I want to like Crawl from hearing how much people around here like it, but I just don't seem to be able to for some reason. The character customization is nice and all that, but for some reason I just don't find the game itself very exciting. It feels to me like I'm in a bland dungeon with bland enemies, with no real goal to care about. I don't know why I feel this way, but for some reason the game just does not make me interested in exploring it.
The gameplay also seems to revolve too much around food for my taste. I understand and respect the reasons why they did it, but I always feel like all my going around and killing off monsters and such is all just a means to the ends of getting food to keep going for longer, instead of what it should be, where food is a means towards the end of finding the Orb of Zot.
Am I coming at this game from the wrong angle? Is it just not for me?
Well I think what adds excitement for sure is when you start discovering the static dungeons, like "Orc Mines" "The Pit" etc. Also, until you learn how corpse-eating works, food might be a pain in the ass. (Getting sick, poisoned etc.) I only play Crawl Stone Soup, and atleast here, corpses that are poisonous are green, corpses that might make you sick (but I find, usually don't) are brown, and white corpses are a good source for food. Just keep butchering the safe corpses, and you should be able to die with several meat-rations and lots of bread
I can reccomend Deep Dwarf berserkers as a starting class. (They are tough, they don't regen HP naturally, but you start off with a rod of healing and an ability to recharge magic staves) So this class is GREAT at bashing, and can actually cast really well too with a collection of magic staves.
My best char ever came not so long after I started playing, with a Minotaur berserker.
I've also had quite some success with Centaur Hunter (archery, great speed) and Elf Wizard (Just remember to always keep some pets summoned if you go that path)
Good luck!
(I'm no expert btw, just a noob that have found -some- basic ways of surviving the early game's hardship)
