Angband FAQ Part One

From: benh@phial.com (Ben Harrison)
Newsgroups: rec.games.roguelike.angband
Subject: rec.games.roguelike.angband FAQ part 1
Followup-To: rec.games.roguelike.angband
Organization: Adventurers Anonymous
Summary: Answers to common questions about the roguelike game Angband

Angband Frequently Asked Questions - Part 1 (Non-spoilers)

Compiled and maintained by Ben Harrison (benh@phial.com).
For Angband 2.8.3 - May be inaccurate with other versions.

Angband FAQ Part Two (Spoilers) is available separately.

Based on the source code, and information provided by: Jules Bean, Scott Bigham, Matt Craighead, Joseph W. DeVincentis, Ben Harrison, Jason Holtzapple, Randy Hutson, Stephen S. Lee, Rick Lim, Steve Linberg, Ross Millikan, Adam Schenker, Andrew Schoonmaker, Cliff Stamp, Billy Tanksley, Charles F. Teague II, Pat Tracy, and others.

Table of Contents

Angband FAQ - Part One:

General Information
Downloading Angband and related material
Technical Information
1. Expanding PKZIP archives
2. How do I use an old savefile or savefile from another platform?
Creating Characters
1. What is maximize mode?
2. What is preserve mode?
Gameplay Questions
Questionable gameplay techniques
About rec.games.roguelike.angband
Suggestions for future versions that have been considered
Programming Questions
Variants
Old Bugs and Undocumented Features

Angband FAQ - Part One

1. General Information

1a. What is Angband?

Angband is a single-player, text-based, dungeon simulation derived from the game Moria, an enhancement of the old unix game Rogue. It is often described as a "roguelike" game because the look and feel of the game is still quite similar to Rogue.

Angband features many enhancements over Moria: unique foes, artifacts, monster pits and vaults to name a few. Many of these new creatures and objects are drawn from the writings of J.R.R Tolkien, although some of the monsters come straight from classical mythology, Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster, or the minds of the orginal Angband coders.

The ultimate goal of the game is to develop a character strong enough to defeat Morgoth, who lurks around dungeon level 100. Upon doing so, you will receive the exalted status of "winner" and your character may retire.

Angband is a reference to Morgoth's "prison of iron."

1b. Who is Morgoth?

Morgoth was 'the Dark Enemy of Middle-Earth' during its First Age. He was banished by the Valar (offspring of Eru, "god" of J.R.R. Tolkien's world) at the end of the First Age and thus never appears in The Lord of the Rings, set during the Third Age. Sauron, who does figure into those tales, was the most powerful of his servants. Read Tolkien's 'The Silmarillion' for more on the legends of Middle-Earth.

1c. On what computers can I play?

The most recent version of Angband can be played on Unix (including Linux and X Windows), Acorn, Amiga, Macintosh, Power Macintosh, Windows, DOS-8088, 286, 386 and OS/2-386 systems. Pre-compiled binaries for most of these systems are available. With the introduction of version 2.7, it has become much simpler to port the code to any machine with a decent C compiler. See the source code for more details.

1d. What is the latest version of Angband?

Angband 2.8.3 is the most recent stable version.

1e. How do I get the latest version of this FAQ?

Both parts of the FAQ are posted to rec.games.roguelike.angband weekly. Part One is an official Usenet FAQ and is also posted to rec.answers and news.answers.

Part One (as an official Usenet FAQ) is archived at rtfm.mit.edu (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/games/angband-faq).

Both parts of the FAQ are always available at the Official Angband Home Page (http://www.phial.com/angband/) in several forms.

Angband FAQ Part One as html (http://www.phial.com/angband/angfaq1.html)
Angband FAQ Part Two as html (http://www.phial.com/angband/angfaq2.html)
Angband FAQ Part One as text (http://www.phial.com/angband/angfaq1.txt)
Angband FAQ Part Two as text (http://www.phial.com/angband/angfaq2.txt)

1f. Who's the current maintainer?

