Brogue

This contest is now over.

Hey everyone, welcome to this weekend's contest! This is our 36th Brogue contest.

The seed for this contest, created from stock market indices and a bit of hocus-pocus, is 162013.

How to compete:

1. The contest begins right now, on Friday November 2nd, 2012 at 23:00 UTC (7:00 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 v1.7 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 72 hours (three whole days) and ends on Monday November 5th, 2012 at 23:00 UTC (6:00 PM EST). 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

14 players competed in this week-end contest. The winner is Cybermg, who was killed by a dragon while attempting to grab some lumenstones. Despite a terrible mistake that cost him the ascension, he still finished far ahead of every other competitor. Congratulations!

All Brogue 1.7 contests thus far have ended with a single player making it deep, while most others die much earlier. In this case, only four competitors went below depth 10, and only Cybermg survived past depth 15. The seed was extremely difficult, all players on the constant run from imminent death, desperately looking for a worthy weapon or staff.

Here is the list of contestants, ordered by score:

Code: Select all

=============  =====  =====  ==================================
Contestant     Score  Depth  Cause of death / Victory
=============  =====  =====  ==================================
Cybermg        29689    27   Killed by a dragon, amulet in hand
fugori          8017    15   Killed by a pixie
tinyrodent      7110    14   Killed by a cloud of caustic gas
sorta-stupid    5020    12   Killed by a wraith
boa13           1233     7   Killed by a vampire bat
Ighalli          907     6   Killed by a vampire bat
Sas              907     6   Killed by a vampire bat
jonathanmcc      860     6   Killed by an ogre
thedrin          604     5   Killed by a goblin
enderale         604     5   Killed by a toad
RDC              480     5   Killed by a goblin
element42        312     3   Killed by an eel
FrannyMac        312     4   Killed by a cloud of caustic gas
mikeym             ?     9   Starved to death
=============  =====  =====  ==================================

8017 Killed by a pixie on level 15.

Crazy amount of runic armor here but I only ever identified one - +3 chain of reflection. I had already started enchanting the +0 plate I found a level or two earlier, though, so I really didn't use this.

I only ever used a +0 spear, and don't remember finding many weapons. I retrospect I wish I'd taken the +0 axe from depth 1. I only survived as long as I did thanks to obstruction and tunneling, and my biggest problem was killing things.

Oy, starved to death on 9. No offensive options. Tough one.

604: Killed by a goblin on level 5.

I was waiting to find a vault before identifying my potions. I missed the vault on level 1.

Score 1233, killed by a vampire bat on depth 7.

But really, it was a centipede which did me in. I entered a room with the centipede and a few vampire bats. It immediately pricked me. I tried an unidentified negative potion on it, but it turned out to be hallucination. It pricked me a second time. I began retreating towards a gas trap I had noticed in a previous room, but as I was walking in the corridor that joined the two rooms, a toad blocked my path. I used my staff of tunneling to escape, and started running circles hoping I could find a way to reach the gas trap room. Unfortunately, a vampire bat put an end to that.

I had not yet found or identified an enchanting scroll at that point, and had just started wearing an uncursed plate armor found a few levels earlier. I was fighting with a spear, having put the telepathy charm of the vault from depth 1 to good use.

Oh, arse. Killed by an eel on depth 3, 312 gold. Should have waited a bit before crossing the water after rescuing the goblin.

Killed by an ogre on level 6 with 860 gold.

Took the telepathy charm from the first vault which did help.
But had nothing to combat the ogre that appeared on level 5.
Only 1 enchantment found (level 6) so I put it into the plate armour and wore it.
I did random potion throwing to try and defeat Mr Ogre on 5 which 'descent'ed him to 6.
No way to avoid him on 6 though.

Not happy with v1.7. Way too hard for us casual players who don't go and study the innards of the game.
My best depth after about 40 plays is 15 whereas I ascended twice with 1.6.4.
Most of my deaths have been due to getting overwhelmed by superior odds or instadeath 'trap' situations (not neccessarily involving traps).
In 1.6.4 the gameplay tended to vary between feeling 'I am ready for anything' and feeling 'uh oh, in trouble here'.
But in 1.7 its 'im in trouble the whole time'

Every time I die I keep thinking "I must have picked the wrong random choice in that vault earlier".

7110 Killed by a cloud of caustic gas on level 14.

At the time of death I was almost completely starving, set upon by by mobs. In desperation I polymorphed the oncoming troll to a bloat. Game over. Really tough seed, not much enchanting or strength available at all in the early game, no stealth tools, and no powerful weapon to be found.

