asked "What Is a CRPG?" I covered a few definitions from elsewhere on the web and offered some of my own suggestions (many of which helped inform my GIMLET a few weeks later). The various definitions on the web are mostly similar. Three key points that show up repeatedly are:

• That the player "plays a role" does not make the game a "role-playing game." There are plenty of shooters and adventure games in which you "play a role." The "RP" part of "CRPG" doesn't derive so much from the presence of role-playing so much as seeing CRPGs as a direct adaptation of pen-and-paper RPGs.

• Player-driven character development is a key element. As MobyGames's glossary puts it, "a role-playing game can be seen as such when player-controlled characters become stronger because of the player's actions rather than being upgraded automatically as dictated by the storyline."

• Combat is driven by probabilities and statistics rather than player skill or speed with the controller. Granted, some action RPGs include skill and speed as an element, but almost all of them depend at least partly on statistics derived from inventory and attributes.

In a 2007 posting on Armchair Arcade, Matt Barton tackled the question by looking at many games that we call "RPGs" and analyzing them for their common characteristics. He didn't come to a final "definition," but that wasn't really his purpose. Instead, he listed 12 characteristics common to "RPGs" but suggested that a game need not have all of them to fit within the category. This approach informs my own. I'm not looking to establish absolute criteria but rather a set of shared characteristics that a game must have "most of" to appear on my list. In a posting on War in Middle Earth, I distilled my own list down to three items:

1. Inventories not dependent on puzzle-solving. This term confuses some people, but I don't know any other way to say it. Here, I'm contrasting CRPGs to adventure games, which have "inventories," but the items you pick up are meant to be used in some way at a particular location to advance the game. CRPGs, on the other hand, let you load up your inventories with weapons, potions, scrolls, and other items to use whenever you want.

2. Player-driven leveling and development. It's "player-driven" if the player can exercise some choice on how fast to level (e.g., "grinding"), how to improve the character (other than through inventory improvements), or both.

3. Combat based at least partly on probabilities and statistics, as derived from character attributes, as I discussed above.

Games only need have two of these three elements for me to consider it a CRPG. Plenty of games only have two. Galdregon's Domain, which I just finished, didn't have any leveling and development. Wizardry IV did, but it wasn't player-driven. Paladin didn't have any player-controlled inventory. Starflight's combat was all based on your aim and ability to hit the SPACE bar at the right time. But each of these games had the other two.

Aside from the question of whether a game is an RPG, there are a few other reasons I might not play it:

• I can't find it. It's only happened a few times, but sometimes a game simply no longer exists anywhere.

• Technical limitations keep me from playing it. DOSBox has been a god-send, but I worry that when I get into some of the early Windows games, I'll run into a host of tech problems.

• The game is only available in a foreign language, and I can't make heads or tails of it. I tried gamely with Le Maitre des Ames and Tera, but I didn't finish them despite knowing a little French. My list has a lot of Japanese and Chinese games that I have put there optimistically, but I can't say for sure what will happen when I reach them.

That said, I continue to welcome your comments on the master game list, particularly on the following issues:

• A game that I'm missing. I've discovered there are a lot of independent games that don't show up on any of the existing master lists. I welcome their inclusion, but please ensure that they meet two of the three criteria above.

• Games on the list that don't meet two of the above three criteria. I might not delete it immediately just on your say-so, but I'll make a note of it, and if I get multiple comments on the same game, I'll investigate and make a decision.

• Corrections to release dates. This has been a huge pain in the neck. For many of the 1990s games, the original release dates have been lost. The release date I care about is its original platform. If the DOS or Windows version had a different release year, I note it in the adjacent column.

• Your opinions on expansions and DLCs. This has also been a huge pain in the neck. Generally, I have listed them as separate games if they are meant to be played after the main quest and introduce significant new plot material. I have listed them with the original game if they just offer upgrades or side-quests within the main plot. But in doing either, I'm relying on MobyGames's or Wikipedia's descriptions, so it would be good to hear from people who have actually played.

In the future, I might expand the list with other columns such as the publisher and such, but I've been working on it too much lately, so I think I'll leave it as it is for now. Thank you all for your contributions!

