Brogue

This contest is now over.

Hey everyone, welcome to this weekend's contest! This is our 16th Brogue contest.

The seed for this contest, created from stock market indices and a bit of hocus-pocus, is 178480.

Make sure to download v1.6.4 before starting!

How to compete:

1. The contest begins right now, on Friday, June 15, 2012 at 21:00 UTC (5:00 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.

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, I'm opening up the thread 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 48 hours and ends on Sunday, June 17, 2012 at 21:00 UTC (5 PM EDT.) You must finish your game and post your results by this 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.

Reserved for results.

UPDATE: The winner is me, mikeym, ascending with no lumenstones and 52,476 points. This is my second consecutive victory and my fifth overall.

120 Killed by a jackal on level 4.

Fleeing down a corridor from a Jelly, running towards a defensible position, when a pack of jackals enter the corridor from the far side.

Well, a real squeaker of a victory for me, ascending with no lumenstones and 52,476 points. An out-of-depth Dragon on 22 nearly did me in... on the way back up!

Spear of Paralysis was the highlight weapon – I didn't enchant it enough, foolishly spending my scrolls on the Staff of Poison instead. The Unicorn was a great asset, but mine fell to a Revenant on 22, leaving me with a severely underpowered character who kept having to poison and run, poison and run, poison and run.

http://www.filedropper.com/contest16

4,422 points. Died to a Wraith on level 10. Really it's because my goblin mystic died from a pack of vampire bats that I spawned from summon monsters. After that my Ogre and I ran into an Ogre shaman and he got into a bad position, getting attacked by all three in front of a door. I managed to kill the shaman, but two Ogres remained and I couldn't kill them with my paralysis spear. I used descent to drop them down a level and ran to recover. A spider wandered in, and I managed to get it before it did too much, but then the Wraith came by and, despite having it in a web many times, I was unable to kill it.

Dammit, a barricade vault on 2?

Edit: Never mind, darts.

I don't even want to say how I died. I make the stupidest decisions in these contest seeds. Well, I don't have much spare time this weekend so at least I got it over with quickly.

Meh. Died with a score of 1585 on level 7. I was doing rather well with my monkey, having found decent mid-power gear (+3 chain mail) and with potential for more (staff of poison, +3 ring of awareness, a yet unidentified +3 splint mail), when an ogre appeared on level 7 that I foolishly tried to contain without much offensive power, trying to save my monkey... This was me demise, killed by an ogre I could have handled much better.

Killed by a Kraken on depth 10 with 4422 gold. Could have gone a lot further if I realized I was one turn from death. Oh well.

Killed by a dar battlemage on level 19 with 13497 gold.

A tragic death. The battlemage outwitted me. Killed me with a flamebolt. The were three dars, one battlemage and two bladedancers in a room. I was at the end of a corridor next to some sulfur flame field and in no condition to fight noone. One blademaster had discord casted on him and I was expecting the battlemage to attack him. I stayed in full view of him (or her?) because I wanted to have all the intel. And then the mage fired his bolt, ignoring the discorded blademaster. Maybe the other blademaster blocked the mages line of fire? Maybe he was smart? All I know is that I would have paid dearly for either a scroll of teleportation or potion of healing. Or a staff of obstruction which I left before.

I made a few bad decisions at the vaults. One was choosing the key instead of a ring of stealth which I really needed on the lower levels. I suspected it to be a bad decision when I made it, but I still made it.

Otherwise, this was a fairly unusual dungeon. It may be just my bad memory, but I don't remember there ever being as many potions of strength in a dungeon. As a consequence of that, my gear was the best I ever used (all numbers are from the end): a +7 broadsword and +2 plate armour. My strength was 18, also the higest ever.

Another thing about the dungeon: MY GOD, that was wonderful!! Definitely one of the best sceneries I have seen in Brogue. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Chambers, lakes, bogs, bridges... only a random dungeon generator can make that happen.

And one other thing: this is my personal best. Previous was with Brogue 1.5.1 when I was chased by some monsters on level 17 and made a mad dash to level 18 trying to run away from them. I made 5 steps and fell dead.

I'll try to upload the game recording somewhere and post a link to it here.

With the help of my dar priestess I'm capable of vomiting twice as fast as a normal human being.

Anyway, things are shaping up real nicely.

Edit:
Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes.
My troll is now immune to fire.

Edit2: Depth 19. Gentlemen, we have brimstone.

Killed by a fury; level 20; 16162



Tch, that spear was paralysis? I had this nagging feeling I shouldn't have tossed it.

Oh this picture was at the start of floor 20. I used the healing and all the offensive wand charges before I died.

13228 - Killed by a Revenant on level 19.

A fatally poisoned revenant, I should add. The dar battlemage that set me on fire was what really killed me.

I never found a scroll of protect weapon or a scroll of protect armor, which made dealing with acid mounds, acid turrets, and acid jellies a real pain. I actually was very lucky, an acid turret got two shots on me at one point, but both missed my +3 splint mail.

I was constantly either out of food or out of health potions or both. (Mostly both). The lack of health potions wasn't too much of a bother, since I settled on a sneak build pretty quickly (poison+run away+awareness+stealth). It did cause problems in regards to food, though. After watching the recording I can see that I missed a couple of rooms that had both food and scrolls in them.

I got out of some pretty dicey situations to get as far as I did.

• Level 11, the room with a spider and two dar was pretty frightening, but luckily they stayed asleep. I poisoned the spider and then threw an incineration potion into the room and didn't look back as the bridge burned behind me.
• Level 12, I was running from a zombie and accidentally lured it over the top of a paralysis trigger with the vent 2 spaces away from me. Already under 40% health, I figured I was done for. I threw a potion of confusion into the face of the zombie, hoping to keep it from hitting me long enough to escape. It smacked me the next turn, waking me from my own confusion, and the confusion gas having pushed out the paralysis gas allowed me to go through the door.
• Level 12, I got caught between an ogre and a troll with no healing potion available. I beat my way through the Ogre to make a run for it, then cast slow on the Troll and wore it down with poison, until I finally dominated it. That troll made it with me the rest of the way.
• Level 13, the bog monster key trap nearly did me in, but my now faithful troll ally helped me beat three of them down and escape. I had just a tiny sliver of health remaining, and my prize was a +1 ring of stealth (exactly what I was looking for). By this time I knew stealth and obstruction were probably the final keys to winning the game. Unfortunately I only found one of them.
• Level 15, a centaur pinned me down and very nearly got me, but the combination of a fatal dose of poison and my troll pummelling it did it in first.

All in all, a really exciting game, and one of my best runs ever.

Final build:
+8 wand of poison
+3 war pike
+3 splint mail
+3 ring of awareness
+3 ring of stealth
Extra equipment:
+3 spear of paralysis (only paralyzed like 2 creatures, so I gave up on it for the increased damage of the pike)
+3 ring of wisdom
wands of domination, slow, beckoning, and teleport