Angband 4.2.0 is now available for
Windows,
macOS and as
source. It can be downloaded from
rephial.org, and played at
angband.live.
This version is mainly a major overhaul of classes and the monster list.
As for the last two 4.x.0 releases, there are too many individual changes to list, so what follows is a summary.
Classes
-------
Two new realms of magic have been added, nature and shadow, to the existing divine and arcane realms.
- Nature realm relies on harnessing the power of the earth, and is opposite to the arcane realm, which uses craft and cunning.
- Divine realm uses harmony and light, and is opposite to the shadow realm which aligns with darkness, power and sacrifice.
- Rangers now use nature magic, like the new Druid class
- Necromancers are the major shadow caster class
- Blackguards are fighters enhanced by shadow magic
- Pure casters (mages, priests, druids, necromancers) use five books (down from nine)
- Hybrid casters (rogues, paladins, rangers, blackguards) use two or three books
- Classes no longer have different rates of gaining experience
Monsters
--------
Each base monster type has had its game niche reconsidered, and there has been a general push to use Tolkien-inspired monsters where appropriate. Some of the major changes include:
- Ainur - most of these now align with one of the great Valar, and have corresponding powers
- Dragons - these have mostly been made stronger and deeper
- Humanoids - dark elves have been replaced with dwarves, gnomes with Drúedain
- Hydras - each hydra type is like the previous type with a new head and attack added
- People - the association of some of these with player classes has been expanded to include the new classes
- Snakes - some of these are now dangerous
- Spiders - more dangerous and deeper, with unique abilities
- Trees/Ents - these are new, tough to kill enemies
- Wights/Wraiths - wights are all now shallower than wraiths, and the Ringwraiths are much deeper
Game Mechanics
--------------
In the course of the class and monster changes, many new mechanics have been introduced, with some of the major ones being:
- Player and monster shapechanges
- Variable light and darkness are created by monsters, player gear and player spells, and the player has a meter to measure the light level on their square
- Mages can drain mana from magic devices
- Rogues can steal from monsters
- Temporary brands and slays (Priests, Paladins, Blackguards)
- Necromancers can see in the dark, and can cast less well in light
- Healing of hitpoints every turn for a time (Druids)
- Control of a monster, including making it attack other monsters (Necromancers)
- Shield bashes (Warriors, Paladins, Blackguards)
- Decoys which monsters will attack instead of the player (Rangers)
- Blackguards can go into a state of bloodlust which improves their combat at a price
- Monsters can whip or spit on the player from nearby
- Monster groups act more as a group, with leaders and sometimes bodyguards
- Innate spells (e.g. breaths) and cast spells (e.g. bolts) have separate frequencies
- Deeper in the dungeon shallow monsters are less likely to appear
- Monsters can teleport to the player
- Spiders can weave webs
- Monsters can have innate darkness around them
- Traps added that trigger on leaving their square
- Ringwraiths can inflict the Black Breath
- Monster spells can have different levels depending on monster spell power
- The player now has a hunger meter, and food is more important
- As with classes, all races gain experience at the same rate, except for humans who are faster, and high-elves who are slower
- The Temple has been replaced with a Bookseller who sells books of all realms
Code Improvements
-----------------
There have also been some improvements to the codebase, both visible and invisible to the player. The main ones are:
- Addition of an SDL2 front end
- Change to mostly using a single grid rather than x and y coordinates in much of the code
- More readability of datafiles
- Some font improvements
- Some new tiles
- A new online (rather than in-game) help system
- A new experimental (and so far unbalanced) birth option for percentage damage
- An option to start a new game after dying instead of closing the game and re-opening
- Many fixes to bugs and memory leaks
All this has been achieved through an amazing joint community effort, with code provided by
- Alex Mooney
- Anna Sidwell (takkaria)
- Bardur Arantsson
- bron
- Dag Arneson (sanedragon)
- Derakon
- Elly Fong-Jones (elly)
- fizzix (Aaron Bader)
- fruviad
- John Weismiller (emar)
- Kusunose Toru
- Mikolaj Konarski
- Paul Johnson
- PowerWyrm
- Ryan Schmidt
- Stefan Strogin
- Vic K
- wkmanire
- wobbly
and bug reports, change suggestions and contributions to discussion which has influenced this version by
- Adam
- AnonymousHero
- Antoine
- Aszazin
- Atriel
- bio_hazard
- bunnies
- Carg
- Carnivean
- cccfire
- Chud
- ClaytonAguiar
- Clearshade
- clouded
- Cold_Heart
- Combatereak
- Darin
- debo (cyberdemons pls)
- desstorm
- Diego Gonzalez
- Djbanete
- dos350
- Dragget
- Ed_47569
- Egavactip
- emulord
- EpicMan
- Estie
- Estragon
- Evilpotatoe
- Flambard
- fph
- Gauss
- Geoff Hill (yes, that one)
- geoff_tewierik
- gglibertine
- Glorfindel
- Goaticus
- Grotug
- gtrudeau88
- Gwarl
- half
- HallucinationMushroom
- Holy_Rage
- Hounded
- Hrrunstar
- Huqhox
- Ingwe Ingweron
- Jeff Greene (nppangband)
- jevansau
- jml34
- Jungle_Boy
- kandrc
- kaypy
- khearn
- Kinematics
- luneya
- Mark
- MattB
- misanthropope
- MITZE
- Mondkalb
- Monkey Face
- Moving Pictures
- mrfy
- Muscleguy
- MWGE
- Narry
- Netbrian
- NightLizard
- Nomad
- olivertheorem
- Once
- Pahasusi
- Patashu
- Pete Mack
- Philip
- Pondlife
- Quirk
- Raerick
- Raxmei
- Rydel
- Scatha
- schatz
- shirish
- Sideways
- Sky
- spara
- Sparrow the Dunadan
- Sphara
- swaggert
- tangar
- the Invisible Stalker
- Therem Harth
- Thraalbee
- Tibarius
- Timo Pietilä
- TJA
- TJS
- topazg
- Vivit
- Voovus
- Vorczar
- Werbaer
- Whelk
- Wiwaxia
- Youssarian
- Zikke
- Zirael
as well as, I am sure, other people I missed. Thank you all. I hope this version is as much fun to play as it was to prepare.