NetHack: Documentation

Attacked by a pack of jackals.

Thanks to a series of postings on my last NetHack entry, I discovered that there is a guidebook that comes with the game (I overlooked it in the downloaded files). I got three important things from it:

1. A little more backstory. The dungeon is called the Mazes of Menace, and I'm there to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor. "According to legend, the gods will grant immortality to the one who recovers this artifact," and retrieving it will grant me "full guild membership." Wow. I have to navigate a 20-plus-level dungeon and become immortal just for membership? What's the next quest after that?

2. Weapon damages are based on AD&D tables. I was wondering how I could reliably figure out what weapons do the most damage. I'm hoping I can just use the table in the back of Pool of Radiance.

3. "Elbereth." Apparently, this word engraved on the floor will cause monsters to ignore you as long as you're standing on it. I keep meaning to use it when things get tight, but so many of my deaths just pounce on me.

I've had a tough time figuring out how to organize my notes, but I've created a Google document with spreadsheet tabs for monsters, characters, items, miscellaneous notes, and a "record" of my attempts. The record is a little embarrassing--none of my characters have exceeded Level 7, and many have died on Level 1--but keep in mind that I've been experimenting with things rather than simply taking care.

A healer named Cainan had perhaps my most interesting outing. I've generally done well with healers because they start with a bunch of healing potions and spells. It also turns out they have a neat tool--a stethoscope--that gives you the stats of the monsters you encounter. The thought of my PC putting the stethoscope up to a goblin's chest in the middle of combat is a bit amusing, but there you have it. With the healers, I've been starting to record hit points and AC on my "monsters" table.

The doctor diagnoses a hostile jackal.

Early on, Cainan unwisely equipped a knife that turned out to be cursed and did very little damage. I could neither drop it nor fight very effectively. But I found a couple of wands that did sleep and lightning damage, and a spellbook with the "fireball" spell in it. These, plus the healing potions, kept him alive until I found a scroll shop and took a bunch of chances buying and reading them until I found one that uncursed my knife. I also found three scrolls of identification for the ridiculously low price of $15 each; as far as I'm concerned, these are the most valuable items in the game.

The best moment in the game so far.

Three scrolls of armor enchanting boosted my splint mail to +4, and I left the shop feeling pretty good about the future. But a couple of bad corpses left me starving and I fainted in front of a Uruk-hai.

My most successful character was my last*: Canaan the Samurai (coincidence in names, I know). On Level 5, he found an Oracle who gave a couple of nonsense hints for gold. He ended up chasing a water nymph all over the level for about 15 minutes, eventually killing her and retrieving all the stuff she stole from him. Then he repeated the exercise with a leprechaun on the next level. Two potions of raise level got him to character Level 8 while he was still on dungeon Level 6. It really hurt when he got swarmed by Mordor orcs on Level 7 and died. I had a ton of gold I was looking forward to spending. That's when I decided to take a Star Saga break.

My knight cursed with a ball and chain.

The game is amusing in all the ways that it can kill you. Twice, I've been cursed with lycanthropy from fighting were-somethings, a condition that repeatedly causes you to shapeshift, shed your armor, and drop half your stuff. Apparently, the advantage is that you can summon and command other monsters of your type, but the frequent shifting is so annoying that I lost my will to live. In another episode, a cursed scroll outfitted me with a ball and chain that slammed into my back when I went down a flight of stairs and killed me instantly (I guess you're supposed to pick them up and carry them). A third character died when a mimic surprised me from within a pile of goods in a shop. A shopkeeper killed another (and gleefully looted my body) when I ignored his "closed" sign.

This is the only game I've played in which NPCs loot your corpse when you die.

Among all the deaths, I've started to discover some of the game's secrets. I'm not saying they're particularly deep secrets--I'm sure there are many more to come--but I know they'll  make the game easier when I start playing it seriously. Here are a few.

• Many of the starting pieces of equipment are extremely useful. The archaeologist's pick-axe smashes boulders and makes holes in walls. The tourist's credit card unlocks doors, and his camera blinds monsters. I've already talked about the healer's stethoscope. The priest has a magic marker useful for "engraving." The archaeologist also has a "tinning kit," which I assume keeps food from rotting.