Ben Harrison (benh@phial.com) is the current maintainer of Angband (and this FAQ).

1g. Version history

This would be incomplete without a short Moria history as well:

The first version of Moria was was written by Robert Alan Koeneke and Jimmey Wayne Todd Jr in 1983 for VAX machines. It was ported to Unix in 1987 under the name 'Umoria' and further maintained by James E. Wilson.

In 1990, Alex Cutler and Andy Astrand, students at the University of Warwick, England, decided to write a Tolkien-based game based on Umoria 5.2.1 and Angband was born. Their intentions were to keep, or even strengthen, Moria's firm grounding in Tolkien lore. Their original changes included greatly expanded monsters and items (including uniques and artifacts), level feelings, pseudo-ID, activation, monster pits and vaults. The resulting heavily-customized Moria was not intended for outside release, but merely as a local version of Moria, to run only on Warwick's Unix system. Sometime in its development, before it was released and ported, the existing Unix code got the unlikely version number 'Angband 2.4.Frog-knows'.

Over time, various people released various changes to Angband, including Sean Marsh, Geoff Hill, Charles Teague, Charles Swiger, and Ben Harrison. See the Angband help file "version.txt" for some more information.

2. Downloading Angband And Related Material

2a. FTP sites

There are several useful Angband FTP sites. These FTP sites are often not accessible with the FTP function of a web browser. If you experience trouble, make sure your browser is using passive FTP or try a non-web browser FTP client. To learn how to use FTP, read the Roguelike Games FAQ (http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/games/roguelike/faq.html), posted every week to rec.games.roguelike.misc.

Official Angband Development FTP site (ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband/)
Official Angband Mirror FTP site (ftp://ftp.cis.ksu.edu/pub/Games/Angband/)

2b. WWW sites

There are several useful Angband WWW sites. These sites may contain links to other useful sites.

Official Angband Home Page (http://www.phial.com/angband/)
Unofficial Angband Home Page (http://www.paranoia.com/~jth/angband/),

2c. WWW files

There are currently no known WWW files available.

3. Technical Information

3a. Expanding PKZIP archives

When using "PKUNZIP" to expand a distribution archive, be sure to use the '-d' option to create the 'lib' subdirectories, or they will have to be created by hand. This is not necessary with "WinZip".

3b. How do I use an old savefile or savefile from another platform?

The latest version of Angband should import savefiles from any previous version, including MacAngband 1.0 - 2.0.3 and PC Angband 1.4, though some older savefiles will lose some information during the import (for example, pre-2.7.8 savefiles may lose all or part of the monster memory and/or object memory).

Savefiles are platform-independent. Be sure to use 'binary' FTP if that is your method of transfer. On a Macintosh, use the Import... menu item to import savefiles lacking the proper type ('SAVE') and creator ('A271').

4. Creating Characters

4a. What is maximize mode? (by Scott Bigham)

All characters receive stat modifiers based on their race and class (Half-Trolls get an INT penalty, Priests get a WIS bonus, and so forth). The maximize mode flag determines how these modifiers are applied to the character's actual stats. Since this obviously affects character creation, the value of this flag must be chosen before you create your character.

As an example of how this works, imagine rolling up a High-Elf Mage. High-Elf Mages receive a combined racial and class bonus of +6 to INT; for purposes of illustration, let's say the stat roller rolls a 17 INT (the highest possible value before modification).

In non-maximize mode, the +6 bonus is applied much as if the character quaffed six Potions of Intelligence. The positive side of this is that your character can get a starting INT of around 18/70, since each "potion" can give them more than 10 percentiles once they are past 18. The negative side of this is that this 18/70 is now your character's base INT, and without stat-boosting items, he/she can only push their base INT up to 18/100.

