Sil (now at v1.1)

[getter77]

http://www.amirrorclear.net/flowers/game/sil/

Win/Mac/Source with hopeful Linux version down the line with some aid sought

A game of adventure set
    in the first age of Middle-earth,
        when the world still rang with elven song
            and gleamed with dwarven mail.

Walk the dark halls of Angband.
    Slay creatures black and fell.
        Wrest a shining Silmaril from Morgoth’s iron crown.

Sil is a computer role-playing game with a strong emphasis on discovery and tactical combat. It has a simple but rich combat system which allows for a great variety of choice: should you wear heavy armour that makes you easier to hit but reduces the damage you take? should you wield heavier weapons to overcome your opponents’ armour, or wield lighter weapons for more accuracy and a greater chance of critical hits? It depends on the situation and the type of character you become. You will also have the chance to retreat back into shadowy corridors to take the enemy one by one, or to stealthily creep up to your opponent and take him unawares.

It is also one of very few games that stays true to the writings of Tolkien. Carefully researched, it dispenses with many generic fantasy tropes and reveals a different world. There are no wizards or priests, no platemail or magical scrolls. Instead, it is the Norse Saga inspired world that Tolkien imagined, with warriors clad in shining mail, singing songs of rage or sorrow as they slay. The magic of the world is subtle yet powerful: there are songs of fear and of binding, rather than spells of fireball and teleportation.

Sil comes from a tradition of role-playing games known as roguelikes. They stem from a game called Rogue that was written before computers had graphics and instead used symbols on the screen to represent a dungeon filled with monsters and treasure, that was randomly generated each time you played. Rogue also had ‘permanent death’: you have only one life and must choose wisely lest you have to start again. Finally, it had a system of unidentified items whose powers you must discover for yourself. Sil inherits all of these features, though it is much more advanced in many ways.

Who will like Sil?

You will like Sil if you want to play a detailed and well balanced role-playing game with a rich and intuitive system of tactical combat. You will also like it if you are interested in the works of Tolkien, or even just want a less generic role-playing game. The greatest obstacle to enjoying Sil will be its lack of graphics, but if you can overcome an initial reaction and begin to explore the world, your imagination should fill in the details more effectively than a small clump of pixels would.


In honour of what would be Tolkien's 120th birthday*, I'd like to announce Sil: a new roguelike set in the First Age of Middle-earth.

Sil is a descendent of Angband, but makes many changes. Indeed almost every mechanic has been significantly altered. These changes have had several directions: to make the game much more true to the world Tolkien imagined, to increase the tactical depth in combat, to reduce the length of the game.

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=5216  Where things are already started to get sorted out and plans of attack made in the Merry Land of Rephial

Essentially, we've got a new project that could've been a proper new Angband fork---before it went waaay past Angband and such and became another thing with some blood ties.  It has apparently been in the works for some years now, so it should be interesting to see how it shapes up from here with public feedback and whatnot.

[jim]

I fuggin' hate Angband, but I am playing this anyway because, c'mon, Silmarillion!

And so far, I really like it. I hate stair-scumming, and Sil does nothing to prevent that, but the interface is clean and the setting feels solid. The mechanics are straightforward without being simplistic. It's the sort of game that corremn could get behind, methinks.

This could turn out to be a sweet roguelike.

[getter77]

I personally hope most Roguelikes steal the gist of the EXP system outright, not the exact bits but to where you get exp for descending, first encounter with a creature, ID'ing things, etc alongside the usual combat instead of JUST combat victory---the manual really makes it seem like a proper Stealth character could be doable for a change.

[Holsety]

Not a fan of the *bands, but this is a pretty nice bandlike.
Even if it starts you off with nothing. That's pretty brutal. Feanor-brutal.

The experience+ability system's neat, but I feel like character generation is needlessly complicated.

Pick a gender, confirm your weight and height, is this background okay?
Too many steps during character creation for things that have absolutely no bearing on the actual game.
I also secretly prefer point rolling to point buy in the bandlikes.

[jim]

Dude, I just got outflanked by orcish soldiers. Three spread out around me and blocked off my escape route. This game has polish.

[Scatha]

I hate stair-scumming, and Sil does nothing to prevent that

Hi there. I'm glad you're enjoying the game. I just registered to correct this statement. Since we'd generally like optimal gameplay to be fun, we were somewhat concerned about stair-scumming (although we're happy to have the stairs as an escape), and we put in some mild measures against this:

Using the stairs increments the turn count by 100, and also uses 100 turns' worth of food. Thus it counts against you in terms of two clocks: the food clock, and the forced descent of Morgoth's power calling you down, which pushes you down to a deeper level when you've taken too many turns. It doesn't use any turns of your light source because we didn't want to encourage players to unequip their light source before taking the stairs. We hope that this is enough of a discouragement to stair-scumming, but these measures could always be increased if it turns out that's needed.