• I haven't found many permanently useful effects from eating corpses yet, with the exception of the "floating eye," which grants telepathy for a time, allowing you to see locations of monsters on the level.

• If a monster is of your same alignment (I'm guessing, anyway), it is non-hostile, and the game asks you to confirm before attacking. I'm not sure if there's any compelling reason not to, though. Does it upset your god?

I don't think I've ever not wanted to attack a hobgoblin.

 

• Dipping things into the priest's jars of holy water "blesses" them. I haven't quite figured out what the blessings do, though.

• I've noticed that multiple monsters share the same icon, but are perhaps differentiated by color. That's going to be annoying, as I can't distinguish between red and green and lots of other variations.

• As I noted in 2.3e, you can encounter ghosts of your previous characters at the levels where they died. These ghosts seem to be un-hittable, though perhaps I just don't have the right stuff. This sucks when they trap you in a corridor.

Aren't adventurers supposed to have a certain alliance?

 

• You can break open locked chests by kicking them, although there's a chance of damaging your leg.

• Fortune cookies actually contain fortunes--which seem to be game hints.

This could be useful, though probably not to a "chaotic" character.

 

I can't say I've warmed to my dog or cat yet. I realize from previous hints that pets have uses, such as not stepping on cursed items and not eating bad corpses. (I'm not really sure how that helps, though. If they do eat the corpse, then I know it was a good corpse, but now it's gone.) I'll try my best to learn how to use and train them, but mostly I find them really annoying. They keep getting in the way. Plus, it's kind of heartbreaking when you accidentally kill them while blind or confused.

Dumb cat gets in the way again. Just like my real cat, always trying to trip me when I go downstairs.

This is going to be a year-long process, probably. I don't think I'll update every time I play a session of NetHack, but I'll try to keep track of the new things that happen.


*Addendum: After I wrote the above ("the most successful character was my last"), I began playing with a valkyrie named Magog. I had some extraordinary luck in the early levels and she is now on Level 14. I'm almost afraid to keep playing. I'll chronicle her adventures next time.

Galdregon's Domain: Won! (with Final Rating)

I received this immediately upon returning to the king. The most anticlimactic game ending in history.

  
Galdregon's Domain
United Kingdom 

Pandora (developer and U.K. publisher); Cinemaware (U.S. publisher)

Released 1989 for Commodore 64, DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST

Originally released as Death Bringer

Date Started: 28 June 2012
Date Ended: 29 June 2012
Total Hours: 6
Difficulty: Easy (1.5/5)
Final Rating: 18
Ranking at Time of Posting: 8/72 (11%)

Ranking at Game #455: 122/455 (27%)

Galdregon's Domain was too easy not to win. Clearly designed for novices, the game had a simplicity that I found almost almost endearing, although this didn't make up for some awful gameplay and interface elements. The enterprise took almost exactly my six-hour minimum. I appear to be the only person online who has won the game (or at least talked about it). Later, I did manage to find a walkthrough in the form of screenshots from a contemporary magazine called Advanced Computer Entertainment, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong about a crucial bit.

Winning the game consisted of finding each of five gems. Each gem was held by a boss-level creature in some dungeon or tower: a lich, a medusa, a demon named Set, an assassin lord, and a rock monster.

A medusa is incorrect.

 
Defeating each "boss" required that I first find some item of offense or protection against him. For the lich, this was a cross; a mirror protected me from the medusa; the demon required me to have a sacrificial dagger; a cloak kept me hidden from the assassin lord; and the rock monster only died when I was holding a diamond. In almost all cases, the item needed to defeat the creature was in the same dungeon.

Thanks to the Elven Cloak, the assassin chief can't see me. If he could, he'd kill me instantly.

The exception, and the part of the game that took the longest, was the cloak. I had to get that from an elf lord, and to get him to give it to me, I had to bring him the bones of his father, who had been slain by Azazael. This took a while because I overlooked that the elf's ghost, who told me where to find the bones, was in a tower I thought I'd already explored.

