Brogue

This contest is now over.

Hey everyone, welcome to this weekend's contest! This is our 21st Brogue contest.

The seed for this contest, created from stock market indices and a bit of hocus-pocus, is 576630.

How to compete:

1. The contest begins right now, on Friday July 20th, 2012 at 22:00 UTC (6:00 PM 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, 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 23th, 2012 at 10:00 UTC (6:00 AM 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

Sixteen players competed in this week-end contest. The winner is Creaphis, who managed to grab the amulet but died at depth 28 trying to grab some more lumenstones. Congratulations for going this far!

Overall, this seed was unusually low in ressources, with almost no potions of healing, almost no potions of detect magic, and fewer potions of strength and scrolls of enchantment than usual. Nevertheless, several players managed to go quite deep, five of them going 18 or deeper.

Here is the list of contestants, ordered by score:

Code: Select all

===========  =====  =====  ===========================
Contestant   Score  Depth  Cause of death / Victory
===========  =====  =====  ===========================
Creaphis     30956    28   Killed by a phantom, amulet in hand
tinyrodent   24600    24   Killed by a dragon
thedrin      20822    23   Killed by a kraken
boa13        16925    21   Killed by a dar blademaster
Cybermg      12068    18   Killed by a fury
Lilli         4587    11   Killed by lava
Lixels        3632    11   Killed by a wraith
Uncle Jam     1898     9   Killed by a fall
TheKing30     1470     7   Killed by a spectral blade
abcd_z        1000     6   Killed by a toad
DalaranJ       529     7   Killed by a goblin conjurer
Ashenai        529     5   Killed by a goblin
radiance       400     4   Killed by a toad
jonathanmcc      ?     7   Killed by caustic gas
Dunderpate       ?     7   Killed by an ogre
Glimpse          ?     6   Killed by a vampire bat
===========  =====  =====  ===========================

Argh! My first contest game I waited for a whole week resulted in the stupdiest death right at the beginning!

I had no space left in inventory, so I stood right next to a door and drank from a random bottle. It turned out to be the potion of paralysis. At the same moment this door opened and toad attacked me. But the gas haven't had a time to dissolve, so I became paralysed again right away! Toad kept striking me and I kept getting paralysed. Helpless, I stood for a several turns, having no chance to protect myself.

400 killed by toad on level 4

Replay: http://ge.tt/40nqQoK/v/0

30956, Killed by a phantom on level 28, amulet in hand.

This run had a great many little misfortunes, all due to bad luck and stupidity in various combinations. Obviously though I had to have some successes too to get this far. I'll probably write some commentary yet but it might have to wait until after the end of the contest. Right now it's bedtime.

EDIT: Recording.

12068, killed by a fury on level 18.

Never really found any obvious endgame equipment, decided to turn this into a stealth build, given that I had a warhammer and a ring of stealth. I should have put my enchants into the runic chainmail (which was probably reflection or some useless immunity) over the ring of stealth, given that fury packs, once alerted, absolutely tore me apart. I only found two healing potions - one I use ID'd, and the other which prolonged my death by about two turns to the fury pack on level 18. When I died, I had a ton of un-id'd weapons and rings. If the wisdom ring was uncursed, a lightning or conjuration/poison based run would have also been possible.

Score 16925, killed by a dar blademaster on level 21.

This was a strange seed, with no obvious good gear, almost no potions of healing (only found one), and almost no potion of detect magic (only found one). Apart from a couple of small mistakes, I think I handled this run somewhat well, putting my consumables to good use in a few tough fights, and taking care of a great team of allies, which at its peak consisted of two nagas, one troll, and two dar priestress.

I had enchanted the staff of conjuration to 6, and later enchanted a staff of lightning to 6 also, since phantom blades deal physical damage, and some monsters in the depth are immune to that. The ring of awareness, enchanted to +3, helped me immensely, notably in keeping tabs on my allies, and also in dealing with flame turrets. One of the rings I found later turned out to be a +2 ring of stealth, which is always good to have. I had decided to spend a scroll of identify on the +3 chain mail, once I had noticed it didn't have an obvious runic. It turned out to be a chain mail of golem immunity, which I decided to keep. Ultimately, I didn't find better armor until I died.

