Brogue

This contest is now over.

Hey everyone, welcome to this weekend's contest! This is our 19th Brogue contest.

The seed for this contest, created from stock market indices and a bit of hocus-pocus, is 476833.

How to compete:

1. The contest begins right now, on Saturday July 7th, 2012 at 06:30 UTC (2:30 AM EDT). You can start your game any time after this. The contest is open to anyone.

2. Start a game by control-clicking "New Game" in Brogue v1.6.4 and entering the seed. Verify that the screenshot below matches what you see on your screen.

3. Play through the game. You only get one chance. We are all on the honor system here.

4. Once you are finished, record your score and post the details of your game in this thread. Minimum requirements for consideration include your score, cause of death and lowest level reached. However, by request, the thread is open to all spoilers, so feel free to add screenshots, game recordings, character dumps, strategy tips, etc. You do not need to wait for the end of the contest.

5. The contest will run for 60 hours and ends on Monday July 9th, 2012 at 18:30 UTC (2:30 PM EDT). You must finish your game and post your results by that time to be considered in the contest.

6. As a result of point 4,

PLEASE DO NOT READ THE REST OF THE POSTS IN THIS THREAD UNTIL YOUR RUN IS FINISHED.

As always, honor system.

7. Good luck! Have fun, etc.

Results

Ten players competed in this week-end contest. The winner is Cybermg, who did not ascend, but fared much better than any other contestant. Congratulations!

Overall, according to the comments below, this was a rather tough seed. Very few consumable were to be found, potions of strength were sorely lacking in the early levels. There were several interesting items early in the game, but no clear way to make a winning build.

Here is the list of contestants, ordered by score:

Code: Select all

==========  =====  =====  ==========================
Contestant  Score  Depth  Cause of death / Victory
==========  =====  =====  ==========================
Cybermg     20415    26   Starved to death
Creaphis     8847    16   Killed by a phantom
Dunderpate   6234    12   Burned to death
ds_creamer   6064    13   Killed by a bog monster
tinyrodent   4616    11   Killed by a goblin
boa13        3791     9   Died from poison
thedrin      2793     8   Burned to death
cbet            ?     8   Burned to death
DalaranJ        ?     4   Killed by a pink jelly
dfire           ?     3   Killed by a spectral blade
==========  =====  =====  ==========================

Burned to death on level 8
Gold 2793

+2 spear of multiplicity
+2 chain mail of reprisal (level 5 vault)
staff of conjuration [4/4]
+3 plate mail (level 3 vault)
goblin mystic ally (level 5 cage)

No enchantments used. Only 3 scrolls of enchantment and 1 potion of strength found. A low number for depth 8 (edit: the fourth scroll on level 8 hadn't yet been found).

The key trap on level 8 is nasty and it killed me. An explosive gas trap, but the naked flame appears between you and the vent, and is closer to the vent. I hid in the key chamber hoping to get a chance to run for it, but got caught in an explosion whilst trying to observe the gas. Edit: and the key would have given me a weaker version of the mail I already had.

That trap is going to kill a lot of people.

Killed by a phantom on level 16. 8847 gold.

This is a painfully slow seed - extremely touch-and-go all the way. In retrospect, the safe (ie. boring) choice would have been to sink some enchantments into the first plate armour, but since I had a goblin mystic ally I figured I could wait until 19 strength to wear it. Instead I enchanted the potion and conjuration staves since they work well together; no other options were really available anyway, with no direct attack staves and no interesting weapons by depth 16.

Consumables seem strangely absent in this seed. Usually I'm engaged in a constant internal debate over what to bring along; this game, I always had space to spare.

After falling from depth 16 through a trap door I read a magic map to find my way back up with minimal hassle. This may have been my undoing. Noticing some altars and cages in unexplored territory I figured I'd do some recruiting before heading back up to level 15. (I forgot that allies don't get XPXP above their spawning depth.) The first cage key turned out to be a phantom trap, which at least I'll be able to recognize next time. Filling the air with spectral blades didn't help. I learned that "something destroyed the spectral blade," but not what and where. Eventually I was able to corner and kill one phantom, but then my mystic shielded a second, which killed me.