Anyhow, I realise that this wasn't in the manual, so there wasn't any way you would have realised (except perhaps trying to abuse the stairs ridiculously yourself), but I thought I'd let you know.

Have fun with the orc soldiers! They get bigger bonuses to hit you if they're spread out and attacking you from all sides rather than lined up on side, so they will normally try to do this if you give them the chance.

[jim]

Yup, my bad. I hadn't noticed the measures you had taken (mostly just the inevitable downward journey) until just a few minutes ago.

Great game so far! Quite brutal and arbitrarily cruel... which is to say, a true roguelike!

[guest509]

  I just tend to keep hitting enter through character creation. Probably I'm missing something.

[Xecutor]

Mac version is not working for me
It's just not starting. It blinks for a split second in Dock and ... nothing.
It's not crashing, just not starting without any diagnostics.

Intel Mac Mini with OS X Lion 10.7.2

[getter77]

1.0.2

- linux version
   - X11, GCU & CAP should work now
      - GCU & CAP are fairly unplayable though (mainly due to lack of decent colours)
   - fixed Makefile.std
   - removed a crash straight after launching due to a default filename being set
   - fixed colours for X11 (no more green dungeon walls!)

- races/houses
   - adjusted the dwarven race/houses slightly
   - added a new Sindar house
   - now all houses add a similar level of bonus to the race
      - 1 stat point, and 1 affinity

- items
   - made Mattocks a bit less damaging (5d2 from 6d2)
      - but left the artefact mattock as is!
   - changed Shovels from 3d1 to 2d2
   - daggers of accompaniment
      - no longer go into your off-hand before being identified
      - can no longer be switched out leaving two weapons without the ability
   - handles artefact lanterns better
   - made some artefacts a bit less common:
      - knife of Nargil
      - Orcrist
      - Axe of Hurin
   - wrath now stacks
   - danger now stacks
   - danger now affects you even from your inventory
      - this is odd, but otherwise it is so clearly best to remove the item
        for one turn when descending the stairs

- status effects
   - fear
      - trying to attack while afraid no longer costs you a turn
      - throwing items now also fails when afraid
   - stunning
      - now capped at 105 for all causes
      - so at most 5 turns knocked out before you can act again
      - fixed bug where knock out / entrancement wasn't setting evasion to [-5]

- monsters
   - made uniques who were famous only in later ages less common
   - made crebain much less damaging 1d5 -> 1d3
   - changed the Will levels of many monsters, spreading them out more
   - Morgoth is now immune to Elbereth
   - 'auras' of Ancient Serpents
      - now damage monsters as well as you
      - now explained better in monster recall

- smithing
   - difficulty of forging things in the 'minor slots' is increased by 20%
      - rings, light, cloak, gloves, boots, arrows
      - the 'major slots' are:
         - weapon, bow, amulet, body armour, shield, helmet
   - difficulty is no longer reduced for two handed weapons
   - the time taken is now proportional to the difficulty
   - the bonus from Song of Aule is reduced from Song/3 to Song/5
   - fixed bug where display of experience wasn't changed when it was used up
   - changed light source radius to not depend on the special value (pval)
      - now can make Feanorian Lamp of Grace <+1> without reducing its radius

- interface
   - changed key for options in creation menu from (=) to (O) to match normal play

- display
   - added a 'previous round' of rolls to the combat rolls window
   - fixed the bug with deleting the hunger display on minimum height terminal windows
   - added the . for empty floors on the mini screenshot when you die

- notes
   - stopped saying you have 'found' the further versions of the iron crown
   - 'subdued' deathblades instead of 'destroyed'

- endgame
   - monsters now get a +5 bonus to perception during the escape as they are vigilant
   - Morgoth will no longer leave the Throne Room
   - The monsters coming through the stairs during the pursuit are now always powerful ones
   - There are now many more monsters in the pursuit when carrying 2 or 3 Silmarils
   - minor changes to the method for knocking off the crown
      - (now takes two, slightly smaller hits)
   - fixed bug where you used to get the curse message even when failing to get the silmaril

- dungeon
   - fixed a bug where an up-shaft was incorrectly created for you when stairs crumbled
   - rubble can now be cleared by staffs of freedom and song of freedom

- abilities
   - Lore-master now correctly displays monster Will and Perception in the monster memory
   - the bonus from Song of Slaying now decays more slowly
      - it now decays at the old speed when not being sung
      - and half that speed when being sung
   - Song of Elbereth now costs 1 point of voice per round
   - monsters that are resistant to criticals are now immune to Cruel Blow

- skills
   - easier to spot dungeon traps
      - -5 difficulty compared with version 1.0.1

- misc
   - interacting with your own square when there is nothing there no longer takes a turn

Very nice assortment of gains here!   

