Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

The Crawl 0.20 Tournament starts on May 26th and ends on June 11th!

Hang out in our Discord server while you play! https://discord.gg/3JEyRYg

What is Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup?

Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is a popular, free roguelike game focusing on tactics, balance, variety and a lasting challenge. A roguelike is generally a turn-based RPG, with an emphasis on randomly generated worlds, a high depth of play, huge menageries of monsters, and some MacGuffin you have to dig up and escape with. Most roguelikes use ASCII characters for graphics, though an increasing number utilize graphical tiles, like Crawl. Roguelikes are usually very tough to beat, and death is often permanent: once you're dead, you're dead.

This has all of the elements of a classic roguelike, but avoids the major annoyances and monotonous requirements present in many of them. It makes playing the game a natural experience, without "gotcha" deaths that demand an encyclopedia of knowledge. Everything you need to know to survive is present in each turn, whether it be through careful observation, making use of the resources you've collected and learned, or referring to the help by pressing "?" if you're not sure what each key does yet.

Crawl is great because it demands attention to survive, but skips or automates a lot of the boring poo poo that slows down similar games. New changes always have reasoning based in fun or balance. When you die, it's usually because you overestimated your strength, took a chance, and lost. You'll learn from each death; you will die early and often. When the game smiles upon you with some really good items and luck, hubris often becomes your worst enemy. Although the game is heavily dependent on luck, victory is always possible even if you are getting the short stick at every turn. Veteran players can streak wins together with random characters.

Major design goals:

challenging and unpredictable gameplay, with an emphasis on tactical skill
meaningful decisions (no no-brainer, works-every-time-with-every-character play choices)
grinding is unnecessary
a simplified and elegant interface, with a helpful tutorial and mouse support for new players

Minor design goals:

clarity of design (playable without the need for external spoilers)
thematic consistency (no lightsaber-wielding orcs)
replayability and lasting challenge (with optional branches, multiple race/background/god choices, and optional challenges)
proper use of out-of-depth monsters

What's new in v0.20?

New Species: Barachim!

Barachim are frog people who move slow and have a longer line of sight than other species (not necessarily a good thing). In exchange, they have the ability to hop away from/into danger at will! They are also above average at both fighting and magic based skills.

Other Notable Changes:

Branches: In Slime, the treasure walls will only be breached instead of disappearing completely. In Tomb, the staircases have been replaced with one-way hatches. Additionally, new vaults using transporters (one-way portals to another place on the level) have been added throughout the game.
Spells: Venom Mages gain Poisonous Vapours, a L2 Poison/Air spell that allows you to instantly fill any single square in LoS with a short lasting poisonous cloud. Ignition, a L8 Fire spell, casts a slightly weaker Fireball on every single enemy in line of sight! In exchange, Delayed Fireball and Poisonous Cloud have been removed. Additionally, Repel Missiles has been removed as a spell (Air Elementalists now get Airstrike in their starting book). Portal Projectile and Gell's Gravitas have swapped places in starting books, with AM getting Portal Projectile (now a Hexes spell) and Warpers getting Gell's Gravitas.
Items: Scarves, a cloak-slot item that doesn't give AC but will always have a strong magical effect. Rods have been removed: rods of clouds and scattershot have been converted into wands, and lighting rods have been converted into an evocable. Wands of heal wounds, hasting, and teleportation have been removed; potions of heal wounds/haste and scrolls of teleportation have had drop rates increased to compensate. Potions of cure mutation, beneficial mutation, and mutation have been combined into a single 'mutation' potion which first cures, then mutates, then beneficially mutates the drinker; new potions of mutation are also relatively common, so drink the purple!
Characters: High Elves have been removed for being too Tolkien-esque (and maybe some other reasons). Ogres are no longer super good at Maces & Flails (+3 to -1), but have much better all around magic aptitudes (-1 instead of -2/-3). Deep Dwarves have had their Recharging skill replaced with a Heal Wounds skill (to compensate for removing wands of heal wounds) that heals you like a heal wounds potion would and has a 1/4 chance to drain 1 point of max MP. Mummies are buffed!!! (spellcasting from -1 to +2).
Gods: The Shining One no longer cares about poison, and will just prevent the extra damage from stab attacks instead of becoming angry if the player peforms one.
A noise meter has been added to the HUD (replacing the gold display), which displays how much noise has been made in your line of sight during the previous turn. Gold can be seen by pressing $ or % (character screen), and is displayed in the piety meter section for Gozag worshippers.
Pizza has been removed.

