New player...

[distorted Humor]

Well I just played my first game of Angband. My 7th half-troll died by reading a scroll of deep delving while in town, ending up about '450 down, and meeting Orfax, Son of Boldor.

I played plenty of nethack over the years, but I was wondering is their any guides for new players. Sorry if I missed a obvious one.

[Carnivean]

Search for Fizzix's let's play angband on youtube.

[Derakon]

There's also a screenshot Let's Play that starts off with a half-troll warrior, if you prefer the screenshot/text format over the video format.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by distorted Humor

Well I just played my first game of Angband. My 7th half-troll died by reading a scroll of deep delving while in town, ending up about '450 down, and meeting Orfax, Son of Boldor.

I played plenty of nethack over the years, but I was wondering is their any guides for new players. Sorry if I missed a obvious one.

Angband is quite easy to learn. No hidden tricks like dipping your weapon in a fountain or use blindfold in medusas lair or anything like that. This is more a quake when nethack is leisure suit larry.

[Bimbul]

Hey Distorted Humour (and all else - my first post here).

Attracted to this post as I feel a bit sheepish lurking around here being an ex- or -retired Nethack player myself, good to see I'm not the only one.

The advice of starting with a half-troll is good if you're not used to rogue-likes at all in my opinion.

I'm by no means an Angband expert - probably played 5 games of Vanilla ever but did dabble quite a lot with ZAngband about 10 years ago. I have personally had much more success with mages than with warriors - there are a lot of monsters in this game that you really don't want to fight in melee and distance spells work well on these. But then I'm into magic casters anyway.

Your Nethack experience will certainly stand you in good stead though - I've progressed much more rapidly with this game than I did as a Nethack noob a long time ago. A lot of the techniques are similar - such as not using unidentified stuff. It is quite different too however - I'm really enjoying my current return to Angband. Currently have a Gnomish mage down at lvl 36 fighting strange major demons - these things seem to be a LOT more dangerous than the major demons in Nethack - which is cool.

I hate anything but basic guides to these type of games though personally - the fun is the learning experience. Though beating the game works too - get more reward if you put in the work though - for me.

Beware the un-Nethack things of Nexus and Nether - I'm still not sure what they are are - but I know you want to avoid monsters that zap you with them - like the plague.

Have fun

[Carnivean]

Originally Posted by Bimbul

Nexus and Nether - I'm still not sure what they are are

You're not alone there. I believe that they are Macguffins.

[Timo Pietilä]

[nether and nexus]

Originally Posted by Carnivean

You're not alone there. I believe that they are Macguffins.

Nether is some force of underworld. "death force". Mainly undeads use it.
Word itself means "under" or "below surface" (Netherlands).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nether

Nexus causes dimension twisting. Causes you to teleport around and in rare occasion twists your body.
Word itself means binding together, so apparently nexus breath meddles with those binds.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nexus

[Bimbul]

Thanks both.

Actually I think I had a more clear idea of what Nexus and Nether meant than MacGuffin

[mushroom patch]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

Angband is quite easy to learn. No hidden tricks like dipping your weapon in a fountain or use blindfold in medusas lair or anything like that. This is more a quake when nethack is leisure suit larry.

Angband doesn't have the technical depth of Quake. I'd say it's more like Bill Lambeer's Combat Basketball.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by mushroom patch

Angband doesn't have the technical depth of Quake. I'd say it's more like Bill Lambeer's Combat Basketball.

Point was that Angband is pretty much shoot 'em up. No tricky puzzles to solve, items have obvious uses, no fundamental complex rules. Just HP vs damage, couple of ailments you might get from odd effects and cures/protections for/against them, detection of critters, movement and dungeon walls creating different obstacles which you can use for your advantage.

Add 3D, real time and 1st person POV and you have quake-variant.