h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Angband - A2134036
Author: Ekaterin - U239615

My attempt at taking Zathras's Angband article and bringing it up to Edited Guide standard. I hope a good Angband player can look over the article and tell me if I've gone horribly wrong anywhere.
Ekaterin.

This should be entitled "Angband - the Computer Game" to distinguish it from "Angband - the fortress of Morgoth in the works of JRR Tolkien".

I haven't played Angband much, so I can't be sure on the details, but the disappearance of levels once you leave them isn't entirely unique.

I'm afraid my limited experience of roguelikes is showing. Levels don't disappear in Nethack or SLASH'EM, and in ADOM they only disappear in the "infinite dungeon", not the big main dungeon and not any of the other smaller dungeons.

What other roguelikes have disappearing levels?
Ekaterin.

Hmmm... Crawl I think. Some others too. It's certainly a noteworthy characteristic of the game, but not quite unique.

The last two headers are a bit pointless - it looks strange having a header with only one sentence below it.

That was just how Zathras had it, and I've taken them out now. Do you think we need the information about how Angband is not "free software" in the technical sense, which I've also taken out? I don't know whether most roguelikes count as Free Software or not - like Angband, they might have been invented before the idea became popular.
Ekaterin.

Don't know - I think it all got a bit confusing saying they're free but they're not free...

I've been saying I'd look at your other roguelike articles for a while now, Ekaterin, and what do you know? Somebody beat me to it. Hmmm, this article seems a little light compared to the others. I guess we need someone who knows the game better.

"Scumming is also how the Borg, a computer program to play Angband, manages to win the game."

How about "a computer program which plays Angband"?

Yeah, I'm afraid that's the best I can do with my limited knowledge of Angband. Zathras' original article (A528482) had even less useful content. I was hoping to leave the Angband article to someone who was actually good at the game, but no-one volunteered to write it. Do you want me to take this out of PR because I'm not qualified to get it up to Edited Guide Standard?

Incidentally, it would be nice to say a bit about the host of Angband variants, but I've never played any of them - can you help here?
Ekaterin.

I don't know that it's not up to EG standard, even if it isn't as good as your other articles. I suppose the question is do you think this article adds to the project or not?

Can't help you with variants. Looking at that family tree I showed you, Mangband springs out, I think it's multiplayer, but I'm not sure. That's about the extent of my knowledge. By the way, did you notice he lists Diablo. I wonder if it's worth mentioning Diablo in the roguelike article, although my feeling is that it's not a true roguelike as it's not turn-based.

Suppose this article got into the Edited Guide, and then an expert Angband player came along and wanted to improve it, would that cause problems? If not, then yes, I'd like it in the project.

From what I've heard, Diablo is rather watered down compared to real roguelikes, and it's also commercial. If people want to try roguelikes they'd be better off downloading a real one for free, IMHO.

I haven't added anything about variants because the Thangorodrim web site wasn't very informative. I played Mangband once, and I've added a bit about it to the roguelike article (it is multiplayer, btw).

I don't think so. There is some procedure for altering edited entries. Might as well keep this article in.

I think you heard right about Diablo.

The Mangband bit is interesting; I wondered how it worked. In this article you could give a brief mention of the number of variants existing, which is, I think, quite a few.

Added a bit about the variants, and very much for being so helpful!

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

Congratulations!

Well Done Ekaterin

Pimms