There's tons of little changes, so read the Full 0.20 Changelog if you play often.

Why play Online?

Spectate live games and chat with the player and others! Check out this list of everyone playing right now, and click "Watch" to see their live game.
Progress and settings (rcfile) are saved.
Keep track of your victories, defeats, and all kinds of stats.
Always up-to-date, with nightly builds available to play.
Participate in the May 26th-June 11th Tournament to show off your skill!

You can play Crawl in your browser very easily. The most popular servers are:

CAO: US West
CBRO: US East
CJR: Montreal
CXC: France
CUE: Germany
CPO: Australia
CSZO is dead. you can get your morgues/rcfiles here.

Other servers and instructions for joining via SSH/Telnet (with a client such as KiTTY or PuTTY) are available here: How to play Online.

Play Offline

If you prefer a lagless experience offline, you can Download Crawl for Windows, Max OSX, Linux and Android.

The chats, communities and resources:

##crawl on Freenode - Official Dungeon Crawl IRC. You can chat, ask for help, and get up-to-date information from bots, veterans, and devs.
Crawl Wiki - A good source for general information and spoilers. Be wary of the game version displayed on each page; some will be quite outdated!
LearnDB - Searchable repository of Dungeon Crawl lore. Almost always up to date & accurate, but sometimes its terseness and in-jokes do it no favors.
Knowledge Bot - Uses LearnDB, IRC bots and sprites to provide a very nice search engine for almost anything about the game.
The Tavern - Official Dungeon Crawl forum.
/r/DCSS - le reddit.
##gooncrawl on Freenode - For a goonier chat.

Other Stuff:

Hito's Let's Play aimed at beginners
Pyke's Crawl Diary - solid crawl advice, ramblings of a lunatic, and much more

Below is a screenshot of a typical early-game experience. I am a Kobold Assassin who got a little overzealous in fighting these three very basic enemies. The adder has poisoned me while the jackal and hobgoblin did little chunks of damage quickly. I only had one unidentified potion available, so I drank it in hopes that it would heal me or cure my poison. Unfortunately, it turned me into a tree, and now I will likely die. If I had faced these enemies one at a time in these weak early stages, or ran away from them, I would have lived to see the next floor!

Earlier threads:
Crawl 0.19: Just Riposte (pastebin dump)
Crawl 0.18: Purple Reign
Crawl 0.17: Corn enemies no longer popcorn
Crawl 0.16: Ru asks you to sacrifice your free time! This is a trivial butt
Crawl 0.15: Terrifying, Ever-Gnashing Radulae
Crawl 0.14: You feel energized by your suffering!
Crawl 0.13: FoIE GrAs: You are engorged.
Crawl 0.12: Erolcha banished me and gave me apocalypse crabs
Crawl 0.11: Eight legs and it's not an Octopode: Welcome to Spider
Crawl 0.10: Your tentacles turn into razor-sharp scythe blades
Crawl 0.9: A meow rips itself from your throat
Crawl 0.8: Mennas II Society
Crawl 0.7: The Dying Game
Crawl 0.6: Slouching towards The Abyss
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.5.0: Now with less Oklob!
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.4.0
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3.0

_{I am not always playing or checking on this game week to week. Please PM me if any important info is missing/changed.}

lizardhunt fucked around with this message at 17:41 on May 26, 2017

# ¿ Nov 3, 2016 05:32

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:06

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Speleothing posted:

You ought to include the Knowledge Bot in the OP.

Done. Again, always open to suggestions for the OP! I'll be looking through the 0.18 thread for drawings/photoshops, and I'd like to put some new screenshots up top as well.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2016 16:20

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

The Teams Page is now working, and all servers appear to have 0.19 running. Make sure you're using the 0.19 rcfile for your teams! (Shard1697 and wormsofcant are currently missing from Rods out for Pakellas)

Seems they're testing out things right now; the points will be reset 20 hours from now when the tourny starts.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2016 00:41

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Pinechild posted:

Also, I'd be interested in maybe setting up an optional Discord since it seems pretty easy.