I met my end on level 21 to a combination of a golem (which blocked my path), a steam vent, and a dar team. The dars tore us apart while I could not manage to reach them. Until that point, my team was still in full power, I was far from being at wits end.

20822 Killed by a kraken on level 23.

Equipment:
Cursed dagger (4 kills required for id) (edit: the -3 dagger from level 12equipped on level 17)
+3 chain mail of golem immunity
+3 ring of clairvoyance
+2 ring of clairvoyance
staff of conjuration [8/8] (5 scrolls of enchantment)
staff of poison [7/7] (5 scrolls of enchantment)
staff of blinking
staff of lightning
staff of tunneling
lots of un-id'd wands and rings. The only ring I didn't find was a ring of light, which has become one of my favourites.
2 dar priestesses (1 survived me, 1 died shortly before me, both could blink and earned enough points for a second ability)

But for that bloody dagger and my stubborn refusal to use an enchantment to remove it this could have been a really powerful character. Golems are a massive problem for the poison + obstruction/conjuration build and that chain mail which was un-id'd until I encountered a golem would have made them easy to deal with.

It was the dagger that finished me as I was able to stand toe to toe with a lich and slowly stab it to death but wasn't able to destroy the jewel on the first go. I lost one priestess in that encounter. Because I refused to enchant the dagger, the priestesses were essential to me and the loss of one was pretty much a death sentence. The one remaining priestess wasn't enough to protect me from the kraken that I released immediately afterwards in the north east key room.

Scrolls of enchantment seem to be really rare in this dungeon. I only found 10 in 22 levels and that includes 2 in a vault on level 22. I believe those two are bonus scrolls so only 8 normal scrolls in 22 levels. Now that I think about it, I wasn't keeping an eye out for possible secret rooms but my +5 clairvoyance should have made that a non issue.

I only found 1 potion of healing which I use id'd.
I found two potions of detect magic - I'm fairly certain the second was in the north west room of level 21.
There were no scrolls of remove curse.

I'll watch the replay now, but only so I can see what that runic dagger (edit: confusion) in the level 23 vault was.

DalaranJ, killed by a goblin conjurer on depth 7. 529
Which is what I get for neglecting playing for two weeks. This death was the result of inappropriately hopeful potion IDing.

Killed by caustic gas on level 7.

Played 'potion roulette' as soon as I arrived on level 6. First potion was descent which dropped me in the room below with 2 goblin totems and an Ogre! Tried to sneak out but ended up teleporting which took me to a nearby room with another Ogre and an acid mound!! I did manage to sneak out of this one but 4 goblins were on to me.
I managed to kill the first 3 but was down to about 25% health.
Only chance was to play potion roulette again. First one was strength - no good. First ogre could now be seen at the end of the corridor.
The next one i drank was paralysis - this was actually good! It got me back to about 30% while me and Mr. Goblin were frozen.
Fought him some more until I was down to 5%.
Drank the next potion - poisonous gas - me dead! Probably took the goblin with me.

My mistake was playing potion roulette on level 6.

AHH. Getting better at brogue!
3632, Killed by a Wraith on Level 11.
Fucking stupid death at that too.
Had my ogre behind me, one potion of healing, and 6/7 on my staff of conjuration.
Really enjoyed this map. The lack of healing potions, and relatively few enchantments made it rather exciting, to me at least.
Also, I'm an idiot for ignoring the vault on 5 to which I had the key. I know.
I fell through the floor twice as well. Once through a hole trap, and the other with potion roulette.
Good fun, nonetheless.
Here's the replay: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/35231283/lixels.broguerec

24600 Killed by a dragon on level 24.

The game was going well until level 23 despite some real disadvantages - only 1 potion of healing for the entire dungeon, only +0 mace, and +2 banded armor. I had a fantastic set of allies including 2 dar priestess, 2 invisible flying goblin mystics, 2 ifrit, 2 trolls, and 2 flying ogres with protection spell (got to love wand of plenty). But someone ran out ahead and got Discordant, causing the death of many allies. Eventually only one goblin mystic remained, and he saved me from a phantom before his death. There were many dar, and phantoms, and golems - but I found out my armor was golem immunity runic. Finally I cleared the level, got into the useless vaults, and moved on.