Recording.

6064. Died on level 13. The final blow was struck by the bog monster that was holding my legs, but the real cause of death was an explosion that suddenly brought me to 5% health, burning, with no more healing potions. The replay shows that a will-o'-the-wisp entered my line of sight for one turn before diving into the bog gas. Whoops.

Decent weapons and armor were available, plus discord at 3, conjuration at 4, and obstruction at 2. I had 4 scrolls of enchanting left that I didn't need to use immediately. I probably would have dropped the poison and the weaker conjuration staff eventually.

Died on 4 sandwiched between two pink jellies.

The only good decision I made of note was taking that vault plate mail on 3.

Burned to death on level 12 with 6,234 points. Got caught by a wisp/zombocombo and couldn't use descent because of all the burning. Brought that magical plate to +9 and gave my staff of swordies one enchant. That spear of multiplicity and ring of transference were really nice, didn't have a problem except that level with 2 trolls (before I got my platemail wearable)

20415, starved to death on level 26. This would have been a promising multi-lumenstone run, but I ran out of food.

There were quite a few options in this game, but I ultimately decided on making a poison oriented build, between the poison, obstruction, and conjuration staves and ring of light. Unfortunately, I don't think I've ever had a poison build that hasn't starved. I think the main food sink in this game was putting up with the spear of multiplicity for far too long. It's actually quite a weak weapon, since spears are strongest in hallways, which is where multiplicity is weakest. The +3 plate mail in a vault was a great find and should have made this way easier than it seemed to be.

I only found 2 potions of healing, one of which I use-id'd, and the other I had to use because I was wearing the wrong armor against an ogre.

I could tell I was low on food the entire game - I don't think I ever went above 2 food rations (including the food bar). By the teens, I was living ration to ration, and once I got down to about half a ration, I realized I had to dive. I ended up diving about 5 levels and making it to D:26, but this was while starving with about 10 enemies on my trail and half of my inventory scatted in water on the levels above.

thedrin wrote:That trap is going to kill a lot of people.

Yep, you can add me to that list.

I thought I'd be safe if I ran through just after an explosion occurred. Another cloud of gas came out just as I was passing and ignited immediately as there were still flames from the previous explosion around.

Hi all
I died quite fast on level 3 by being impaled by spectral blades
I dont know how much points i had.
game replay: https://www.box.com/s/e4d3d853ec1848f0c874

Score 3791, died from poison on level 9.

Having found a library vault with many new scrolls, I tried them as safely as I could, but one of them was a scroll of summon monsters, which I closely escaped thanks to another of the scrolls (teleportation). Unfortunately, by that time, the monsters had brought me to low health, and spider poison finished my game.

Apart from that, I was going ok, with what was apparently the right choice in armor (the +3 plate armor, enchanted to +5 at the time I died), and resolutely making my way down without spending enchants too early. I probably would have gone for a summon build, what with the +4 staff. It proved particularly useful to get rid of the trolls on level 8, thanks to a poison gas trap: it's quite satisfying to lure a monster near one, trigger it, and then spam the area with phantom blades, so that the monster stays in this deadly gas. I also chose to avoid the key room on level 5, with no way to get out that I could see, it seemed too dangerous for me in such a contest.

Died on level 11, score 4616. Just watched the recording and it wasn't quite how I remembered it lol. First a spider stuck webs on me and then an acid mound approached. Removed my +8 plate mail and +2 spear of multiplicity since no protection scrolls were found, and my attack staves were out of charges. A goblin finished it. In hindsight I should have tried obstruction on myself to give a chance for some regeneration and let the staves recharge. With a bit more careful play this should have been a much longer game.

The contest is now closed, results have been posted above.

Congratulations, Cybermg!