In maximize mode, the +6 bonus is applied as though the character had swallowed a Ring of Intelligence (+6). The negative side of this is that your character can't get a starting INT above 18/50 (17 plus the +6 "ring" bonus). The positive side of this is that although the effective INT is 18/50, the base INT is only 17; once you've pushed your character's base INT up to 18/100, the effective INT without stat-boosting items will be 18/160!

On the flip side, our High-Elf Mage also gets a combined -4 penalty to STR. In non-maximize mode, this is treated like quaffing four Potions of Weakness, but your character's STR can still be increased all the way up to 18/100. In maximize mode, you've effectively got a Spleen of Weakness (-4), which means that your character's maximum possible effective STR, without stat-boosting items, is 18/60 (18/100 base plus the -4 penalty).

In summary, then in non-maximize mode, your character will get bettter starting stats, and all stats will max out at 18/100. This typically makes the early game easier, while in maximize mode, your character's starting stats aren't as good, but the primary stat(s) will max out above 18/100, while the "off" stats will max out below 18/100. This typically makes the end game easier.

4b. What is preserve mode?

Characters created in preserve mode receive no "special" level feelings, but any unidentified artifacts, if missed, may appear again later in the game and are not lost forever. Anything that would have caused a "special" feeling contributes to the level feeling that your character receives instead.

5. Gameplay Questions

5a. How do I set game options and what do they mean?

They are set using the = command. To see what the various options mean, access the List of Options help menu with the ? command.

5b. What effect does turning off haggling have on the price of items?

Turning off haggling causes all prices to be determined as the "best" price that could have been acheived via haggling, modified by a special ten percent "transaction tax". This tax is not applied if haggling would not have been necessary in the first place (if the item is very cheap or very expensive, or you have a good haggling history for the item, or you have a good haggling history with the shopkeeper). So, normally, it is possible to get a better deal by taking the time to actually haggle with a shopkeeper.

5c. How does shopkeeper rotation work?

Starting with Angband 2.8.0, shopkeeper rotation is a feature. In old versions of the game, it was either non-existent or disabled by default.

The shopkeepers will change, but this can take a long time. Be patient. When they do change, all items in the shop are marked down to "on sale" (50% off) and all haggling and insult counters are reset.

Different shop owners will give different prices for items for various reasons, and no shop owner will ever pay more for an item then the amount mentioned in the header of the shop's inventory list.

5d. What is auto-scum?

With autoscum enabled, the Angband dungeon generator will stop only on levels that it considers "good." The deeper in the dungeon your character, the "better" the level must be. See question (5f) for an explanation of what contributes to this calculation.

If your character is not in preserve mode, the game will always stop on any "special" level.

5e. How do the cheating options work?

Enabling any of the cheating options will mark the current savefile as a "cheater", and your character will be unable to make the high score list. Each option activates some special behavior which may make the game easier in some way.

The various "peek into xxx creation" cheating options will cause the game to announce the creation of "interesting" occurances of the relevant topic. The "peek into something else" option will cause the game to accounce all changes involving shops.

The "know complete monster info" cheating option will grant your character complete information about every monster.

The "allow player to avoid death" cheating option will allow your character to "cheat death" whenever he would normally die. This causes your character to be fully healed, and instantly teleported to the town level. 5f. What are the messages I get upon entering a new level?

These are known as "level feelings" and give the general rating of the level. You will only get them when you enter a level if you've been on the previous level long enough. Otherwise you will get a "Looks like any other level" message. "Long enough" is 1000 game turns, adjusted by your speed. For a normal speed character, this would be 100 player turns. Many players say that only "good," "very good," "excellent," "superb," and "special" levels are worth exploring, but this of course a matter of opinion.

Valuable objects, artifacts, player ghosts, pits, nests, vaults, out-of-depth creatures and out-of-depth non-cursed objects all contribute to the "rating" of a level, and thus to the resulting "feeling".

5g. What causes a "special" feeling?

