A horrific noob's commentated 'band adventures

[smbhax]

Back to playing the SDL2 front end, now with the Gervais tileset, compiled in MSYS2 with a few modifications. Hengband BGM--a bit loud, urk--via WinAmp.

ALSO looking at more features I found in the last DOS version of Angband, 3.0.6, by Robert Ruehlmann, from 2005 (running in DOSBox)--and his final version of the once-mega-variant Zangband, from 2004. Plus Hengband, with SFX and context-sensitive music!

https://youtu.be/dV8speYAU-g

0:00 - start
0:33 - Angband 2.4.Frog-knows
12:21 - Zangband (Cygwin)
20:35 - Zangband water level
28:54 - Zangband char creation & wilderness
39:05 - Angband 3.0.6 DOS ASCII (-mibm)
48:15 - Angband 3.0.6 DOS GFX
58:11 - Hengband
1:12:05 - Angband (current) L37
1:29:10 - L38
1:57:55 - L39
2:02:46 - death mold
2:06:18 - bumbled right into the death mold ]_[
2:18:20 - Fur Cloak of Gorimar (+3 speed)
2:24:43 - finding the nexus quylthulg!
2:30:16 - that's not a down staircase...
2:32:13 - town
2:38:53 - another L39
2:50:34 - Angband 3.0.6 color editor ("&")
2:58:29 - Angband 3.0.6 Visuals editor ("%")
3:04:11 - 3.0.6 monochrome Rogue style ; )

Forgot my bow gives me immunity to traps!

The music.cfg in Hengband's music directory explains (via Google Translate) what the music files are used for--I was wrong about low/med/high being indications of tempo only and NOT level! :
~~~~
# field1 Wilderness when player level is less than 25
# field2 Wilderness when player level is between 25 and 45
# field3 Wilderness when player level is 45 or higher
# dun_low General dungeon BGM when the dungeon level is less than 40
# dun_med General dungeon BGM when the dungeon level is 40 or more and less than 80
# dun_high Dungeon general-purpose BGM when the dungeon level is 80 or higher
# feel1 When the atmosphere of the dungeon is "bad feeling" to "very dangerous"
# feel2 When the atmosphere of the dungeon is "phantom of death"
~~~~~

In Angband 3.0.6 DOS version, "!" is the DOS graphics and sound menu, "&" is the color editor (just like the latest Angband color edit menu, only w/ 15 colors instead of 28), and % is the character editor; I used the color editor to switch the game to monochrome, like Angband DOS 2.4.Frog-knows (all 170,170,170 DOS gray--aa,aa,aa in hex), and the character editor to change the "@" to the Rogue smiley face. Although, that breaks the @ in the tile graphics mode--which is very low-res and hard to read, but weirdly charming, and has rudimentary SFX--even music support (plays any midi files placed in the lib / xtra / music dir).

With Angband 3.0.6 DOS, the CPU usage was into the teens on my computer, getting me a tad worried. I found changing "cycles" in the DOSBox .conf file from "auto" to "10000" keeps the CPU usage generally below 1%, without impacting performance too much. I wish it ran as low-CPU as the PC Angband versions, though.

~~~~~

There's also a Windows version of Angband 3.0.6, looking much like the DOS graphical version--except w/ more tileset options, including a listing for Gervais.

A readme.txt says the Gervais tileset is a separate download, from Ruehlmann's thangorodrim.net--now down. As noted by Nick in an old thread http://angband.oook.cz/forum/archive...php/t-254.html , it's available from http://angband.oook.cz/download/extr...-32x32-306.zip.

They're hard to view in a legible way while also keeping the game font a reasonable size but the thread has some tips. They're different than current Gervais--the warrior character is even in a different pose!

~~~~~~

Oh hey there's a DOS Zangband (and a Windows one). Quite similar in options to DOS Angband 3.0.6, actually. Graphics mode *really* confusing. : D And the ASCII (-mibm) wilderness doesn't look nearly as nice as the terminal version.

Late Zangband's switch to procedural wilderness removed quests; a revamped quest system was planned but didn't happen.

I say in the video that Zangband forked off Angband after Harrison's code cleanup, but EARLIER versions of Zangband, by original author Topi Ylinen, and initially named Angband--, came from PC Angband 1.31--that's the DOS version (Angband 2.4.Frog-knows is aka PC Angband 1.1). His next version was also DOS: PC Zangband 1.0; and he says some of his character graphics were used in Teague's PC Angband 1.4.; it was his third try that forked from Harrison's Angband 2.8.1.

