Angband (video game)

Angband
File:Angband.gif Town level of Angband.
Designer(s)	Andi Sidwell
License	Moria/Angband license/GPL dual-license
Platform(s)	Cross-platform
Latest release	3.1.2 beta / January 25, 2010
Genre(s)	Roguelike
Mode(s)	Single-player
Input methods	Keyboard

Angband is a dungeon-crawling roguelike computer game derived from Umoria. It is based on the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, in which Angband is the fortress of Morgoth. The current version of Angband is available for all major operating systems, including Unix, Windows, and Mac OS X.

Gameplay

The game revolves around exploring a 100-level dungeon, in which the player seeks to amass enough power and equipment to ultimately defeat Morgoth. A new level is randomly generated each time the player changes levels, which gives Angband great replay value: no two games are the same.

Though stylistically quite different, the gameplay of Angband is frequently compared to NetHack. Angband gameplay is combat and tactics based, with inventory management as an important aspect of gameplay, as opposed to NetHack's extensive application of hard-coded special puzzles. NetHack is also a much shorter game, with playtimes measured in hours or possibly days, while Angband games can last for weeks.

History

The first version of Angband was created by Alex Cutler and Andy Astrand at the University of Warwick in 1990. They wanted to expand the game Umoria by adding items, monsters, and features. After Cutler and Astrand, the source code was maintained at the University of Warwick by Geoff Hill and Sean Marsh. They released "2.4.frog_knows", which was enhanced by others and widely ported to non-Unix platforms.

Following their departure, the later principals of Angband have included Charles Swiger, Ben Harrison, and Robert Rühlmann. Harrison was the maintainer responsible for the "Great Code Cleanup", modularizing, extending, and greatly improving the readability of the Angband source code. This in turn led to the large number of variants currently available, as well as the rather large number of ports. Like other maintainers, he eventually moved on to other interests, passing the title to Robert Rühlmann in 2000.

Rühlmann's contributions included releasing version 3.0, which included many monster and object changes contributed by Jonathan Ellis. He also introduced Lua, a lightweight scripting language, with the intention of simplifying development of both the main game and its variants. The Angband community, however, did not generally embrace the addition of scripting, with many expressing confusion over its usage, and as such it was later removed.

While Rühlmann was maintainer, he started the Angband Open Source Initiative, designed to place Angband under a Free Software license. Although the original license (Moria/Angband license) allows distribution of the game, it only does so if "not for profit", which precludes packaging with many Linux distributions or inclusion within a magazine cover disc. The license also does not explicitly allow code modification, something which is in practice ignored by the Angband community. In light of these perceived issues, an effort to re-license Angband under the GNU GPL was started in 2000 and completed on January 9, 2009.

Rühlmann stepped down in October 2005, leading to a brief period of uncertainty. However, Julian Lighton was soon announced as the new maintainer in March 2006. As of December 2007, he has not released a new version of the game. Due to the absence of Julian, Andi Sidwell assumed leadership, with the support of the community. He released several beta versions of "3.0.7s", which eventually culminated in the release of 3.0.8.

Community

The Usenet newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.angband and the Angband Forum are the loci of the Angband community, places to discuss all aspects of the game. An IRC channel, #angband, exists on the WorldIRC network, and another, #angband-dev exists on the freenode network.

Variants

Angband has spawned many derivatives. A family of around sixty variants exist, of which roughly half a dozen are active. Each differs in purpose and degree of alteration. The multiplayer variant MAngband was developed in 1997; it includes real-time elements to support simultaneous gameplay. ZAngband (Zelazny Angband), is largely based on Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber. Topi Ylinen initiated development, though the project involved others, including Robert Rühlmann. Most development ceased in 2006. Tolkien-flavoured variant Tales of Middle Earth (ToME) was originally derived from the ZAngband code base.

External links

• Official site, with wiki and development information
• Angband at oook.cz, with forum, spoilers, and other resources
• Template:Usenet