A stage in the only reasonably complex quest in the game.

 
Anyway, the walkthrough suggests you can just kill the elf lord, and I'm pretty sure that's not true. In fact, if you do kill the elf lord, I think the game becomes un-winnable. So, future players of the game, remember that you got that hint here! But I would really encourage you to move on to something else.

As I mentioned in my first posting, there are no levels or experience in the game, and the only form of character development comes from finding better equipment. Slowly, you find a shield, a helmet, and armor for your torso, arms, and legs (each arm and leg has a different piece). I never found any boots, meaning I remained part-barbarian until the end.

My final character was invulnerable to everything but rats and roundworms.

 
There's a secondary form of "development" in the sense that every retrieved gem slightly increases your strength. The game got very easy after I started finding armor, and I made very little use of all the potions and scrolls I was finding. You can't load up on too many of these, however, since you're restricted by both the number of items and total weight. I generally ended up leaving useful items among the corpses.

"Arrghh" was indeed my reaction after too many of these messages.

 
There were about 10 total dungeons (towers, castles, fortresses, and forests) to explore in the game, and none of them were large enough to make me feel like I really needed to map them. I just used the "follow the right wall" trick. Not all of them were necessary to finish the game; a few of them just offered opportunities to find more equipment.

There were several major annoyances relating to gameplay and navigation:

• To talk to an NPC, you click "Talk" and then the NPC. To attack a monster, you click "Attack" and then the monster. The selection remains fixed on what you last clicked on. I kept accidentally killing NPCs because I forgot I had last selected "attack." This is how I know that killing the elf lord doesn't produce his cloak. I accidentally killed him and had to reload, but I searched his body first and there was no cloak.

• I carried around a lantern for most of the game and also found a bunch of "light" scrolls. As far as I can tell, none of them did anything.

• When you face forward, the game does not show doors, and usually does not show passages, to your left and right. You have to actually turn and face them.

You can't tell, but there's a door to my left.

• Weapons continually break, forcing you to find new ones. They're plentiful enough that this isn't a serious problem; thus, it's an annoyance rather than a challenge.

• When you reach the boundaries of the limited game world and try to move onward, the game says, "ouch!" as if you've run into a barrier, even though it looks like there's an empty field before you.

• NPCs talk to you in text that scrolls across the screen from left to right. You can't do anything while this is happening, so if you run into five or six NPCs on one screen, you have to stand there and wait until all the talking stops.

• There is absolutely no feedback in combat. You just keep clicking, or casting spells, until your opponent abruptly turns into bones.

All in all, barely worth my six hours. I don't expect the GIMLET to be high. Before I get into it, you can see some of the gameplay in the video below. I took it shortly after my first posting, a little less than halfway through the game. This video is notable in that I die at the end of it.

The game world is rather silly, mixing a variety of fantasy archetypes, and the game doesn't really pay attention to its own back story. The quest concerns stopping a necromancer named Azazael from retrieving the five Gems of Zator (by finding them yourself first), but Azazael doesn't even bother to make an appearance in the game. On the plus side, the world does remember your actions, to the extent that even corpses remain where they've fallen throughout the game, and items with them (3).

As I said, character creation is nonexistent (everyone starts the same), and development is meager (1). NPC Interaction consists of one-line responses when you click on them. While it isn't strictly necessary to talk to NPCs, you do get a few hints as to objects that you need to find (2).

I get a clue from some elf folk.

 
Encounters and foes are standard fantasy monsters, and you don't have any role-playing options when dealing with them. The bit about having to find some special object before each boss is an interesting twist, but not that interesting. Areas do not appear to respawn, but I can't imagine why you'd care if they did (1). Combat consists of simply clicking on enemies; the only alternative is using scrolls like "fireball" and "death," which constitute the only magic in the game (1).

Five clicks and it's over.

 
Equipment might be the best part of the game, and that isn't saying much. It was mildly satisfying to find new pieces of armor. There are a variety of weapons you need to test out to find the most damaging (I think it was the halberd), and a variety of potions, food, and scrolls keep your character buffed and ready for combat (2). There is very little economy; monsters occasionally drop one gold piece or some gems (automatically converted to 2-3 gold pieces), which you can use to pay for food, ale, or healing. Potions were common enough that this wasn't really necessary (2).