That's from the Zangband.org version history doc via archive.org. There, Ruehlmann introduces himself, in part, as "the creator of the graphical Angband versions for DOS."

[smbhax]

DOS Angband 3.0.6, DOS Angband 2.8.3, DOS Zangband

https://youtu.be/sPmEzZ3sj9A

0:00 - Hengband music key
1:48 - DOSBox cycles setting
4:51 - DOS Angband 3.0.6
18:20 - system-specific prfs from 2.8.3
32:42 - DOS Angband 2.8.3
47:55 - DOS Zangband
1:22:28 - wrap!

Key thing here is setting "cycles" in the DOSBox config file to "10000"--on my ~3-year-old mid-range gaming laptop, at least, that keeps CPU usage for these old DOSbands in the sub-1% range, whereas on the default "auto" cycles setting, it gets up into the teens, and makes my laptop's fan run nearly incessantly.

At 10000 cycles, Angband 3.0.6 runs at pretty much full speed--oh, except that you can actually see yourself running, instead of just teleporting, which is nice (3.0.6 doesn't have the old "see yourself running" option or whatever it was that more or less did that in some older versions).

DOS Zangband IS a little slow at 10000 cycles, though. ; )

~~~~~

Angband 2.8.3 DOS version is NOT on the official site--but an unzipped version of what appears to be it can be found on then-maintainer Ben Harrison's web site, under http://www.phial.com/angdirs/Old-Tree/angband-283-dos/ ; I downloaded all the files, and they ran!

- does not have bump-to-open on doors
- has an auto-haggle option toggle, but haggling isn't actually supported either way
- has a user.prf with parameters supporting separate, system-specific prf files, including separate DOS (Robert Ruehlmann's graphical mode) and IBM (the old "-mibm" command-line switch DOS ASCII mode) prfs; that's EXACTLY what I wanted for 3.0.6 DOS, where my color and @-character "IBM" edits don't work well in the DOS mode...but the 2.8.3 prf parameters only partially work in 3.0.6: 3.0.6 can use them to load an IBM-specific prf in IBM mode...but it loads the IBM prf in DOS mode, too! Drat.

~~~~~

That Gervais tileset for Angband 3.0.6 was I think specifically for the Windows version (which is available from the official Angband site). It looks much like the DOS graphical version except w/ more tilesets, including a listing for Gervais.

A readme.txt says the Gervais tileset is a separate download, from Ruehlmann's thangorodrim.net--now down. As noted in an old thread http://angband.oook.cz/forum/archive...php/t-254.html by current Angband maintainer Nick, it's available from http://angband.oook.cz/download/extr...-32x32-306.zip.

Looks like the Gervais tileset wasn't included in the initial official Angband distributions that supported it because of a license issue, mentioned in the notes for 3.0.9a, which resolved it: https://rephial.org/release/3.0.9a

In Angband 3.0.6 for Windows, the Gervais tiles are hard to view in a legible way while also keeping the game font a reasonable size but the thread has some tips. They're different than current Gervais--the warrior character is even in a different pose!

~

Zangband, including DOS Zangband 2.7.5 preview 1 I played here, is available from https://sourceforge.net/projects/zangband/

Zangband DOS 2.7.5 has lots of cool options--just about all the ones I would want, including bumping doors open, monochrome toggle, working screen refresh, and color and visual editors, except there's no haggling (buying has none of DOS Angband 2.8.3 and 3.0.6's vestiges of haggling)--but also weird stuff, like missing corners or bopping back and forth in wide halls while running, not telling you about later instances (I think?) of stuff you step on that you'd destroyed earlier (partial Ignore?), likely severe balance issues (green naga I just couldn't beat on level 1 & whatever killed me outside the gate), and the procedural wilderness (can turn that off in birth options, it says).

Zangband's last fork from Angband was Angband 2.8.1.

[smbhax]

I cross-compiled and ran the latest Angband code in Ben Collver's new 2022 Angband DOS front-end. And then I set about seeing if I could simulate the DOS look in the game's modern SDL2 front-end.

NOTE 1: In the SDL2 front-end, if you delete a font file that the game is set to use, for instance a DOS .fon that you'd copied into the game's fonts folder and then assigned as the main game window font, the game will no longer start--unless you restore a copy of that deleted font to the game's font folder. So set the game's font settings to a different font before you delete the file for one you've been using.

The game will not run if you've deleted any of its default font files.

The SDL2 front-end will crash (a fix is coming for the crash) if you have over 32 fonts in the game's font directory.