Go for it! I'll plug it in OP and join for at least the start tomorrow. Same with ##gooncrawl

# ¿ Nov 4, 2016 02:11

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

0.19 Tourny has begun! :siren:

Remember there are three chats to hang out in, if you want:

##crawl: The official crawl chat with everyone and everything
Goon Crawl Discord Server: New, basically irc with emotes, a slick interface, and optional voice chat.
##gooncrawl: this is the one time of the year people will use it! _{can we all switch to discord}

Also, teams don't close for another week, so you have time to make or join one!

# ¿ Nov 4, 2016 21:00

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

#squadgoals #beachday

(Nergalle did not survive beach day)

# ¿ Nov 7, 2016 21:08

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

We have the best teams, don't we folks?

# ¿ Nov 9, 2016 06:25

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

busb posted:

Oh man i missed that there was a new version and tourney

You have about 20 hours to join a team, and 8 days until the tourny ends! Plenty of time for a win.

KitFox88 made a new team at the end of page 4, or you could make your own or search other places like irc/reddit.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2016 02:27

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

tote up a bags posted:

Are Formicids able to use Uksayaw's merge ability, or does it count as a blink?

Yep, antmen can use Line Pass and Grand Finale.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2016 18:07

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

He can still be with you in spirit. #RodsOut

# ¿ Nov 12, 2016 21:30

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Rods out for Pakellas did great, we ranked #17. Floodkiller and Can of Worms kicked rear end with lots of wins.

Last tourny I got one 15-rune win. This time I got two 4-rune wins. Next time I'll get four 3-rune wins?

Thanks to Floodkiller for setting up the Discord everyone in there for keeping it fun.

lizardhunt fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Nov 20, 2016

# ¿ Nov 20, 2016 21:19

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

ClothHat posted:

Also can someone give me a really basic explanation of how to get rid of the *more* messages for mass combat? I've been trying to play summoners recently and mashing spacebar gets old really fast when there's 50 things on the screen.

in your rcfile:

show_more = false

To supplement this, you'll want to Ctrl-P more often during dangerous combat to see who is doing what, where you are taking damage from, etc. You can specify things that always get a "more" message, even with show_more off:

force_more_message += shining eye comes into view
force_more_message += Mara comes into view
force_more_message += Mennas comes into view
force_more_message += orb of fire comes into view
force_more_message += ancient lich comes into view
force_more_message += caustic shrike comes into view
force_more_message += juggernaut comes into view
force_more_message += calcifying dust hits you

are some of the basic things that are important to notice.

ClothHat posted:

What's the problem here?

That's an Oka gift. An ego-less hat is pretty the worst gift from him.

e: I'm working on cleaning up and simplifying the crap out of my rcfile, and will share it here when done.

lizardhunt fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Nov 27, 2016

# ¿ Nov 27, 2016 22:43

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

While watching RyokoTK, a Ru worshipper who sacrificed love, I started thinking:

What good is the Orb of Zot if everyone outside of the dungeon will hate you forever? :geno:

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 06:50

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Crab ability: Molting. Lose your thick (AC+, SH+, Spiny) shell to gain Swiftness and a short EV boost. Enemies will consider your inert former shell a target for several turns. It takes a moderate amount of EXP to regrow a thick shell, and molting cannot be used again until your shell is fully formed.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 19:17

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Yea the addition of starting weapons made monk a pretty good class for melee/projectile dudes who depend on god abilities.

Play as a HOMo if you like Invocations! :black101:

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 01:41

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

euphronius posted:

Just did V5. man that was nuts. I found a hallway and tanked the whole floor in it tho.

Is this guy ready for Zot and a win? IDK

http://pastebin.com/kXeMCkr4

He could win as-is, sure. You might want to consider dropping the buckler and going for a great mace to kill the big nasties faster, or wearing a normal sized shield since you have 15 Shields already. If you can get your Magic Resistance up a bit, maybe go to the end of Elf to look for some more gear. But yea, you're fine.

e: slow typing

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 22:22

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Luceid posted:

Heads up anyone playing on Trunk, Vehumet's mana-on-kill ability currently isn't working so plan accordingly (get a staff of energy)

I think we were wrong in Discord; you were using spellforged servitor, right? I think Vehumet's energy boost only triggers when you are directly responsible for a death, not a summon.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2016 23:07

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

If you remove gozag shops, this wouldn't be possible anymore.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2016 19:48

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

dpeg posted:

You can do swastikas with potions or by digging. What does this have to do with Gozag?