From the hidden vault on level 1 I took the telepathy charm. This combined with tunneling and obstruction allowed me to avoid some of the worst threats. But still I had to do a lot of fleeing and resting, leading to eventual starvation.

At one point I threw an unidentified cursed potion at an enemy and it turned out to be creeping death. It was a really bad spot, right in front of the stairs in a cave level and would have probably killed both me and my goblin mystic. I had no flame and no descent to clear it, what to do? Then I remembered - obstruction! It took two shots but cleared all the poison grass away. The mystic was very helpful until an eel killed him.

Finally got the plate mail wearable at level 11 (enchanted to +3). Before this any wraith or ogre melee fight would surely be fatal. By now I was wearing +3 chain mail of reflection but enchanting that really wouldn't improve my survival chances much at this point in the game.

On level 11 there is a series of 3 nested vaults, I broke off the corners with tunneling to peek inside and saw another runic chain mail in one, and war pike in another. I chose staff of lightning from the first vault, gambling to find a better melee weapon. Probably a bad decision; but too hungry to go back by the time I realized.

Level 14 was just nuts with 8 centaurs among other serious threats. I jumped into the chasm hoping to find food on level 15 but no joy. Final equipment:

Recording available here: http://ompldr.org/vZzRveg/contest36.zip

I think this might be the hardest seed in the history of the contest.

480 Killed by a goblin on Level 5.

Normally I don't post my terrible defeats, but it looks like I'm in good company this time around. I missed the vault on level 1 and had managed to get my plate mail enchanted once right before I was killed by two vampire bats on level 6. 907.

907, level 6, vampire bat.
After a few unlucky strikes for me and successful ones for the vampire bat, I walked away from it and managed to get some distance, I tried my un-ID wand and hoped it would be teleprotation. It was negation. The bat then flew straight at me and killed me.

604, Killed by a toad on level 5.

Loving the new version.

312 killed by caustic gas on level 4

gah - missed the vault on level 1, the goblin ally died to Jellys while we were all confused from potion roulette on level 4...then got cornered by a kobold/jelly/bloat...bah

Wow, brutal.

29689 - Killed by a dragon on level 27, amulet in hand.

Started out with the telepathy charm on level 1. Like everyone else, I was completely outmatched by D7, with no way to take on ogres and the wraith that appeared on D8. Luckily, there were a few consumables early on that helped with the encounters - potions of invisibility, confusion, speed. Telepathy, tunneling, and obstruction also helped with basic avoidance, but there was no doubt that I was running out of options and nutrition. I put the first two enchant scrolls immediately into the plate armor and started wearing it. If I had waited a bit longer, I would've found the +3 chain mail of reflection, but I would've died had I used that. Every point of armor mattered.

On D:11, the triple nested vault level, I was fighting a wraith and got him to flee. I decided to throw an unidentified negative potion at him, and it turned out to be creeping death. Some darts later + the poison and the wraith was dead, but I had a much bigger problem on my hands - creeping death on an open level with tons of vaults to check out. I didn't realize that obstruction destroyed lichen - my approach was to lure over a nearby will-o-the-wisp and get it to flit into the deadly lichen. It didn't work very well, and I found myself almost killed and had to escape upstairs. I recovered, and tried again with another wisp on the level, but no luck. I decided to move onward, but the rest of the level was brutal - I had to use every last one of my consumables to kill the monsters that emerged from the statues key trap. I eventually made it down to D:12 with very little going for me - I realized I was probably going to perish unless I the vaults on D:11 had something good. I head back up to 11, but find the fields of lichen equally unappealing. I'm also lowish on food. I decide to head back down hoping to find something to clear the lichen.

It was either D:12 or D:13 that had a potion of levitation, so I headed back up, got the stone guardian key, and unlocked the first nested vault. A 3/3 wand of lightning or a key. I realized that as weak as my character was, 3/3 lightning wasn't going to help - it'd need to get up to 6 or 7 to be seriously useful and I didn't have the enchants to spare. I enter the second nested vault. A war pike or a key. Well this was it - finally a weapon other than the shitty spear I was stuck with. I'd be able to handle wraiths and possibly trolls with a war pike and plate, and certainly postpone my inevitable demise for quite a bit. But I wasn't satisfied with that, I had to see what was in the last vault - maybe it was truly game changing. It was yet another runic armor, SHIT.