The barbarian finds another bit of armor. I'm amused at the idea of a foe armed only with one piece of "arm mail."

The quest was just a variety of standard CRPG missions, without even a final battle to make things interesting. There are no side quests (2).

A ghost gives me one of the more interesting pieces of the main quest.

 

As you can see, the graphics are quite nice--really the only plus for this game--but I have to conclude that the DOS version shipped without sound. The interface was simply horrible, with virtually no keyboard support and far too much clicking around. It was too easy to accidentally click on the wrong menu command (2).

The gameplay was reasonably non-linear for such a small world; I think you can defeat the bosses and find the gems in any order. It's too easy and there is no reason in the world to re-play it, although at least the pacing is okay (2).

The final score of 18 is the lowest since Times of Lore almost a year ago, and it earns a place in the "superlatives" in the right status bar. The game just seems half-assed. It's name doesn't even make any sense ("Galdregon" is never referenced in the game or manual), and the dragon promised on the main title screen never appears. It feels like Pandora spent a lot of time on the graphics engine and didn't have time for anything else.

The game's box. Hey, it seems like I've seen that barbarian somewhere before.

Ah, yes.

Contemporary reviews of the game seem a bit more positive, praising its graphics and sound (the Amiga version apparently had some) while noting limited gameplay and extremely basic combat. Advanced Computer Entertainment said that "dungeon masters in need of a fix might be disappointed with this offering." The biggest mystery comes from an Amiga magazine called Format, which offers a review so positive I suspect someone was paid by the developers.

Galdregon's Domain is similar to the now infamous Dungeon Master, but it is set aside from the rest by its great graphics and atmospheric sound. You'll be wandering the territory for ages. And with a Galdregon II promised, you just know what you'll be doing every night for the next decade. It's a great game and well-worth the challenge. You'll be hearing a lot more about Galdregon's Domain from now on.

Every night for the next decade? Wow. CRPG players must have seriously sucked back then. Of course, not only has the game virtually disappeared from anyone's memory (there was no Galdregon II), but any comparison to Dungeon Master should have gotten this reviewer fired.

This was Pandora's third game. It's previous offerings were Into the Eagle's Nest, a 1986 World War II action game, and Amegas, a 1987 arcade game. I'll meet them again in 1990 with Xenomorph, a sci-fi RPG that from the screenshots might use the same graphics engine as Galdregon's Domain. Xenomorph appears to be the company's last offering before it faded into obscurity.

Let's have some more NetHack and then see what I'm going to do about Star Saga: Two.

Game 72: Galdregon's Domain (1989)

This game was apparently released under this title in the U.K. and as Death Bringer in the U.S. But I can't find a "Death Bringer" version, and both MobyGames and Wikipedia seem to suggest that they're the same game (not even separating the articles), so I'm going with Galdregon's Domain. Hope that clears it up.

     

Galdregon's Domain
United Kingdom 

Pandora (developer and U.K. publisher); Cinemaware (U.S. publisher)

Released 1989 for Commodore 64, DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST

Originally released as Death Bringer

Date Started: 28 June 2012      

Galdregon's Domain is a game largely lost to history, with the exception of a Wikipedia stub and a MobyGames entry. I haven't been able to find any hints or walkthroughs (I thought they might be able to help me with the sound issue, as below). I used to get excited about such games, figuring that I had a chance to be the authoritative source on the Internet. But I've discovered that these games are forgotten for one fairly good reason: they're forgettable.

The game casts you in the role of a barbarian mercenary. You have come to the city of Secnar in the land of Mezron and have been granted an audience with King Rohan ("the Usurper"). You've arrived just in time. A rogue cult has resurrected a necromancer named Azazael, who intends to enslave mankind through the five Gems of Zator, artifacts of great power. One of the gems lies within the catacombs of Secnar, guarded by a lich king, and all champions sent to retrieve it have failed.

The king lounges on his throne, a harlot at his feet.

