Hydra Slayer (now at 16.1), NotEye (now at 8.1)

[Z]

More playtesting has revealed some bugs with Ambidexterity (heads were not regrown or were regrown stunned, was not cancelled after using Reforging) and with stun animation (wrong placement on special topologies, interference with the tile version). This has been fixed in version 7.1. Also the log file now includes the whole history of weapons you have been using.

[JLC]

Sorry, I'm not sure I understood what you asked me for.

Change hydra.sav to hydraslayer.sav and and place it in /usr/share/hydraslayer/ instead of /home/jlc/.config/hydraslayer?

[Z]

First, change hydrascore.sav (which is the file containing the scoreboard) to hydrascores.sav. This is because the format of this file has changed. (The savefile hydra.sav should not need any changes.)

Second, I think placing it in /usr/share/hydraslayer/ instead of /home/jlc/.config/hydraslayer would be a good idea. The purpose of this is to have a shared scoreboard for all users on a given system. (The savefile hydra.sav is for a single player, so should be in the home directory.)

[JLC]

ty

[Z]

Somehow I get no feedback about major modifications in new versions (scoreboard in 6.0 and the second part of the game in 7.0), I wonder whether it is hard and everybody tries to win before submitting, or it got boring somehow... Anyway, version 7.2 is out. Version 7.2 introduces a new special type of hydra and 5 new special weapons, which can be randomly found (or not) during the second part of the game, and some of them are quite interesting. Also some bugfixes:

• fixed potion of knowledge not working correctly on vampires hydras (it did only for blade attacks)
• fixed potion of knowledge not always working correctly with Eradicator
• minor fixes with messages and names
• no longer marks other games as the current game in the Hall of Game
• no longer hangs while generating a level on Windows (Windows MINGW uses a bad RNG...)

I have won without using Potions of Life, and without using some of special weapons (some of them did not appear correctly due to a bug), so it is winnable.

[RaustBD]

how do you compile the game for mac?

[Z]

I have no access to a Mac, so I suppose I cannot help you, sorry. But Xecutor did not say he had to do anything special (unless the old version compiled fine and there are problems with the new one). I know that you should have "make", C++ and libcurses (dev version) installed, and then running "make" in the directory containing the extracted files should compile it.

[Z]

Version 8.0 is out!

As a try to increase the replayability, there are now four races to choose from: Humans (as in original Hydra Slayer), Elf (Power Swipe for free), Naga (focus on ambidexterity), Troll (cannot carry items as other races can, but can carry weapons and shields).

The new races seem to have less rich gameplay than Humans, but they require very different tactics, so they should be interesting. I have won with a Naga and almost won with a Troll (probably would have won without errors and with better luck), so I think they are balanced (Elves are not as interesting).

[JLC]

I am sorry I have not been much help giving feedback.

Great to see you keep adding stuff to the game. Thank you very much.

[Ancient]

Woot! By adding races you have successfully multiplied content of the game. Congratulations and thank you. I will make sure to drop a log here when more free time becomes available.

[cephalopoid]

Code: [Select]

Hydra Slayer v8.0 character log for Human Cephalopoid (cephalopoid)
You are dead...

Items found and used:
  Rune of Stunning (0/3)
  Rune of Decapitation (0/4)
  Rune of Cancellation (0/5)
  Rune of Growth (0/4)
  Rune of Conflict (0/4)
  Rune of Fungification (0/2)
  Scroll of Transmutation (0/3)
  Scroll of the Big Stick (2/7)
  Scroll of Reforging (0/2)
  Potion of Power Swipe (0/2)
  Potion of Extreme Speed (0/2)
  Potion of Knowledge (1/1)
  Potion of Power Juice (2/2)
  Potion of Mushroom Spores (0/2)

Items used on the last level:
  Scroll of the Big Stick (1)
  Potion of Knowledge (1)

Various stats:
  217 total wounds (-2 of 69 HP left)
  1528 total turns (hydra movements)
  2151 total seconds of real time
  4 levels solved

Various head stats:
  29 heads regrown by vampire hydras while attacking
  10 total heads awakened after stunning
  3 total beasts awakened after stunning (part or total)

Records:
  5 max hydra one-shotted

Attack types used:
  normal blade: max 8, 162 uses, 353 enemy heads, 45 kills, 59 mushroom heads, 48 destroyed, 100 heads regrown, 8 stunned heads cut
  blunt weapon: max 1, 6 uses, 6 enemy heads
  divisor: max 2, 1 uses, 3 enemy heads, 5 heads regrown
  shield: max 2, 6 uses, 12 enemy heads
    59 total damage prevented by having a shield of big size
    4 total damage prevented by having a shield of matching color

