Iso-Funband - My try at Angband variant making

[Etinarg]

Iso-Funband is my try to create a variant which is more forgiving and suitable for new players. I hope that eventually I can adjust the whole set of levels, but I started with the early levels, these are the most important for the beginners anyways. In the long run, I want to adjust the late game, so that monsters which are usually just avoided, or levels which are skipped, become a more interesting part of the game - or be left away altogether, if they can't be integrated better. At the moment, below level 15, it's just Angband 2.9.3 with a bit higher monster density (so rather harder than easier I guess ...)

Also, it features the latest incarnation of my isometric display frontend, and I have tried to tailor the Angband core a bit to work better with it. (Screens are not quite up to date, but very close to the release).

Click for full size.


Click for full size.


Click for full size.

Iso-Funband Changes

- Less OOD monsters on early levels.
- Room shapes slightly adjusted to work better with the iso view.
- Third page for shops and home.
- Moved all early artifacts but phial up one level.
- Moved level 10 artifacts to level 8 and level 15 to level 14.
- Entering home will restore max HP.
- Added "of vita" ego armor with +1 CON .
- Raised default no. of monsters per level from 14 to 20.
- Lowered HP of some of the early monsters.
- Mushroom patches now have a 30% chance to drop edible mushrooms.
- Hobbits now also have a 30% chance to drop mushrooms.
- Since edible mushrooms had to be level 1 to be dropped from level one monster mushrooms, they were dropped frequently by monsters on the early levels as well.
-> Made them more rare (rarity 5)
-> Moved up some level 3 items to level 1, to have more drop options on level 1
-> Added hard biscuits as possible level 1 drop. I see no reason why some of the monsters wouldn't have such.
-> Items had a base chance of level+10% before to become good, now they have level+15% - this evens out at higher levels, and is generally capped at 75%.
- Added ego lights,
-> of Brightness, +1 light rad
-> of Sight, see invisible
-> of Bright Sight, +1 light rad, see invisible, up to +5 to hit.
- Light sources have 10% chance to become ego lights.
- Code for 9 part walls reactivated.
- Lightable features, doors, stairs.


Download

For Windows users, there is a precompiled executable included. Also two starting batch files, "start_small.bat" and "start_large.bat" which choose a smaller or larger font, and therefore start with a smaller or larger window.

==> http://funkelwerk.de/data/iso-angband/releases/iso-funband-0_5_0.zip <==

Sources and images are included as well. I think it should compile for Linux, too, but I had no chance to test that yet (See http://www.funkelwerk.de/forum/index.php?topic=380.0 for help with compiling).

[Etinarg]

Since we have been discussing "advertising games" in the "Roguelike World" board, I want to try what I have learned from there for this project of mine.

Traditional Angband as a game seems rather unfair to new players. Not only has a new player to learn the UI, but they also have no idea of the dangers which await them in the dungeon.

Iso-Funband tries to mend this. While I didn't do anything about the learning problem yet, I have tried to make the early game easier and more forgiving to new players.

If you run into some baddie in town and get wounded, you can retreat to your home and get healed.

Monsters can't be so far OOD anymore on the early dungeon levels, so the chance for a nasty surprise for new characters is much lower. Also the monster density has risen a bit, so there are more low level monsters for training and leveling available.

To spice things up, the chance to find an early artifact or ego item has been risen. I hope this will give new players a bit of an motivation boost. I still think there are too few good finds on the early levels, but I have tried to improve it already.

Mushroom patches now leave edible mushrooms 1 in 3, and these mushrooms provide a sources for curing confusion, fear and poison, so player gets access to these more easily and early.

Last but not least, there are now improved torches and lanterns available, which can help if someone is unlucky not to find one of the artifact light. But I must admit these ego lights are still quite rare in the early levels.

Besides these gameplay changes, which were made to make the early game easier and more interesting, there were also presentation changes. The display features a nice isometric view of the world, even with light effects for torch and lantern lit areas. For me, the light effect help to improve the games atmosphere, feels much more dungeonlike now than the traditional tile display. But this is a matter of taste, definitely - I just hope that some people will like the display, too.

On the downside, the Angband core is quite old now, so people who want the latest Angband features will have to wait till I have upgraded the base code, but then, this variant already has a few options that vanilla Angband does not have, even in 3.1.2v2 - and if people give me feedback for further improvements I'll gladly consider good ideas for being included.

I think this variant can offer some things to new players that the other Angband variants do not. The later game is mostly the same as vanilla Angband, so even experienced players should benefit from the more interesting start, and have their know environment later in the game.

[Krice]

I think it could be nice to have an option to save the character creation info and then use in later creation as a shortcut. That way you could skip char creation procedure and start fast with your favourite character type.

[Etinarg]

The Angband birth and UI code is largely unknown to me so far. I'll see if I can work my way into it and implement such a feature. I'd hope though that the other changes that I made reduce the need for starting over too often.

[ido]

Looks nice, but why use such an old version of angband as your basis?

[Etinarg]

I had that laying around from a former try with an isometric view. Unfortunately updating further than to 2.9.3 turned out difficult, but I keep looking for options.

[Etinarg]

Unfortunately updating further than to 2.9.3 turned out difficult, but I keep looking for options.

I'm integrating my code with Unangband 0.6.4a currently. That is quite a bit newer, but also will mean that the development of Iso-Funband has stopped.