Sil 1.1.1

[half]

It is Tolkien's birthday again and exactly a year since Sil was first released. Today we are announcing a special 'eleventy-one' release. That's right:

Sil 1.1.1 is now available (for Windows / Mac / Linux).

Sil is a fast paced roguelike with an emphasis on elegant tactical combat. It was originally based on Angband, but now has very little in common with its parent game. In the recent Roguelike of the Year poll, it was the fourth most highly rated game that was released in 2012 (after FTL, Torchlight II, and Sword of the Stars: the Pit).

Its main features are:
   - a well designed combat system
   - 8 skill-trees full of interesting tactical abilities
   - no easy escapes, making for more complex and challenging encounters
   - mid-length gameplay (about 5 hours to victory)
   - detailed stealth gameplay if you want it
   - true to the subtle, dark ages flavour of Tolkien, not a generic middle ages fantasy

Here is what some people have been saying about Sil:

oiseauxxx
It's the best variant I've ever played, and is becoming one of my favorite roguelikes. Do not be fooled that this is an Angband variant - the developers have gone to great lengths to make this game intuitive, balanced and non-repetitive, having cut out huge chunks of the original game, reworked user interaction, and consolidated redundant/pointless gameplay elements. The design philosophy is much like Crawl's, where everything has a purpose and nothing is wasted.

Brian Jeffears
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.

Bainespal
YES!! This roguelike looks very impressive ... I never thought I'd see a roguelike that I liked better than Ancient Domains of Mystery, but this may do the trick!

debo
Sil is the best game of any type I've played in years, and I'm thrilled to see it keeps getting better!!

Psi
Overall though, I'd like to say that Sil is a "masterpiece". It is so well thought out and ... has proved to be very well balanced. I love how you've stripped back so much from Angband and yet brought a real depth to character advancement over a much shorter game.

ewan
The game is marvellously bug-free, cleanly designed, and interesting. It's a huge achievement.

smithfield
For me, Sil is a Masterpiece. I am having the kind of fun with Sil that I had when I was 14. There are very very few games that have done that for me.

hessra
Yep, great game. Definitely one of the best Angband variants because it just cuts out all the bloat and crap that *bands (including V) are notorious for and makes it into a more interesting, tougher, tactical game.

Apothegm
Overall, instead of just throwing in more and more mechanics and options like DCSS, they focus on making the core mechanics deep and interesting.

SalmonGod
It's an Angband variant, except it's so heavily modified from Angband that it's barely recognizable.
What's really got me hooked on it is how elegant the design is in absolutely every aspect.  The interface, controls, and all of the game mechanics are really easy to understand and fairly simple, but still offer a statisfying amount of complexity that forces you into interesting choices.  The balance inherent in these mechanics is damn near flawless.


If this sounds interesting, then try it here.

[getter77]

Well done, behold all the Log of Spiffiness for v1.1.1

- abilities
   - Stun has been removed
      - it was the least interesting melee ability and makes way for a new one:
   - Momentum is a new Melee ability
      - it allows you to use your strength to full effect on lighter melee weapons
      - it works by doubling the effective weapon weight for the purposes of capping the str bonus
   - Cruel Blow and Crippling Shot now allow the monster to make a Will check to avoid the effect
      - the difficulty is 4 times your level of critical hit
      - you can now trigger these on a level one critical hit, but have more chance for higher levels
      - it is a lot easier to trigger these against low Will enemies
   - Knock Back now has a different trigger
      - you now roll a skill roll of your strength*2 vs your opponents con*2
         - you get the effective strength modifiers from charge, rapid attack etc
         - you get a +4 bonus for wielding you weapon with two hands
      - Giants, Morgoth etc are now quite a bit harder to knock back, and small things are easy
   - Opportunist now lets you have one last blow as an enemy tries to flee through the stairs
      - very satisfying if you slay them and get their items

- combat system
   - simplified the limits on how many damage sides your strength can add
      - now it is always a limit equal to the weapon weight in pounds
         - so any 4 lb item can have up to 4 bonus damage sides from strength
      - used to be a side per 0.5 lb for thrown weapons and per 1.5 lb for two handed weapons