NOTE 2: DOS-style fonts such as the .fon fonts from the "Ultimate Oldschool" font pack may not have standard accented letters at the usual spots, so a bow of "Lothlórien" for instance may render as "Lothl≤rien." There are a number of ways around this, including:

a) If the Angband front-end you're using supports it--the SDL2 front-end, for instance--you could use a Unicode font with support for both sets of symbols, such as Unifont (and then load a .prf with Unicode assignments for the DOS-style walls and floors)

b) Change the encoding of the files in lib/gamedata containing the affected letters; in current Angband usage these seem to be the letters ë é É í î ó ö ô Ăť ú á â in artifact.txt and monster.txt; for instance, you can replace them with the non-accented versions of the letters; however, attempting to do this while you have a saved game in progress can cause Angband to crash and/or report the save file as corrupt when loading the game, so you will probably have to wait until you are between Angband runs; also, you will probably have to update the encoding in your lore.txt file as well (Angband generates lore.txt in different locations depending on your system; in my MSYS2 version in Windows 11, for instance, it generates at lib/user/lore.txt)

(I'm in mid-game but with some finagling I managed to replace accented characters, I think, for all but the bow of Lothlórien, and for the ten or so creatures with accented names--mostly uniques--I've previously encountered. So mine shouldn't be TOO bad...)

Another tip Angband dev backwardsEric gave me: when using this DOS font stuff, to prevent your visuals from getting reset to the non-DOS stuff if you toggle tiles on and off, if you're using the SDL2 front-end in Windows, you can copy the lib/customize/font-ibm.prf to lib/user/font-sdl2.prf, which will be reloaded automatically every time the SDL2 front-end reinitializes, as after a tile switch.

https://youtu.be/iHT1s18QbmM

0:00 - recap- old DOS Angband 3.0.6
12:50 - building the NEW Angband DOS front-end
27:42 - DOS Angband 4.2.4
44:22 - "Perfect DOS" ttf in Cygwin terminal
52:30 - SDL2 Angband w/ Bm437_Wyse700b-2y.FON
1:05:43 - "Perfect DOS" ttf in SDL2 Angband
1:22:47 - Unifont .otf in SDL2 Angband
1:33:24 - Problems & workarounds

Modern Angband is real chuggy for me in DOSBox.

Cygwin's terminal doesn't take .fon fonts, and the ttf DOS font was a little blurry in it at each size I tried.

Even Times New Roman .ttf has the Unicode checkerboard blocks in it, according to Windows' Character Map utility, but I guess it doesn't work in SDL2 'cause it isn't monospace or something.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Collver's apparently specifically-for-Linux instructions for building the djgpp DOS compiler, cross-compiling Angband with his new DOS front-end, converting the documentation, and packaging up a portable DOS version are at https://angband.readthedocs.io/en/la...dos-with-djgpp

I was trying it in Cygwin; fortunately, djgpp and its instructions at https://github.com/andrewwutw/build-djgpp are designed for Cygwin as well as other systems, so it was possible to pull the whole thing off in Cygwin with a little finagling.

I needed the following additional Cygwin packages:

For building djgpp:
unzip
bison
flex
patch
zlib (maybe didn't need?)
zlib-devel
curl

For converting the Angband docs:
python39-sphinx
python39-sphinxcontrib-applehelp
python39-sphinxcontrib-devhelp
python39-sphinxcontrib-htmlhelp
python39-sphinxcontrib-qthelp
python39-alabaster

For packaging into a zip:
libiconv
zip

What I did (modified from Collver's Linux instructions):

git clone https://github.com/andrewwutw/build-djgpp.git
cd build-djgpp
./build-djgpp.sh 10.3.0

After that hours-long script finished, I navigated to /usr/local/djgpp and did:
source setenv

From my angband/src directory:
make -f Makefile.ibm

For the documentation conversion:
make -f Makefile.ibm dist

~~
Had to make the following three Cygwin-specific adjustments to Makefile.ibm for the angband.zip distribution part:

1) Changed line 104 from

@cd $(TMPDIR)/lib/gamedata ; for i in *.txt ; do iconv -f UTF-8 -t CP437//TRANSLIT $$i -o $$i.new ; mv $$i.new $$i ; done

to

@cd $(TMPDIR)/lib/gamedata ; for i in *.txt ; do iconv -f UTF-8 -t CP437//TRANSLIT $$i ; done

2) Changed line 126 from

@iconv -f UTF-8 -t CP437//TRANSLIT -o $(TMPDIR)/changes.txt ../changes.txt

to

@iconv -f UTF-8 -t CP437//TRANSLIT $(TMPDIR)/changes.txt

and inserted a new line before 126:

@cp ../changes.txt $(TMPDIR)

3) Changed line 128 (previous numbering) from

@cp $(EXE) $(TMPDIR)

to

@cp ../$(EXE) $(TMPDIR)
~~

Then, for the angband.zip distribution:
make -f Makefile.ibm dist

And that created the portable DOS angband.zip. I was able to run it in DOSBox once I got https://www.dosgames.com/files/cwsdpmi.zip and put the cwsdpmi.exe in the game dir (a message informed me I needed cwsdpmi when I tried running angband.exe without it).