A dragon blasted me for huge damage but I could not see exactly where he was in the dark. I decided to throw a potion of paralysis in his direction but forgot that it explodes on the spot clicked not just thrown in that direction. So I paralyzed myself and got barbecued. Too bad because I had a wand of negation and a +12 staff of lightning. I had no real trouble killing a dragon one or two levels previous.

Early in the game I "wasted" two enchanting scrolls bringing a staff of discord up to 5. But it saved me many times. Also wasted two enchanting on a war axe - finally read the details of the weapons and found that a +0 mace actually does about twice as much damage as a +2 war axe despite having a lower strength requirement. I don't intentionally fight multiple enemies out in the open so that feature of the axe is rarely used and eventually I just left it behind.

This was my second best result yet. First time I've seen any kind of immunity armor. For the first time I noticed a locked cage with "something" inside. I was hoping it was a phantom or something invisible but sadly it was a salamander. My least favorite ally. Fortunately he ran across the lava and got himself killed by a troll on the next level.

Died on level 7 to the Ogre! My heart just hasn't been in these last two.

1000 points exactly. Killed by a toad on level 6.

Cleared out level one, got a monkey ally. Made the decision to wait until I started Depth 2 to read the scrolls, just in case it was a scroll of magic mapping.

It was! XD

Cleared level two, unlocked the nested treasure rooms since I could tell where the key was.

My strategy is to open all the treasure rooms I can to identify as many items as possible. It seemed to work well here, since I ended up with a staff of protection.

...

You can't use a staff of protection on yourself. *facepalm*

I was throwing javelins at a bloat when a tan potion shattered. Either I accidentally threw it instead of the javelin or something else happened. *shrug*

Used a scroll of telepathy. Killed all the monsters on Depth 3, including what I suspect was a kraken. Level 6, ding!

Faced a bunch of jackals on depth 4. Where's an axe when I need it?

Tested a potion, turns out it was descent. Landed with the captive goblins. Erg.

Fought some jellies on Depth 6 with only a dagger. Still no axe. Ran low on health, panicked, used my scroll of teleportation.

I wound up in a safe area I'd mapped out earlier, sans my ally goblin mystic.
Now, I SHOULD have waited for my health to return before doing anything else. What I actually DID was whip out an unidentified scroll on the off chance that it would help me.

It was a scroll of monster summons.

Two toads and a vampire bat.

Game over, man. Game over.

Reporting in with the first off-board batch of scores. Not including cybermg who is also a goon. I'll try to do one more tomorrow evening if anyone else plays.

Ashenai- "Killed by a goblin on level 5 " 529 (Picked up exactly the same gold piles as I did.)
Glimpse- "Vampire bat on level 6." (no score listed)
Uncle Jam- "Died to a fall on Level 8/9" 1898
Lilli- "4587, Killed by lava on level 11." (failure to blink properly)

I'm not surprised people are talking about item shortages, but I am surprised nobody's talking about strength; I only found 6 potions in my whole game.

Okay, I've had some time today so I wrote the usual story. Recording link above. If you just want to know what equipment I was using, you can skip forward to the end of the recording and see. Personally, I find it much more interesting to talk about allies; there's just always so much drama there.

Depth 5: After triggering a collapsing floor key trap, I successfully navigated my way to safety - while darkened. There's something very zen about that.

Depth 11: Though I hadn't lost any allies yet, I'm always on the lookout for better ones. I freed the submerged caged monster, thinking it would be a naga - nope, apparently salamanders like going for a swim too. I negated it just because I didn't want to worry about what would happen once we reached a bog. Interestingly, he still glowed and left embers in his trail, like Hansel and Gretel leaving breadcrumbs.

Depth 13: I freed both dar priestesses. My party was pretty big at this point so I killed my ogre. My monkey actually had similar HP and higher DPS than him, plus two abilities: strength-sapping and protection casting, which is exactly what I was aiming for. Strength sapping means he'll be very helpful in large melees, and protection casting is good to have on your fighter with the second-highest HP as he'll stay immediately behind your biggest bruiser in hallways, constantly buffing him.