A "special" feeling (about a level) only occurs if, when the level was first created, it contained an artifact, a monster pit, a monster nest, or a vault. As your character gets deeper in the dungeon, there is less of a chance that monster pits, monster nests, and vaults will cause "special" feelings. See the spoiler "dungeon.spo" for more detail. If you are playing in preserve mode, you will never receive a "special" feeling.

5h. How do I exchange weapons in newer versions of Angband?

The spare weapon slot was replaced by the bow slot in Angband 2.7, but there is a fairly simple way to exchange weapons using a default macro. Using the "{" command, inscribe your "primary" weapon with "@1@0", and your "secondary" weapon with "@2@0". The "X" command will then switch between the two, and you will be also be able to use the command "w1" and "w2" to explicitly wield the primary and secondary weapons, respectively.

5i. What do the minuses in the name of a piece of armor mean?

This is a to-hit penalty for wearing heavy or inflexible armor. Such armor, if not identified, will not show the penalty but it will still be in effect.

5j. The game tells me that I must "Study" but I can't learn any new spells. What is going on?

Your character is missing one of the more powerful books containing spells that s/he can learn. See question (11a) for more detail.

5k. How does the fractional speed system work?

As of Angband 2.7.3, the old simplistic speed system (slow, normal, fast, very fast, and extremely fast) was replaced with a new fractional speed system which in which speed is point based (0 to 199).

Basically, time passes in the world in small units called "game turns", and during every "game turn", each entity (the monsters and the player) receives some "energy" points, based on its "speed" rating. When an entity acquires at least 100 energy points, they must perform some action (such as move or attack or rest) which consumes some of their energy points. The higher the "speed" rating, the faster "energy" points are acquired, so more actions can be performed in a given number of "game turns".

A "normal" entity has a speed of 110, and receives 10 energy points per game turn. A "slow" entity has a speed below 110, and receives between 1 and 9 energy points per game turn. A "fast" entity has a speed above 110, and receives between 11 and 49 energy points per game turn. Note that the number of energy points received per game turn is approximately equal to the speed minus 110, but the actual equation is more asymptotic. The current speed of your character, if not "normal", is displayed as "Slow (-N)" or "Fast (+N)", indicating the distance of the speed from "normal".

The most obvious effect of speed is in combat, but it also affects the rate of food consumption (extremely fast characters must be careful not to starve), and the number of "player turns" that a character must spend on a level to get a level feeling on the next.

5l. Introduction to macros

See the Angband help file "playing.txt" for a good introduction to macros, and to the "user pref files" in which they can be saved. Since macros are stored in user pref files, and not in your character's savefile, if you quit without saving your new macros to a user pref file, they will be lost.

Angband will automatically load several "user pref files" when a character is loaded, for example, if I am playing a high-elf mage named "Fearless" on some kind of Macintosh computer, in graphics mode, then the user pref files "pref.prf", "graf.prf", "user.prf", and "Fearless.prf" will be autoloaded, which will themselves load "pref-mac.prf", "graf-mac.prf", "graf-xxx.prf", and "user-mac.prf". In this example, new macros sould be saved either in "user-mac.prf" or "Fearless.prf".

5m. How do I save macros?

Use the "%" command. Option 2, "Dump macros," will allow you to save all the current macros into a user pref file. There is currently no way to only save newly added macros.

6. Questionable Gameplay Techniques

6a. Savefile abuse

Angband follows the same behavior when a character dies as many of the other rogue-like games. When a character dies, that's it, game over. Information on monsters that the character has seen (monster memory) is retained, but the player must start again. This is in contrast to most fantasy role-playing computer games that let you restore your game from a savefile if you die. Angband also differs from most commercial games in that there is no puzzle solving as such.

This behavior has given rise to backup savefile abuse, which entails making a copy of the savefile to another part of your disk, and in the unfortunate event of death, moving it back to its original location and restoring the game.

Almost everyone uses backup savefiles at the start, but as soon as your players stop dying with great frequency, you should probably stop using them. Your play experience will become more rewarding as a result. You certainly do not have to stop using backups, many players never do. As long as you enjoy the game, who cares?