(The Rogue-style smiley for the @ is from a .prf parameter:

monster:<player>:0x01:0x01

: D)

While older DOS 'bands had run okay--the later ones with CPU usage in the teens on my 3-yr-old mid-range gaming laptop until I'd limited DOSBox's "cycles" parameter to 10000--DOS Angband 4.2.4, which definitely needed full auto "cycles," had high CPU usage and was distinctly chuggy in execution, even when I tried such things as messing with "frameskip" and so forth.

And like DOS Angband 3.0.6, it still doesn't show avg weapon damage in the equip/inventory window item info window; Collver's notes say he based this DOS front-end on DOS Angband 3.0.6 (3.0.6's -mibm module, not the -g graphics mode, I take it), and I suppose that info window just doesn't have enough room in it or something (avg dam display started w/ 3.1.0beta in 2009, well after 3.0.6, the last DOS version in 2005). That would inhibit my newbish warrior play a bit I think, even if it ran briskly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was able to find the following fonts that could display the DOS symbols for tunnel walls and floors in current Angband, either in the Cygwin GCU front-end or the SDL2 front-end:

TTF font:
https://www.dafont.com/perfect-dos-vga-437.font

FON fonts:
Ultimate Oldschool PC Font Pack from https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/download/

Most of the 200 or so of those .fon fonts (there are other formats in the Oldschool Pack as well but the ttfs for instance don't have the DOS symbols) were a bit too small for comfort on my 1080p display; these were the largest ones, just about the right size to my eyes:

Bm437_Cordata_PPC-21.FON
Bm437_Cordata_PPC-400.FON
Bm437_DOS-V_re_ANK24.FON
Bm437_DOS-V_re_ANK30.FON
Bm437_HP_150_re.FON
Bm437_IBM_PS-55_re.FON
Bm437_Wyse700a-2y.FON
Bm437_Wyse700b-2y.FON (my favorite)

OTF font (Unicode):
http://unifoundry.com/unifont/

For the DOS wall and floor symbols to show up correctly in-game when using the TTF and FON fonts, you have to load these .prf parameters (copied from lib/customize/font-ibm.prf):

feat:open floor:*:1:250
feat:pile of rubble:*:2:178
feat:magma vein:*:2:178
feat:quartz vein:*:9:176
feat:magma vein with treasure:*:3:178
feat:quartz vein with treasure:*:3:176
feat:granite wall:*:1:177
feat:permanent wall:*:1:177
feat:lava:*:4:178

Per backwardsEric from the Angband DOS front-end discussion in https://github.com/angband/angband/i...ent-1354114930 after I bombed it with my typical clumsy blathering, for Unicode fonts with the correct symbols, you instead load

feat:open floor:*:1:0xb7
feat:pile of rubble:*:2:0x2593
feat:magma vein:*:2:0x2593
feat:quartz vein:*:9:0x2591
feat:magma vein with treasure:*:3:0x2593
feat:quartz vein with treasure:*:3:0x2591
feat:granite wall:*:1:0x2592
feat:permanent wall:*:1:0x2592
feat:lava:*:4:0x2593

For Cygwin's GCU front-end, you install the desired TTF font in Windows, then select it from the Cygwin terminal's Options window. Perfect DOS VGA 437.ttf came out very slightly blurry for me in Cygwin's terminal, no matter what font size I set.

For the SDL2 front-end, you don't install the fonts in Windows, you put them in the game's lib/fonts dir--no more than 32 total in there, remember! .fon fonts are a fixed size. The .ttf and .otf fonts I tried both came out sharp at sizes 16--a bit small on my screen--and 32.

[smbhax]

4.2.4.x SDL2, colors edited to mono, Perfect DOS VGA 437.ttf font at size 32, no subwindows, size scaled to 50% in Photoshop, and cropped:



(Uncropped version.)