    

The introduction concludes that the king "hands you a dagger, lantern, healing potion, and a loaf of bread and bids you return with the five gems of Zator." (The other four seem to be in different dungeons.) Left unexplained is why I, a barbarian hero, have shown up in this kingdom with no equipment. Also left unexplained is who, or what, Galdregon is.

I face a contingent of castle guards outside the king's chambers. At least I don't have to kill them.

In its basic interface, the game seems inspired by Dungeon Master. But you control only a single character, and the number of possible actions is far more limited--basically, attack, drink a potion, use a scroll, view your statistics, and a host of "sub-commands" like opening and closing doors. The game also notably departs from Dungeon Master by featuring multiple dungeons and towers connected by an outdoor area, and by populating these areas with NPCs with whom you can chat (getting only one-line responses, however). It unfortunately keeps Dungeon Master's mouse-driven interface, though you can activate some of the commands with function keys.

A forest, a hut, and NPCs outside the castle.

The first thing that jumps out at you is the beauty of the VGA graphics. I'm hard-pressed to think of a better looking game to date. The scenes, characters, and monsters are lovingly crafted and detailed. This made me unreasonably excited about the game when I first fired it up.

The arch-mage, an NPC, gives me a spell book.

Unfortunately, the same is not true about the sound. I read a review of the Amiga version that praised the sound, but I can't get a peep out of the DOS version, nor can I find any acknowledgement of sound in the game's files. Is it possible that they released the DOS version with no sound at all?

A map keeps you oriented in the outdoor area.

Even if I can solve this problem, the basic gameplay experience leaves a lot to be desired. Corridors and rooms force you to turn every possible direction to make sure there are no doors; you can't see doors and open passages in your periphery. Combat consists of clicking manically on your enemy until one of you is dead, and during combat there is no indication of how much damage you're giving or taking. There is a limited selection of inventory items.

Transferring equipment from a slain foe.

You don't create a character (everyone starts exactly the same). There don't seem to be any levels or experience points in the game. At least, the manual doesn't mention any, and I haven't been able to discern any kind of character improvement. Development seems to consist primarily of obtaining better weapons, armor, and items.

Today, I explored several of the dungeons, including a tower in which I killed a mad wizard and his demon cohort, looting from their bodies a number of spells and a cross. I explored various huts and houses in the outdoor area and received a magic sword and spellbook from NPCs. My biggest problem right now is that my health is low and I have no gold to pay for healing. None of my slain foes ever seem to have any.

Fighting a wizard and demon.

I died and had to reload a couple of times. The death screen is suitably bleak:

I'll keep playing for at least my six hours, but the interface is annoying and the game so far is unrewarding. If anyone else wants to download it and see if you can do any better with the sound, I'd appreciate the help.

NetHack: From the Beginning

Fair warning: this character does not ascend.

NetHack involves so many quirks, vagaries, and complex gameplay elements that I've been having trouble organizing my thoughts. I thought it might be easier to describe a typical game and highlight those characteristics that I encounter along the way.

The game starts with a simple question: "Who are you?" This is the prompt to name the character. Next, the game offers to randomly choose your character class from among 12 types: archaeologist, barbarian, cave-man, elf, healer, knight, priest, rogue, samurai, tourist, valkyrie, and wizard. You also have the option to choose your own. For this illustration, I choose a barbarian.

I am sure that I will eventually explore all of their strengths and weaknesses.

The game then automatically rolls attributes for strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. These are mostly new; the last version I played, 2.3e, had only strength. The scores seem to be influenced by class, but with some randomness built in. You also get an alignment (again, I think based on class; I'm not yet sure what purpose it serves in the game) and a number of hit points. Each character class has a series of titles based on level; barbarians start as "plunderer."

Other statistics along the bottom include the dungeon level, gold, magic power, armor class, experience, and time elapsed. I'm not sure what the "S:" value at the end of the first line means.

The game starts in a dungeon room, which may be populated with monsters, items, or both. The rest of the map remains uncovered until I explore it. I start each game accompanied by a pet--a cat or a dog--which I can name. In this case, I have a kitten and have named her "Gatita." Both kinds of pets attack enemies and retrieve items. Supposedly, pets can be trained to do other things, but I haven't figured that out yet.