Note that it is possible to compile Angband with a variety of options which attempt to prevent savefile abuse and other security problems, but this normally only applies if you are using some version of UNIX.

6b. Stair-scumming

Stair scumming is a technique primarily used to generate levels with artifacts (special weapons and items). It involves loitering around a stairway for a certain number of turns on a "non-special" level, then using the stairway to force the game to generate a new level. If the new level is not "special," the process is repeated.

The technique may also be used to force the storekeepers in town to refresh their inventory of identify and word of recall scrolls, restore stat and life-level restore potions, and light sources, since they restock every 10000 game turns (1000 player turns for a character at normal speed).

The first type of scumming is a more serious abuse than the second.

There has been much discussion on the newsgroup on how to restrict this type of abuse. It will likely remain unresolved because of the personal decision involved, i.e. you don't *have* to stair scum.

6c. Monster farming

Involves cloning monsters with good treasure drops in the hopes of getting good items and gaining experience. Effective with ancient dragons, wyrms, druj, and many others. Can be dangerous, considering the power of the monsters. Also used in regards to "worm farming," which is an easy (albeit boring) way to quickly gain experience at low levels.

6d. Summoning/Polymorphing

Summoning and polymorphing monsters at low experience levels can be dangerous if the new monster is more than your character can handle. Summoning deep in the dungeon is perilous for any character, especially since it is no longer true that dangerous monsters will be forced to sleep when summoned.

7. About rec.games.roguelike.angband

7a. General notes

The newsgroup serves a dual-purpose role, supporting both game development and gameplay discussions. If you write new program code for the game, don't post it (unless it is really short); upload it to an ftp site and give a pointer. Also, since Angband is still in active development, this newsgroup has high traffic.

7b. Glossary of terms

Common Abbreviations:

DSM - Dragon Scale Mail
PDSM - Power Dragon Scale Mail
GoI - Globe of Invulnerability
OoD - Orb of Draining
Phial - Phial of Galadriel
RGRA - rec.games.roguelike.angband
RLL - Potion of Restore Life Levels
RoS - Ring of Speed
WoR - Word of Recall
YACD - Yet Another Character Description
YASD - Yet Another Stupid Death

Definitions:

Borg - An automatic Angband player. Must be enabled at compile time. Precompiled versions of the game do not come with the Borg.
Graveyard - a monster nest filled with undead creatures.
Nest - Similar to a pit, but containing an inner room and a random assortment of monsters of a given type. Monsters vary by depth, so a Nest deep in the dungeon can be very nasty.
Pit - A 19x5 room filled with a certain type of creature.
Vault - A special room that comes in two flavors, lesser and greater. They will often contain out-of-depth monsters and good items.
Wizard Mode - Used mainly by Angband coders to debug the game. Allows object creation, telepathy, etc. Must be enabled at compile time. Precompiled versions of the game come with wizard mode turned off.
Zoo - A monster nest filled with animals.

7c. Questions on r.g.r.a

Don't let the amount of technical information discussed deter you from asking a question, but do browse this FAQ (and the table of contents of Part Two as well) and read some recent postings before posting yourself. Questions on strategy, bug reports, suggestions, and amusing stories related to the game are all welcome.

If you give hints, you should be fairly sure that you have accurate information (or you may qualify your statements with a comment on your uncertainty). Also any spoilers as should be marked as SPOILER in the subject line.

7d. Victory posts

Victory posts are where you get to boast of your crowning achievement, the defeat of Morgoth. A victory post commonly gives the equipment list and statistic screen for the lucky King or Queen (through the 'C' command), plus a short summary of the game including highlights such as especially lucky treasure finds or near-death experiences.

With a victory post you should state some facts like which version of Angband you are playing and whether you used backup files, cheating options, wizard mode. If you are a die-hard player and win with a self-imposed restriction (like "no artifacts") mention this as well so others will shower you with even more glory.