- display
   - renamed "Long Corslets" to "Hauberks" (a term used occasionally in the works of Tolkien)
   - fixed some minor anachronisms in artefact and monster descriptions
      - including renaming Earendil's bow as he didn't have it at the time of Sil
   - new automatic notes for
      - falling through false floors
      - falling through trapped stairs
      - encountering uniques for the first time
   - {special} item types you know about are now displayed in the object knowledge menu
      - useful for narrowing down the options when you find a new {special} item

- interface
   - allowed 't' to select closest/target when aiming
      - makes throwing a little bit easier as you can leave a finger on the 't' key
      - just as you can with 'f' and firing
      - (note for keypad users: '5' also works)

- dungeon
   - decreased the chance of trapped stairs during the ascent
   - made Glyphs of Warding harder for monsters to break
      - they used to require a successful monster Will check against difficulty 17
      - now against difficulty 20
         - this is very hard
         - the first creature that can break it at all is Delthaur at 700 ft
      - I encourage people to try to exploit these and see if they are too good

- monsters
   - Silent Watchers can no longer keep you permanently knocked out
      - the maximum amount of time they will knock you out for is 5 turns
      - this is how it was always meant to be
      - sorry to those who never regained consciousness!
   - Balrogs now drop an extra item when slain
   - Shadow mold spores were treated as mixed elemental (dark) damage in some parts of the code and pure in others
      - this resulted in some misleading info in the hit rolls window
      - I've moved them to simply do mixed elemental damage
         - i.e. an extra die when you are not-resistant
         - it would have been much harder to make them the only melee pure elemental attack

- songs
   - bonuses from songs can now never be negative
   - the Song of Este now always at least doubles your regeneration

- items
   - changed bow damage from (1d7), (1d9), (2d7) into (1d7), (2d5), (3d3)
      - now very similar to the swords
      - should make extreme archery against Morgoth less powerful
   - made Dragon-horn Longbows twice as common as before
   - staffs of light appear earlier, where they might be a bit more useful
   - staffs of sanctity are a touch more likely to appear deeper in the dungeon
   - lesser jewels appear earlier and no longer break when thrown
   - moved Galvorn Armour from [-1, 2d4] to [-1, 1d8] to be more different to Mithril Corslets

- {special} items
   - spider-slaying weapons now also glow if a web is (very) near

- artefacts
   - added:
      - The Mithril Helm of Ecthelion (for Psi)
      - The Kite Shield of the Swan
      - The Hauberk of Nevrast
      - The Boots of Irime
      - The Mail Corslet of Gundor
   - modified:
      - The Shortbow of Celegorm
      - The Spear of Ogbar
      - The Great Axe of Nogrod
   - made some artefacts about 50% rarer:
      - The Corslet of Fingon
      - The Robe of Idril
      - The Hauberk of Maedhros

- removed tridents
   - they weren't useful and weren't really used in combat in Beleriand

- bug fixes
   - many monsters were having occasional trouble with doors due to a subtle off by one error
   - the Polearm Mastery bonus attack couldn't trigger Knock Back properly
      - this should now be a powerful combination
   - sometimes guaranteed good or great items (particularly greaves) were failing to become {special}
   - feanorian lamps of brightness and lesser jewels of brightness didn't glow enough on the ground
   - wielding a proficient weapon (e.g. axes for dwarves) used to give a bonus to throwing a different weapon

- platform specific
   - linux version
      - changing the fonts or gamma in the silx file should now work properly in X11

[half]

Just to let people know, there is a small bug in the current version to do with Greaves and Shovels sometimes getting a buggy special item type. It isn't a major issue, but if you want to fix it, the versions currently available (as of 7:30pm GMT 4 Jan 2013) have fixed this.

[Scatha]

There was a second minor bug (you didn't always need to be adjacent to get free Opportunist attacks), which has now been fixed in the available files.

Sorry about these. Our fault for pushing out a release for the anniversary without enough testing!