[guest509]

  Nice. I'm really digging this game. Get it? Ha! "Digging" Muahahaha!!!

-Jo

[half]

I tried to debug sil.
gdb reports that there are two mains!
(gdb) b main
Breakpoint 2 at 0x938e5813
Breakpoint 3 at 0xd2092
warning: Multiple breakpoints were set.
And the one that entry point points to exits immediately after being called.

Xecutor, have you had any more luck trying to debug this? The bug only seems to affect a small subset of Mac users, not including any machines I have access to, so it is very hard for me to find the bug. I'd love to be able to fix it though, to let everyone play. The source code is downloadable from the website if that is helpful.

[kraflab]

Just a note to the developer:

In the tutorial it says to use 'u' and then a letter (i.e. 'a') to equip an item.  But in actuality you have to press 'i'->'u'->'a', otherwise it will just tell you that you have no staffs to use.  Now I realize that you inferred that from a previous note, but someone who hasn't played a lot of roguelikes or who has played ones with simpler key commands might not realize that.  It's not really a big deal, but those are the little types of things that cause some people to quit the game before it even gets started and I wanted you to be aware.  You don't want potential players to sit there wondering why the tutorial is wrong about what key does what.

The other main thing that caught my attention was an los bug:

###&#
  @
###&#

Where # is a wall that is visible, and for some reason & is a wall that is not visible.  It doesn't really make sense that there is a visual gap there, and I imagine it would have a gameplay impact if there was an enemy on that tile instead of a wall.  I had the same issue with my first los algorithm, but it's not that difficult to fix.

Otherwise though I thought the game was pretty solid, and the tutorial did a pretty nice job.

[Scatha]

In the tutorial it says to use 'u' and then a letter (i.e. 'a') to equip an item.  But in actuality you have to press 'i'->'u'->'a', otherwise it will just tell you that you have no staffs to use.  Now I realize that you inferred that from a previous note, but someone who hasn't played a lot of roguelikes or who has played ones with simpler key commands might not realize that.  It's not really a big deal, but those are the little types of things that cause some people to quit the game before it even gets started and I wanted you to be aware.  You don't want potential players to sit there wondering why the tutorial is wrong about what key does what.

This would be well worth correcting, but I think you only get this behaviour if you've dived into the options and switched on Angband-like commands. The notes correctly describe the actions you need to take with the default keyset.

The other main thing that caught my attention was an los bug:

###&#
  @
###&#

Where # is a wall that is visible, and for some reason & is a wall that is not visible.  It doesn't really make sense that there is a visual gap there, and I imagine it would have a gameplay impact if there was an enemy on that tile instead of a wall.  I had the same issue with my first los algorithm, but it's not that difficult to fix.

I would guess what's created this effect is probably not a line of sight issue, but that your light radius is one. The wall squares marked & are dark, so not visible. The far ones are lit by some other source (probably the doorway to a lit room, but could be some kind of light-creating item or monster). But of course if you can verify a bug of that nature it would be important to know about -- I certainly don't normally see this behaviour.

[kraflab]

In the tutorial it says to use 'u' and then a letter (i.e. 'a') to equip an item.  But in actuality you have to press 'i'->'u'->'a', otherwise it will just tell you that you have no staffs to use.  Now I realize that you inferred that from a previous note, but someone who hasn't played a lot of roguelikes or who has played ones with simpler key commands might not realize that.  It's not really a big deal, but those are the little types of things that cause some people to quit the game before it even gets started and I wanted you to be aware.  You don't want potential players to sit there wondering why the tutorial is wrong about what key does what.

This would be well worth correcting, but I think you only get this behaviour if you've dived into the options and switched on Angband-like commands. The notes correctly describe the actions you need to take with the default keyset.

The other main thing that caught my attention was an los bug:

###&#
  @
###&#

Where # is a wall that is visible, and for some reason & is a wall that is not visible.  It doesn't really make sense that there is a visual gap there, and I imagine it would have a gameplay impact if there was an enemy on that tile instead of a wall.  I had the same issue with my first los algorithm, but it's not that difficult to fix.

I would guess what's created this effect is probably not a line of sight issue, but that your light radius is one. The wall squares marked & are dark, so not visible. The far ones are lit by some other source (probably the doorway to a lit room, but could be some kind of light-creating item or monster). But of course if you can verify a bug of that nature it would be important to know about -- I certainly don't normally see this behaviour.

You are quite right about the lighting, I didn't realize it worked like that.  I also downloaded a fresh copy and u->a worked again.  The funny thing is that I have no idea how I messed it up in the first place.  I don't think I messed around with anything...  Oh well, carry on.