7e. Stupid Death (or YASD) posts

This is where you post your depressing stories about your poor, late alter ego. Other people may be able to empathize with you and console you; others may be able to offer tips so that you won't fall into the same trap again. Also, you teach others about your experience and help them avoid the same mistake you made. Posts that are in the form of a short, amusing tale often provoke a positive response from other readers of the group and do wonders at relieving stress.

7f. Why do so many players seem to dislike or even hate Nethack?

Nethack's atmosphere is less serious than Angband and sometimes just plain silly. Many people enjoy and play both games, there is just a different philosophy behind Nethack.

8. Suggestions For Future Versions That Have Been Considered

8a. Let the player store money in his/her home.

This would make the monetary theft attack useless.

Omega features a bank. Nethack allows players to keep money in bags so it can't be stolen, but this allows the whole bag to be stolen!

8b. Let creatures who steal items or money drop the goods when slain.

This is available (as of Angband 2.8.1) as an option, but only for stolen items. Future versions may support stolen gold in a similar manner.

8c. Increase the player's carrying capacity.

This idea involves giving the player more item slots or the creation of items like "bags of holding."

If the character was allowed to carry a nearly unlimited supply of items, then there would be no strategy involving careful selection of equipment and inventory, which is an integral part of the game.

8d. Let players give or sell their items to other players.

That would make the game trivial for low level players with friends and make rare items much easier to acquire. The "pawn shop" in town falls into this category.

In Nethack, players can do this indirectly, because its "bone" files contain the inventory of the dead player. The roguelike FAQ contains a list of multi-player roguelike games, where this might be an option.

8e. Allow more than one object per square.

This is available (as of Angband 2.8.1) as an option.

8f. A "pass through wall" spell.

This would create too many problems with line-of-sight computations. If the player was somehow blinded by being in the wall, then the wall would grant infinite armor class.

Omega, Ragnarok and Larn all have pass-through-wall spells.

8g. I want a real-time multi-player Angband!

This is harder than it sounds. See "Mangband" below.

9. Programming Questions

9a. Where can I obtain the source code?

The source code for the most recent version is available via anonymous FTP.

Official Angband Developement FTP site Source directory (ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband/Source/)
Official Angband Mirror FTP site Source directory (ftp://ftp.cis.ksu.edu/pub/Games/Angband/Source/)

9b. To what extent can I modify the source and release modified versions?

You are free to rewrite sections of the game code and release your own version of Angband, provided that you retain copyright notices and proper credits, and do not attempt to make a profit in any way.

9c. Is there any easy way for a non-programmer to hack the game?

Figure out the format of the "./lib/edit/*_info.txt" files, edit them, delete the corresponding "./lib/data/*_info.raw" files, and restart the game. This should not be done unless you know exactly what you are doing. These files should be treated in the same manner as "source code", and for those of you who do not know what this means, realize that changing such files may result in unusable savefiles and/or unexpected crashes. You have been warned!

9d. Why doesn't wizard mode work in the version that I have?

The debug commands are intended as a debugging tool for programmers. It is not currently enabled with most pre-compiled versions of Angband because of the additional memory and disk space required, but some special pre-compiled versions do include the debug commands. You can always activate the debug commands by compiling your own version of Angband (or by getting somebody else to do it for you). Using the debug commands will "mark" your character's savefile, and you will be unable to make the high score list that character. See the source code for more information.

9e. What is the borg? Why doesn't it appear in the version that I have?

The borg commands allow an automatic player to control your character. It is not currently enabled with most pre-compiled versions of Angband because of the additional memory and disk space required, but some special pre-compiled versions do include the borg commands. You can always activate the borg commands by compiling your own version of Angband (or by getting somebody else to do it for you). Using the borg commands will "mark" your character's savefile, and you will be unable to make the high score list that character. See the source code for more information.

9f. How do I use the borg?

Use the "control-z" command to access the borg commands, if they have been included in the version you are using. When prompted, you may start the borg using the "z" key, and stop it by pressing any key. See the source code for more information. Be warned that the borg may contain bugs!