Each character has a starting inventory depending on class. Barbarians start with a two-handed sword, an axe, a ring mail, one food ration, and sometimes an additional item like a lamp. They have one of the most basic starting inventories; tourists and wizards start with so many items that you're overburdened at the outset.

Some aspects of the equipment--such as whether a weapon is "blessed"--seem to be random.

 

In this game, Adam the Barbarian soon encounters a jackal in the same room, which seems to be a low-level monster without any special attacks. Slaying him leaves a corpse; many monsters leave corpses which I can pick up and eat. I know from the last game that many of these corpses make the character sick, and some confer special benefits or curses. I don't remember what a jackal does, but since I'm not desperately hungry, I decide to forgo eating it.

I begin to explore the first level. The ostensible goal of each level is to find the stairway down to the next level, but of course you don't want to go charging down levels without building your character a bit first. I generally make it a policy to fully explore the level before moving onward. But each level features secret doors and passages that are only revealed with multiple searches and it's not really feasible to search every wall space multiple times, so the only ways you know for sure that there's a secret door is if you use a scroll of mapping or if you've explored the visible level and have not yet found the stairs.

As I explore, the game gives me occasional messages about the environment: "you hear some noises in the distance"; "you hear a door open and close"; "you hear bubbling water." I think these are supposed to clue you as to encounters to be found on the level (i.e., noises probably mean that there are more monsters somewhere). I soon come across a ruby potion on the floor. I have no idea what it does, and the only ways that I know to find out are to drink it or to find a scroll of identification. Since I don't have any conditions that I need a potion to cure, I decide to stuff it in my pack for now.

I come across a closed door. I don't believe the previous version of NetHack had doors at all. In this version, they can be opened or closed, and if closed they can be locked or booby-trapped. Locked doors respond to lock picks or just kicking them open. In this case, it wasn't locked, but it was booby-trapped. It blew up and I lost a couple of hit points and spent a few rounds stunned.

In the room beyond, I find 34 gold pieces and the stairway down. Unlike Rogue, where gold just affected your final score, NetHack has shops where you can spend your gold. I haven't been encountering them until dungeon level 3 or 4, however. The room also holds a food ration, which means I now have two. Given how often characters die of starvation in this game, having a good supply always makes me feel better.

A newt--another low-level creature without special attacks--wanders into the room. Fighting monsters with melee weapons simply involves moving into them. However, combat also offers the options of throwing items, zapping with wands, and casting spells (among others I'm sure I haven't discovered). I quickly dispatch the newt with my sword, and my cat eats its corpse. I'm not sure what the rules are governing pets eating corpses. I haven't seen a pet get sick or develop special abilities yet, but maybe that happens without any messages.

Another locked door responds to me kicking it open, and I find a room with several things on the other side. The first is a kobold zombie, which I kill quickly with my sword. There is also a statue of a goblin. I find statues like this everywhere, and I'm not sure what purpose they serve. Are they actual carved statues or beasts turned to stone by a medusa or something? The game lets me pick it up, but I don't see any purpose to that.

There is also a fountain in the room. I've found at least two things that fountains do: First, they can alleviate a little bit of hunger if you drink from them and nothing goes wrong. Second, dipping a weapon into them occasionally causes something good to happen, like the removal of a curse. In this case, nothing happens. My sword only "gets wet," and I find that "the tepid water is tasteless."

Finally, there is some more gold and a large box with a keyhole. This is the game's equivalent of a treasure chest, only I don't have anything to pick the lock with. I try to force the lock with my sword, but it doesn't work. I take the box hoping to find a way to open it later.

Another room has a pancake; my food stockpile is pretty good at this point, although any of the items could be rotten or poisoned and leave me worse off than if I hadn't eaten. I kill a kobold and take a gem from its body; I'm not sure if these serve any purpose except selling.

Another fountain, when I try to drink from it, produces a water nymph. I've only been playing this game for a few hours, but already I hate them. They hypnotize you and steal your stuff. Fortunately, I shrug off her charms this time and kill her in one blow. This brings Adam to level 2, but he only gains 1 extra hit point.

