Challenge Game: Back to the Beginning

[Grey]

It's been a long-standing tradition on the Hall of Fame forums and the IRC channel to have semi-regular challenge games. Would be nice to start off the same tradition here. With all this new development and the hope of a JADE release this year I thought a nice theme for the challenge would be looking back at the roots of ADOM. ADOM 0.2.0 to be precise, back when it was Advanced Dungeons of Mystery (ha!) Back when it was one dungeon, one colour, different commands and enemy letters, hobbits, and a whole bunch of other differences I haven't a clue about.

The challenge will begin at midnight tonight. You can get the classic version of ADOM here (you might need DOSBos to run it). Generate a random character and see how far you can get. No savescumming. Do not press capital X at any time (it enables some sort of exploration mode, that with further keypresses can raise your level and do other stuff). Don't go back up the first stairs you come out of (this exits the game).

Because of the differences in the game you are allowed one test character before your proper attempt. This character may not explore past dungeon level 2 and may not rise above character level 3. It's just to get you used to the different key commands and such. Some useful stuff I've found from my own test:

-drop is D, drink is d
-q is quit, Q is save
-to load a game you must enter your previous character's name on start-up
-no w commands
-no character information screen from @ (dunno if such a screen exists at all)
-to equip an item go to inventory and press u, then choose which slot the item should go in
-tactics cannot be set with the function keys, but can be set with T
-> is up and < is down (very confusing)
-altars exist, but their only use seems to be for iding items

I don't know what the main aim of this old version is, but for the purposes of this challenge the aim is to go as deep as possible and score as many points as possible. Post details of your adventures here. When you die (as you inevitably will) post the details from the high score table here (points, level, xp, moves) as well as how deep you explored. I'll contruct a high score table that will go at the top of this thread.

That's all for now. I'll start the challenge myself at some point tonight. Happy gaming!


The gory details...

5844   Grey.  Level 7 high elven fighter (M). 2184 xps. 3709 moves.
       He was killed by a formorian giant on D8.

2526   Unienaule.  Level 4 dwarven healer (F). 678 xps. 1366 moves.
       She was killed by a doppleganger.

1712   Epythic. Level 2 trollish fighter (M). 371 xps. 437 moves.
       He was killed by a displacer beast on D5.

1470   Kurivaim. Level 2 dwarven paladin (M). 254 xps. 569 moves.
       He was killed by a booby-trapped door.

847    Baranor.  Level 2 orcish ranger.
       Killed by a rat taking vengeance for his gnoll friend's death.

672    trey (gut). Level 1 high elven thief (M). 16 xps. 86 moves.
       He got his smashed by a stone block.

343    Silfir.  Level 1 gnomish assassin.
       He was killed on D1 after sustaining grievous wounds from his first door.

274    Worst Player... ever.  Level 1 human bard. 5 xps. 24 moves.
       He was slaughtered by an orc in his very first room.

[Dougy]

Blast! Well I tried it, but it crashed on me! Argh! I picked a random char and it turned out to be a dwarven healer. Found the big room, an altar on D:5 and the si around D:7. Then suddenly came the tree level (which seemed quite out of place), which is where it crashed. I attacked a tree and fled up the stairs and it crashed.

Anyway, it was quite interesting. Frustrating how I went to (d)rop the water on the altar but the char (d)rank it. (:

[Grey]

Heh, I was expecting this might be a problem... In the circumstances I think I'll be kind and let you have another go. Evidently back-up saving may be needed more in case of crashes. And I imagine running it in DOSBox might make it more stable.

[Grey]

And my attempt ended quickly... High elven fighter got cornered by a formorian giant (a large F - thought it was a frog at first) on D8. Advanced to level 7, got 5844 points, but nothing of interest happened really. Best of luck to everyone else at this...

[Silfir]

Glorious 343 points with a level 1 gnomish assassin. But you should know that I started out in a room with only a locked door as an exit. I had to kick it open, and the trap brought me down to 1 HP. It's a miracle I survived as long as I did.

[Baranor]

Great game, Grey. I haven't attempted yet (because I'm at work) but I may try at lunch or at home tonight. I will post my score then. I will also think of some challenge games. One I thought of recently was the "So Much Hate" Game. The rule is that you may only kill one type of creature (i.e. goblin rockthrowers or rats) throughout the game.

[Baranor]

Sad. Critical hit by a rat right after a gnoll took me down more than half my life! I was trying to wait to heal, but failed. My orcish ranger survived to level 2 with 847 points.

[Worst Player... ever]

I'm glad you started this thread... it was fun checking this out. It reminds me of the original Rogue.

My 2nd 'real' character did worse than my test character.

I am so far the unluckiest SOB in this thread in terms of character generation. I was a Human Bard who started with a leather cap [+0, +0] and clothes [+0,+0] as his armor. I also had no ranged weapons. And a strength of 7.

Furthermore, I was attacked as soon as I arrived in the dungeon. A goblin standing next to the dungeon entry stairs quickly knocked me down to 1 hp, but I did kill him.

I tried moving to the corner of the room to rest, but an orc charged out of a nearby hallway at me. Naturally, I played my mandolin for him, but for some reason he still attacked me ... anyway, he critically hit me and I'm now here posting about it.

I got 5 xp, survived for 24 moves, and scored 274 points. At least I got 5 xp and wasn't completely shut out, right?

[unienaule]

So I equipped my scalpel, and it turned out to be cursed, so I went through the entire game on Berserk. Then I got some nice studded leather armor, which was blown up by door-runes. Then a stone block dropped on my head even though I was to the side of the door. Then I got leather armor which turned out to be cursed, and a metal cap which turned out to be cursed. Finally, that doppleganger critical hit me when I had 27 hp left, which killed me. Oh, and I didn't notice it in the game, but when I died I found out the 0, +2 mithril shield I got was cursed as well. The only thing that wasn't cursed was the regular warhammer I had started out with.

2526 Unienaule. Level 4 dwarven healer (F). 678 xps. 1366 moves.
She was killed by a doppleganger.

[Baranor]

There definitely are a *lot* of things that are cursed. I was surprised at how much stuff was cursed. I'm glad the ratio has been trimmed.