[smbhax]

Some potentially handy package manager commands I just found for msys2 that I hadn't known:

show dependencies tree: pactree [string]
list dependencies: pacman -Qi [string]
uninstall orphans: pacman -Qtdq | pacman -Rns -
further orphans: pacman -Qqd | pacman -Rsu -
clear downloads cache: paccache -r

The orphaned package thing can supposedly happen from uninstalling packages using "pacman -R" instead of "pacman -Rs"--haven't tried the "Rs" yet.

Merry Msys2mas! ^ _^

[smbhax]

https://youtu.be/oJZwwk65b1o

Is Pac-Man the first roguelike or is Rogue the first Pac-like?

0:00 - start
0:12 - Rogue 3.6.1
1:49 - Arcade Game Series: Pac-Man
5:12 - Epyx Rogue
7:06 - Angband 4.2.4
13:08 - stretch wrap!


13:16 - meant to say "1984" for the commercial release of Rogue, not "1980"

Aw I screwed up my first line when recording this and said "or is Rogue the first Pac-Man" instead of "first Pac-like." Sheesh! Anyway, just a silly idea I had about how these two games, both of which came out in 1980--Pac-Man in Japanese arcades in July, Rogue in probably California university computer labs at some unspecified point in the year--feature a round player character chasing or being chased by undead monsters around a maze laden with a pattern of dots and scattered powerups.

And just to make the relationship more explicit, for the commercial version of Rogue in 1984, now with color graphics, they changed the "@" character symbol to a yellow smiley face "☺"--which obviously is just Pac-Man looking at us head-on, as if to say "Get it?" ^ _^ (Also, by 1984 Pac-Man had made tons of money, and at least one of the creators of Rogue still WANTED to make tons of money.)

So... Is Pac-Man the first roguelike, or is Rogue the first Pac-like? : D

I downloaded Rogue 3.6.1 (said to be the first widely released version, in 1981), DOS version, from The Rogue Archive: https://britzl.github.io/roguearchive/

[smbhax]

https://youtu.be/XTX0b6oTqL8

Trying to remember how to play after 7 weeks away. Didn't die though! :=D

Hengband (https://hengband.github.io) BGM via WinAmp. (And I forgot how WinAmp works. = P)

0:00 - floor 39
2:30 - round chamber of potions
4:51 - Uldor the Accursed
19:25 - master lich
34:43 - floor 40
35:53 - beholder
39:55 - Quaker, Master of Earth
51:40 - oh uh set WinAmp on "repeat" :P
59:11 - ranger chieftain
1:08:15 - town
1:16:19 - Potion of Augmentation ;_;
1:19:47 - wrap! = o

Hm. The Potion of Augmentation, which raises all five stats (!!!!!), costs $50K to buy back from the shop. I have $37.4. MAYBE if I hurry I can make the difference in the dungeon and get back while the potion is still in the shop! = oo

[smbhax]

Gotta make money to buy a Potion of Augmentation back from the shop!

https://youtu.be/gDgZJ6UfFY4

0:00 - town, Potion of Augmentation
1:10 - floor 41
2:44 - 7-headed hydra
17:41 - floor 42
23:56 - Bill the Stone Troll (w/ Bert & Tom)
27:14 - 50K!
28:40 - Potion of Augmentation
30:54 - Scroll of Banishment
33:07 - wrap!

[smbhax]

https://youtu.be/47MdiUDn-eg

0:00 - start
1:48 - floor 42
29:04 - Staff of Earthquakes
33:40 - Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir
39:08 - mysterious sounds
44:35 - floor 43
53:29 - ancient multi-hued dragon
58:11 - pack-rat paladin explosion
1:03:43 - Al-Pharazon the Golden
1:09:10 - Maia of Aule
1:10:25 - rIP!

Should have ditched when the Al-Pharazon the Golden (lv55) found me again (almost had them earlier! then they teleported me away ; ) while I was already engaged with the Maia of Aule (lv60); somehow thought the MoA wouldn't do as much damage in shardstorm form, like as a lesser creature or something. That would be incorrect! ^D ^

Sooo yeah haven't had the regularity or focus this game needs, got what was coming to me! Had already killed an AMHD without mostly realizing what I was fighting! = P ^ _^ Ow. Pretty fun though! Might've let myself get lulled by that really lame floor right before the really deadly one.

Probably having the purple color for Uniques would help a little but ahhh.

Funny how that paladin had been collecting all the loot, then just exploded in loot piles when I hit him. ^ _^

Well, with that save file no longer needed I can finally complete removing the accented characters (my DOS font can't display them correctly) from monsters.txt and lore.txt. ^ _^ And switch to a race that has infravision!