One of the hallways is blocked with a boulder. These appear all over the game and force you to push them out of the way, but sometimes you're blocked by doors, walls, or monsters. You can sometimes squeeze past them if you're not overloaded with inventory. I'm not sure if they serve any other purpose.

By the time I finish exploring the level to my satisfaction, I'm level 3. I have two food rations, a pancake, and a newt corpse in my backpack for food, and I've found three more potions of different colors, all of them still unidentified. I also have (from the water nymph) a mirror, but I'm not sure what it does. When I show it to my cat, she is "frightened by [her] reflection."

I head down to level 2, followed by Gatita. I fight several combats with giant bats and rats. Another bloody water nymph appears out of a fountain and this time steals my armor, my gem, my box, two potions, and my pancake, but Gatita kills it! I guess kittens do serve a useful purpose! I'm able to pick up all my stuff and put my armor back on. As I finish dressing, I finally get hungry. I know from experience that this hunger will transition to weakness, fainting, and finally death if I don't eat. I swallow the pancake and take the edge off.

The sound of someone counting money suggests that there's a shop on the level, but I've already explored everything and haven't found anything. That suggests a secret door somewhere. I have to weigh the length of time it will take me to search (and the consequent hunger I will have to sate) against the likelihood I'll find anything interesting in the shop.

I ultimately find a secret door at the end of a hallway, and behind it a room with a spellbook. Reading spellbooks is the only way to get spells into your inventory, so I decide to brave it and am rewarded with a cure sickness spell. This will come in handy when I eat some rotten food, although I think barbarians have a natural resistance to getting sick from food. (I can't remember why I have this idea; maybe it was a spoiler someone gave me last time.)

I never do find the likely shop, so after a few more combats, I head down to level 3. Hunger appears again, and after I eat, I'm down to only one food ration; all that searching on level 2 cost me dearly. 

A few fights with geckos and kobolds, and then I get caught in a bear trap. There are several types of traps in the game, and bear traps are the most annoying I've encountered so far. You have to spend round after round futilely trying to wrench your leg from them, while you get hungry and expose yourself to monsters. I finally get out and in the same room find a black ring mail. This poses a bit of a quandary. If it's a better suit of armor than my existing ring mail, I should put it on (along with the black cap I found on level 2), but there's always a chance it could be cursed. I decide to take the risk. It isn't cursed, but it's actually worse than the armor I already had, so I take it off.

Later, I come to a dark room, so I use my lamp to light it up. Dark rooms are the same as regular rooms except that the entire room isn't revealed the moment you step into them. I pick up a tin opener in the same room. I've yet to find a tin to open with it, and it doesn't seem to work on the box I'm still lugging around. I find another locked box in a room and break my sword trying to pry it open. Equipping myself with my axe, I vow to leave locked boxes alone from now on. I drop the one I've been carrying since level 1.

I find a scroll labeled XIXAXA XOXAXA XUXAXA. Like potions, the only ways that I know to identify scrolls are to use them or find a Scroll of Identification. I decide to read it and see what it does. All it does is give me a "strange feeling." The game then gives me the option to name the scroll. I call it "Strange Feeling" so that every time I encounter a similar scroll later, I'll know what it did (not that I really know).

A fight with a jackalwere leaves me feeling "feverish" as I prepare to decend to level 4. Moments later, I turn into a jackalwere myself! This causes all my armor to fall off, and for me to become unable to equip weapons.

I decide to see if I can wait out the transformation. It works, but the moment that I return to human form, a gnome lord attacks me and kills me just as I get my weapon in my hand again.

As with every death, the game offers to identify my possessions, I guess just to screw with me and show me what I didn't get a chance to use. It turns out my potions included hallucination, levitation, confusion, and object detection (both cursed and uncursed versions). 

The game taunts me.

What I experienced in this game only scratches the surface of the gameplay elements in NetHack, but it should give you some idea of the game's complexity and major characteristics. I'll probably do my next posting on Galdregon's Domain, but I'll keep popping into NetHack periodically as the year goes on.