Weapons at the end:
  poison dagger (-1, from Level 2)
    65 uses, 14 enemy heads, 8 kills, 51 mushroom heads, 41 destroyed, 5 heads regrown
  Storm Bisector (/2, from Level 5)
    1 uses, 3 enemy heads, 5 heads regrown
  ice buckler (P2, from Level 5)
    2 uses, 4 enemy heads
  acid double sword (-8, acid scythe from Level 5)
    7 uses, 55 enemy heads, 21 heads regrown

On the ground:
  acid buckler (P2, from Level 3)
    4 uses, 8 enemy heads
  storm shortsword (-4, from Level 4)
    5 uses, 20 enemy heads, 1 kills, 8 heads regrown
  frozen longsword (-5, frozen shortsword from Level 2)
    33 uses, 164 enemy heads, 11 kills, 44 heads regrown, 2 stunned heads cut
  poison dagger (-1, from Level 5)

Weapon history:
  (L1) emerald staff (S1, from Level 1)
    6 uses, 6 enemy heads
  (L2) chaos shortsword (-4, from Level 2)
    4 uses, 16 enemy heads, 4 kills
  (L2) chaos dagger (-1, brought from home)
    14 uses, 8 enemy heads, 4 kills, 6 mushroom heads, 6 destroyed, 6 stunned heads cut
  (L3) bone sabre (-3, from Level 1)
    7 uses, 21 enemy heads, 2 kills, 7 heads regrown
  (L3) bone machette (-2, brought from home)
    16 uses, 30 enemy heads, 11 kills, 2 mushroom heads, 1 destroyed, 5 heads regrown
  (L3) bone longsword (-5, from Level 3)
    1 uses, 5 enemy heads
  (L4) flaming machette (-2, from Level 3)
    10 uses, 20 enemy heads, 4 kills, 10 heads regrown

Last messages:
  The 5-headed swamp hydra attacks you! 5 hd = 2*2 + 1 => 3 => 3 wnd
  The 8-headed vampire hydra attacks you! 8 hd = 4*2 => 4 => 3 wnd
  Switched to (4) acid double sword.
  Switched to (2) Storm Bisector.
  Switched to (1) poison dagger.
  You attack the 5-headed swamp hydra! 5 - 1 + 2 = 6
  The 6-headed swamp hydra attacks you! 6 hd = 3*2 => 3 => 3 wnd
  You attack the 6-headed swamp hydra! 6 - 1 + 2 = 7
  The 7-headed swamp hydra attacks you! 7 hd = 3*2 + 1 => 4 => 3 wnd
  You are dead and cannot move!
After having played nethack for a few months a year ago, not dying of starvation is a welcome change for me, an RL newb.
I still can't really manage fighting those pesky vampire hydras, though. I didn't try the stunning/decapitation trick, as it was suggested to be deprecated in version 7.2, so I tried without, when this swamp hydra ruined everything.

[Z]

Thanks for playing and a log

Using rune of stunning, decapitation, or fungification on Vampire Hydras generates a warning message and adds a line about "unhonorable attacks" to your log file, there are no other adverse effects - so you can fight them honorably if you want a challenge, or use these runes if not. I suppose you should have been able to kill that Vampire Hydra using Cancellation + Speed (+maybe Growth), and that would not count as unhonorable.

[Z]

.

[cephalopoid]

Thanks for playing and a log

Using rune of stunning, decapitation, or fungification on Vampire Hydras generates a warning message and adds a line about "unhonorable attacks" to your log file, there are no other adverse effects - so you can fight them honorably if you want a challenge, or use these runes if not. I suppose you should have been able to kill that Vampire Hydra using Cancellation + Speed (+maybe Growth), and that would not count as unhonorable.

Heh, I figured that if Stunning+Decapitation was unhonorable, using any runes on them, like cancellation, would be as well. "You suppose it does not work on very powerful Hydras, as usual." from the info on the rune of fungification made me doubt about using this one on vampires as well.
I'm playing another round right now.

PS: I smiled at the message I got when I bisected a mushroom.
I'm in a situation now facing a 14-headed golden hydra, armed with a golden bisector, a silver scythe, a chaos dagger and a fire buckler. The scythe gets cancelled out ( -7 + 7 = 0), the bisector gets x2 (and I wonder what that would mean in this case, whether the hydra results in having 14 or 21 heads), but the dagger has +0. Should I rune-cancel him, or can I take the damage for 6 turns and finish him with the scythe?
This has been a lucky character, I wouldn't want to lose him just yet.

[Z]

This is somewhat arbitrary, but runes of cancellation are OK, as vampire hydras remain very powerful after using runes of cancellation (while stun+decapitation combo kills them). Yet, they are not strong enough to forbid using runes of fungification. (BTW, for special enemies, you should be able to see their resistances against runes etc. by pressing 'f' while seeing them.)

x2 means that the hydra regrows 2 heads for each head cut, so in this case the result would be 21 heads. This could be a good occassion for using runes or scrolls, but it probably depends on what you have...