9g. How do I generate auto-spoilers?

You must have a version compiled with ALLOW_WIZARD and ALLOW_SPOILERS. Enter wizard mode, then type control-a and a double quote (").

10. Variants

Many of these variants are available for anonymous FTP.

Official Angband Developement FTP site Variant directory (ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband/Variant/)
Official Angband Mirror FTP site Variant directory (ftp://ftp.cis.ksu.edu/pub/Games/Angband/Variant/)

10a. Are there any variants available for the Macintosh?

Yes! GW-Angband, Zangband, Sangband, and Cat-in-the-Hack Angband were recently compiled for the Macintosh. Any decent variant created from any recent copy of the Angband source code should be trivial to port to the Macintosh.

10b. Drangband

This version adds 7 new character races: Copper, Gold, Crystal, Bronze and Pseudo dragons, Yeeks and Pixies. Drangband 2.0 is based on 2.7.8 code and is relatively easy to compile on multiple platforms.

10c. Fangband

Another variant of PC Angband 1.4, Fangband adds different terrain types and delayed level feelings.

10d. Qangband

Probably descended from Angband 2.4.Frog-knows. Adds a quiver slot for wielding ammo.

10e. Zangband

Though officially Zangband stands for "Zelazny-Amber Angband", it could just as easily stand for Zany Angband. It plays like Angband with some Nethack and Doom thrown in for good measure. This is a variant for those who want something completely different. It has been updated to use the 2.8.1 sources, and is easy to compile for multiple platforms.

10f. Bangband

Adds two new character types, Monk and Dragon. Skills like backstabbing are also added.

10g. Sangband

A descendant of Bangband, with no character classes, as such. Instead, you spend your experience to improve various skills such as weaponsmithing, spellcasting, backstabbing, etc. Based on 2.8.0 code, and is relatively easy to compile for multiple platforms.

10h. Utumno

Utumno is a graphical version of Angband written by Matt Craighead in beta test for DOS/SVGA machines. There is a web site (http://www.citilink.com/~craighea/utumno/).

10i. GW-Angband

A variant by Greg Wooledge. Attempts to balance the character classes (specifically the mage). There is a web site (http://kellnet.com/wooledge/angband.html). Based on 2.7.9v6, and is relatively easy to compile for multiple platforms.

10j. Multi-player Angband (Mangband)

Keldon Jones is coding Multi-Player Angband (Mangband). There is a web site (http://www.umr.edu/~keldon/mangband/).

11. Old Bugs And Undocumented Features

11a. The game says that I'm missing a spellbook when I try to learn some new spells. What's the reason for this?

You are missing a book containing spells that you can learn. More often than not, your character needs one of the books that can only be found in the black market or deep in the dungeon. Only 4 of the 9 mage or priest spellbooks are readily available in town.

11b. I'm fighting an invisible monster that I can't kill, and I can't see it even with see invisible. What's going on?

You have encountered the invisible monster bug. Save and exit the game, then restart. The monster should be gone. Of course, a more permanent solution would be to upgrade to a newer version without the bug.

11c. I'm playing on a PC. Why can't I use shift+arrow key to run, like I could in earlier versions of Angband?

In 2.7.X, this has been fixed using macros. Make sure the default macro files are loading correctly. Note that pressing shift plus keypad five causes a fatal error in some copies of Angband 2.8.1.

11d. How do I drop/sell/etc multiple objects at a time in Angband 2.8.2?

In all recent versions of Angband, if a command count is given to certain commands (drop, sell, etc), then this count will be used as the "quantity" for the command. This means, for example, that you can simply type "099da" to drop (or sell) all of the item in slot "a". For convenience, some recent versions of Angband prompt for a quantity under certain circumstances, but this was removed in Angband 2.8.2, causing some confusion. In Angband 2.8.3 the prompting has been restored (if an appropriate option is set).