Update 1!Queue:
Argem Bargem the Mummy Necromancer___ the Octopode Chaos Knight
___ the Felid Wanderer
This is the main menu for Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. There are a few options here, like the minigames Dungeon Sprint and Zot Defense or the tutorial and hints mode for beginners. There's also the Arena, which you can use to make monsters fight each other, if you've ever wondered about that. However, we're just going to play regular Dungeon Crawl, and I've already typed up the name of our adventurer, Argem Bargem.
I'm then prompted for species and background. (Obviously, this interface introduction is a one-time thing, so just skip over it if you already have played Crawl/if you think it's boring.)
And here, the great mummy necromancer Argem Bargem enters the Dungeon. All will shiver before him, fall before his dark magic, and rise up from the dead as his servants. Or, you know, brutally destroy him and use his mummified body as firewood. Whatever works to entertain you guys.
Anyways, we're in what's called an entrance vault, which is a specially designed area in where we enter (duh) the Dungeon. Here we see some stone walls, stairs leading out of the Dungeon, and some stones on the ground. Not much of interest, but I'll take the stones in case we run out of mana.
Also, at the bottom right hand corner, you can see some icons. There you can see my inventory and some icons, I can toggle them around to display other stuff. I've never been a big fan of that, however. There's also the mini-map, which is handy for simple navigation.
This is the stat screen for Dungeon Crawl. It displays important things like like resistances, (ins/ex)trinics, and equipment. Right now, the only thing that's very interesting is our resistances. Mummies (and other undead characters) begin the game with rC+ (that's the abbreviation for Resist Cold 1), rN+++ (Resist Negative Energy 3), and rPois (Resist Poison). Mummies, however, are also saddled with rF- (the meaning of which should be fairly obvious by now, a weakness to fire). While this seems awesome at first (and it is, as rN+++ will render us totally immune to draining, and rC+ is OK), rF- really, really sucks. Why? The late-game monster, the orb of fire, renders rF essential. However, I doubt we'll even be getting close to that, so let's not worry too much. rPois is helpful enough, protecting us fairly well against the early-game killer the snake, but it's far from necessary. Finally, rRot will protect us from rot (temporary removal of max HP), which is good, since rot is Very Bad for mummies (I'll explain later).
This is just the mutation screen for Crawl. Mutations are certain game-changing alterations to your character, and they can be good or bad. Some races begin with unremovable and unchangeable mutations, while others will have to gain them through a variety of methods, most notably the potion of mutation. Argem Bargem, however, cannot gain mutations, as an undead mummy he simply rots when he's mutated (and did I mention that rot is Very Bad for mummies?).
As for our actual mutations, I've already explained most of them (the resistance ones, that is). On this list, the big one is "You do not eat or drink", as it means that our character will never ever starve, which will help us in spamming high level spells before most characters are able to, or rest for insane periods of time. Unfortunately, we also cannot drink, which means that all potions are off limits to us (and potions are the best panic buttons around). It's also why rot is so bad for us, since it's usually cured by healing/heal wounds potions, so we will be saddled with it for extensive periods of time. On the bright side, we won't be horribly rotted by potions of mutation. "You are immune to unholy pain and torment" means that the Symbol of Torment spell won't affect us, which is excellent as said spell takes out half of your current HP, making it one of the most lethal ones in the game. "You do not need to breath" means simply that we won't likely drown in deep water.
Now for something completely unrelated. This is the skill screen, displaying our progress in certain skills. Whenever skills are used, XP funnels into them, and this feature causes a Crawl-ism known as victory dancing, or doing repetitive and somewhat inane actions after battle to get your XP into the right skills. Anyways, we only have the ones in light grey right now, dodging, stealth, spellcasting, and necromancy. It should be fairly obvious what they do, as dodging boosts evasion, stealth boosts stealth, spellcasting boosts success rates, spell levels for memorization and MP (ok, not so obvious), and necromancy boosts necromancy spells. I'll keep them all on for now (you toggle them by clicking them or typing in the appropriate letter). Also, do you notice the -2s next to seemingly everything? Those represent out aptitudes, or how long it will take to get a skill up. This is one reason (out of many) why mummies are very bad species, but whatever, we'll make do somehow.
These are the spellcasting and memorization screens. The spellcasting screen allows you to cast spells you've memorized (we began with Pain, a decent resistable early-game damage spell). Each spell has a chance to fail, based on a variety of factors, and the success rate is somewhat vaguely displayed on the screen. (Important tip: "Good" is not good. Try not to trust the screen too much.) To use spells, you have to memorize them, and doing so uses up spell levels. Each spell has a certain level, up to 9, and they get progressively harder to learn and cast but more powerful. You also need to be at least the same level as the spell to learn it, but that's not a recommendation to learn level 9 spells at level 9 (you will fail, and badly). In our memorization screen, we have five spells we can learn, however, four of them are greyed out because we don't have enough spell levels. We'll return soon enough, I promise. For now, we'll just leave it alone, since Animate Skeleton, the only learnable spell, is kind of bad, IMHO.
Anyways, that's enough screens for now. Coming up in a few minutes in the next part of the update, after a short break, actual gameplay! (I promise you won't have to sit through that again.)
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Topic: Let's Play... Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup! (Read 33886 times)