So there I was again on D:12, just as helpless as I was but with a lot less nutrition. There were a few scrolls of enchantment on the next few levels that I spent all on my plate mail, bringing my armor to around 20, which meant I could survive packs of ogres and even a few wraiths. The next few levels were full of spiders, ogre shamans and trolls though, and I had to tread carefully. I spent my detect magic potions to determine where to explore on the levels, and dove once I had found all of the blue dots. I could've been missing unenchanted high level weapons but it didn't matter, I might've starved or lost in battle had I explored more.

The next game to play was to try to free the troll ally on D:15ish. With my staff of haste, he could carry me to the end-game. I lured the trolls upstairs, but rather than just dive down immediately, I tried to explore the rest of the level, and ended up getting myself chased back to D:15. I believe it was my levitation charm that finally got the trolls off my trail. With all sorts of baddies wandering D:15, I eventually freed the troll and escaped down to 16. But now I had another even worse problem - I was hungry and out of food. I started exploring, but had no luck, and decided to drop down to even D:17. I was driven back up to 16. With hunger approaching fainting, I sacrificed my poor troll ally to a pack of wraiths to buy myself more time.

I continued exploring D:16 with a naga on my trail. A troll emerges from the door in front of me, blocking my path, and a flame turret reveals itself in the corner of the room. No escape, no escape items or consumables remaining, and about 30% health left. I chuckle and realize it's been a good run - now that it's finally over, at least I've going down while on fire, fainting from hunger, while beating beaten to death by a troll and a naga. But then I thought it might be even more ridiculous if I somehow survived. I fired my wand of negation at the fire turret, successfully dodged several would-be-fatal blows from the monsters, and retreated into the door where the troll came from. I started starving just a few steps later, but there was a miracle - food in the next room. I picked up the food, obstructioned myself, and realized that this run still had life.

It turned out that I wasn't completely helpless with my high armor, and the next few levels were pretty forgiving. There was another wand of lightning and quite a few enchant scrolls, and I soon had a 6/6 wand of lightning that made all the difference. Suddenly I could kill ogre shamans, and dar packs posed much less of a threat. The real turning point came at D:19, where there was a captive (early!) horror and dar priestess - pretty much the perfect combination. Needless to say, there wasn't much to speak of D:19 through 26 - we steamrolled it, and I found myself overflowing with consumables looking at the post-endgame.

Had I stopped to think for a bit longer, maybe I would've realized that a plain ascension might be good enough to win this seed, but this was on of the most promising combinations I've had entering the deep dungeon levels - dar priestess, tentacle horror, and golem allies. I had an 8/8 lightning wand, 4 potions of invisibility, 3 potions of life, and 3 extra scrolls of enchantment, which I didn't want to immediately spend because they could go toward my wand of polymorph. I enter D:27 and start hunting for lumenstones.

I locate the dragons with my telepathy charm - there are four of them in two packs of two. Not too much of a problem assuming the situation is under control and i head in with a hasted horror. In the first encounter, my dar priestess gets fried - predictable - but i still had my wand of haste, which meant my horror was still potentially more powerful than anything else in the dungeon. I prepared for the second encounter, but only found a single dragon roaming around instead of the two. We killed it, and headed into the next room, but my horror found itself immediately fried by two fire bolts from the two dragons we had seen before. The horror wasn't going to survive unless I did something, I fired obstruction, but that just allowed the dragons to fire at the horror through the crystal. Had I chosen to bring the scroll of negation from my stash above, the horror would've been safe, giving me the potential for many more lumenstones. As it was, I still had at least 12 charges left between my wand of polymorph and scrolls of enchantment, so my run was still alive. I repositioned myself, and found myself chased by 3 dragons, instead of just the two that killed the horror. I fire away with my wand of polymorph and kill then all, but I'm left with low-ish health.

My fatal mistake is decided to rest it off to conserve resources. There was yet another (the seventh!) dragon on the level which killed me from well beyond line of sight before I could even react. And thus I died after this heroic run, still with two extra potions of life, 4 potions of invisibility, 2 potions of fire resistance, 3 scrolls of enchantment, and numerous other resources. I was so upset I forgot to save the recording.

5020, Wraith, Depth 12.
All I have to say about this seed is: Daaaaaammmmnn. I'm noticing 1.7 is WAY harder than 1.6.4 in the early-mid game if you aren't lucky enough to improve your offense quickly.

Did learn (spoiler?) that you can pop open statues with enemies one at a time using tunneling.

Wow, amazing run Cybermg.

I have to admit, part of me entertained the notion that I might actually record a win with my meager showing, as rough a time as everyone else was having. Man, Cybermg is going to record a 10th win with this (most likely). Wow.

The contest is over, and the results are in! Congratulations to Cybermg, for proving the game can still be beaten, against much odds.