Terminal

I finally ascended - hacked and slashed my way through the Realm of Zot to grab the Orb and carry it back to the surface. Granted, I took a few shortcuts, and some purists would even call me a cheater, but it was still quite the challenge. The game: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

It's a roguelike - a genre beloved by oldschool gamers and indie hipsters. The first attempts were written by UNIX hackers attempting to replicate the excitement and depth of a Dungeons and Dragons crawl. The most famous: Nethack, which has evolved over the years and still has plenty of fans. I spent my time with Nethack but was always put off by the cruel randomness that resulted in unavoidable deaths. The game design owed more to appeasing (or laughing along with) a capricious Dungeon Master with a sadistic streak than a referee who wanted the rules to be tough but fair and let the players be heroes. DCSS has all the old school DNA. But there are plenty of modern conveniences that make returning to the game after a particularly brutal death less painful.

Auto-attack (tab) and Auto-Explore (O) are probably the most relevant. But quick travel, global search and clear rules are just as essential. The recommended PC for newbs is the Minotaur Berserker. The bovine masters of the labyrinth are hearty and bloodthirsty, able to slash through hordes of orcs and skeletons with ease, and if things get tough, there's always berserker mode to enable.

When you think about RPGs, the core driving gameplay loop hasn't really changed. There's character building and strategic combat. DCSS has plenty of loot to mix and match, with a pretty deep system of skills to maximize (to increase hit %, as well as attack speed), along with resists, armor, stealth and mana. A Mino Zerker is on the easier side, lacking any sort of spellcasting ability. But it's still a fun challenge to eyeball a horde of monsters and make the call if its worth activating berserker mode and charging in, or falling back to the nearest stairwell to heal up.

Stairwells are probably the biggest strategic tool in the game. When you traverse a stairwell to an upper or lower level, only adjacent enemies can follow. At the very worst, there would be 8 monsters following, and more often its only 1 or 2. This leads to the stair-dancing tactic. Travel into a lower level, aggro a crowd of mobs, then retreat up a level to finish them off. Even better is kiting - using a high rate of speed (granted by potion or racial ability) and a long weapon (spear) continue retreat and poke the angry enemy. This is easier said than done when the map is a maze of twisty passageways, all alike. The real juice of the game is one of navigating the map, finding corners and bottlenecks to gain advantage over the hordes. And when everything's represented as ASCII characters, the whole thing feels more like Tetris than Diablo.

And so my own ascension. I'd been building out a Minotaur Zerker for most of the spring. I worshipped the mad god Trog, who had granted me a +9 Battleaxe for spilling much blood. I'd found an enchanted +10 platemail in the treasure troves of the Elven Halls, and wore magical amulets and rings to ward off spells and projectiles.

Yet when I finally entered the final floor of the Realm of Zot, I was stopped hard. The entryway the final chamber was guarded by Traps of Zot. The impenetrable walls on either side could not be warped or dug around. The only way was stepping on the trap, which banished me to the halls of the Abyss! I had to fight my way for dozens of turns through the abomination-infested halls to find an exit.

When I finally passed the traps, the orb itself was guarded by Orbs of Fire. These red * glowed with deadly power, then zapped me with balls of fiery death. I barely escaped. Retreating back into the bowels of the dungeon, I found a red dragon plate and a ring of fire protection. I switched to a +9 antimagic glaive. This time I crept around the corner, using the reach on the glaive to destroy the orbs one by one. Finally I stood before the Orb of Zot, the purple text glowing on my screen. It had been months (mostly hacking away while code was building or deploying) since I started by quest.

I grabbed the Orb and started for the surface. Immediately the screen began to fill with strange characters and letters never seen before - Pandemonium Lords from hell! I chugged a few potions (haste, resistance), but then studied the map for the most efficient way to the surface. This was a turn based game. I didn't have to act quickly, only wisely.

And so the journey up to the surface - the orb run - took 15-20 minutes, peering at grids of characters and mazes, picking the optimum path. Singular demons in my way were cut down, but larger hordes had to be avoided. Powerful spellcasters nuked me from afar, and my health was brought low. I made a stairwell and was able of quaff a few healing pots before a new round of fiends was alerted to my presence.

At last I was on the first floor of the dungeon, where I'd started over 75k turns before, at level one, with the bats and rats. Now the maze was filled with Angels and Demons. I reached that final stairwell, victory above. My enemies were closing in, I wouldn't last another turn. The final key: <

You have escaped!

I can't recommend the game enough - there are few games that are better bang for your buck (free) that run on linux and can pass off as "working" in the command line. And there are plenty more adventures to be had. I'm starting a new character, a Spriggan Assassin. This time I'll have to sneak through the halls and kill silently.

The Orb of Zot awaits.