Depth 14: Here's when everything started falling apart. I rescued the troll, but then immediately lost the salamander when he went off on his own against a flame turret. He burned to death. He's probably being teased relentlessly in salamander heaven about that. I fell through a pit trap down to depth 15 which separated my party, with me, my monkey mystic and a dar priestess on one side of the level, and my troll and a priestess on the other. For some reason, the troll was perfectly content to run past two salamanders without engaging them, but that dar priestess thought it would be smart to shoot sparks at them from melee range. Once my four surviving allies regrouped I started stepping on traps left and right - at one point while everyone was stumbling into each other in confusion gas I opened up a potion of paralysis just to put things on "pause" for a bit, and I probably should have scoured the upper floors for another one because I could have used it. In the next confusion trap, I lost my other dar priestess. I climbed back up to depth 14, still reeling from my losses, and set off a statue key trap with my allies just a few spaces behind me. If I had simply put some distance between myself and my allies with blinking before grabbing the key, my allies could have stayed in the safety of the hallway. Instead, I let them all walk out into the open and get surrounded by a naga, two wraiths and two trolls. Even that wouldn't have been so bad if one of the hostile trolls didn't trigger a caustic gas trap in the same room. My monkey and mystic both died in the desperate melee. My prize? One cage key. Two allies for one is not a good deal, especially when that one new ally is a dar battlemage who burns himself to death by igniting the webs he's stuck in.

Depth 16: I dominated a dar priestess. I guess my troll and I missed female companionship.

Depth 22: I still had a zap left in my wand of domination so I aim it at a weakened revenant. Revenant allies seem like they could have huge potential so I figured I'd take the chance to experiment with them more. Experiment: failed, because apparently the revenant I chose to enslave had already been negated by my dar priestess. Smart! He lasted a surprisingly long time, though, with the priestess' healing support, until he eventually died - to the same priestess. But that's the story coming up.

Depth 23: With clairvoyance, I spotted a lich wandering towards my entrenched position, in a hallway, with my allies behind me. I dispatched him, unaware! He respawned before I could even take a second swing. I decided to give my troll the next crack at him. He is dispatched again! He respawned again, this time in the middle of our group, with myself, the troll and the revenant on one side and the dar priestess on the other. After two near-death experiences, this lich planted his rotted feet firmly and decided not to go down without a fight. My mace and my troll's fists simply couldn't touch him. Meanwhile, my priestess has been roasting the lich - and the rest of her party - with lightning. By the time I took action it was too late - I tunneled out a safe zone in the side of the hallway with the idea of forcing my allies into it, but my revenant was already dead, and my troll was at low enough health for a firebolt to finish him off. In retrospect, the right idea might have been to make the lich invisible with a wand charge to make my priestess stop shooting the damn thing. There's emergent behaviour for ya.

Without any fighters left I decided to borrow a tentacle horror and dragon from the other team.

Depth 25: A dar party guarding a golem somehow became alert to my presence as soon as I descended. I was hidden behind foliage, but I guess I was really clomping my boots on the stairs. The first I found out about them, though, was when my dragon got discorded. I tried to quickly finish off the battlemage with lightning to prevent further chaos but he was protected by a battlement of non-conductive foliage. Conjuration kept the dragon busy for a little while but nowhere even close to long enough. Neither my priestess or tentacle horror made it out alive.

Depth 26: Without the priestess, my dragon was perpetually at low health. However, as he was launching ICBMs at everything he could see, that was hardly a problem. It's the things he couldn't see that were a problem. I most likely should have taken one of the staves of discord from an earlier vault, as I really could have used a more elegant solution to liches and their summonings. Spectral blades are too erratic to pin down a phantom in one place, and lightning doesn't help much when you don't know where to aim. Strangely I decided to dive downwards for lumenstones, even as I burned through my small supply of healing potions and was repeatedly overwhelmed.

Score 1470 killed by a spectral blade on depth 7

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

Congratulations, Creaphis!