One less cheap comedy option in a game? i dunno man jeez

# ¿ Dec 8, 2016 20:23

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Next time I'll put my shops in a neat square I guess.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2016 20:45

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

tweet my meat posted:

I feel that a large dong made out of shops would be a lot more tasteful and fitting with the Gozag Aesthetic.

I'd love to make this large shopping mall in the shape of a dong. But to avoid conflict, all of my designs will be inoffensive squares and rectangles.

Feelings take priority over comedy, people.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ¿ Dec 8, 2016 23:17

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

# ¿ Dec 9, 2016 05:02

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

tweet my meat posted:

Holy poo poo hill orc monks are fun. Beogh is so incredibly powerful. I can smite, AND get insanely tough orc followers. I'm going to loving steamroll orcish mines when I get there and probably be rolling about 20 orcs deep if everything goes right. What are some good general tips to maximize effectiveness?

give good polearms to all your dudes with names

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 01:48

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

code:

show_more = false

Just be sure to Ctrl-P when a lot of non-obvious things are happening. And you can make --more-- messages act as a safeguard by adding lines like:

code:

force_more_message += (shining eye|orb of fire|ancient lich|caustic shrike|juggernaut) comes into view
force_more_message += (Mara|Mennas) comes into view
force_more_message += calcifying dust hits you
force_more_message += You have finished your manual of
force_more_message += Space bends around you
force_more_message += You feel less protected from missiles.
force_more_message += Your transformation is almost over.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2017 18:17

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Keep Barachian for BaBe and BaNe.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2017 05:31

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Mark another win for the BaBes. :baby:

https://crawl.jorgrun.rocks/morgue/jerkstore/morgue-jerkstore-20170106-211508.txt

Pretty drat easy, but was getting some great gear. Now back to splatting casters.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2017 22:20

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

PleasingFungus posted:

wow, 0.20 sure came out fast

Saves the effort of a new thread I guess. :shrug:

# ¿ Jan 9, 2017 18:57

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

So what should my KoEn^Dith start learning or transitioning to for the end-game? I never really play anything but blasty casters and beefy melee dudes.

Dump: http://pastebin.com/raw/t1GWHzN5

Done with Shoals, and Snake Pit shouldn't be a problem. After that, not too confident. I depend on Invisibility, stabbing sleeping/slow/confused guys, and soon I'll be able to Discord rooms. Can Discord be relied on in Zot?

I probably have enough time to learn a new school of magic but I dunno if I can get a strong Conjuration spell online in time for Depths.

lizardhunt fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Jan 12, 2017

# ¿ Jan 12, 2017 18:28

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

PleasingFungus posted:

the major design hurdle there is, screamitis means you need to have three different verbs for shouting. (e.g. shout/yell/scream, meow/yowl/caterwaul). frogs have... ribbit, croak... croak loudly...?

Inspiration video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYKPdNvH800

# ¿ Jan 15, 2017 12:57

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

We need gluten-free rations. And vegan.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 08:36

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Tomb's not that bad with RN+++, Firestorm and some patience. Maybe you need some more MR+ though.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 00:17

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Thought I was going nuts when I had dozens of spellbooks stacked up and none of them had Repel Missiles.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2017 03:26

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Araganzar posted:

I fixed this image so it shows what it would look like in one of my games.

It's impossible to close

# ¿ Feb 7, 2017 18:05

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Boo to these changes. Change thread title back to 0.19 because I don't want my name associated with .20.

e: Specifically things that have been long-standing knowledge for how to play the game. Want to learn an easy caster? Play conjurer, get battlesphere and blast solo enemies with Magic Dart. Use the other spells to deal with packs, and upgrade to whatever stronger Conjuration spells you find later on.

It's like if every Street Fighter iteration changed how Ryu is played. Street Fighter 6: No more Hadoken, replaced with a charge attack.

lizardhunt fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Feb 8, 2017

# ¿ Feb 8, 2017 17:10

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Internet Kraken posted:

Honestly now that the yellow wands are gone would Pakellas even be causing that much of a balancing issue?

# ¿ Feb 10, 2017 03:59

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Stop training any other schools (but maybe get some Dodging) until you can cast Fireball reliably. Until then, use Conjure Flame traps and pepper them with Throw Flame, or kite dudes while they burn with Sticky Flame.

Don't train any weapons or Fighting until much later.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2017 00:34

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Panic! at Nabisco posted:

I was about to say "years? really?" but then I looked it up and the book of conjurations revamp was in 2013

I only started playing around 0.14 so that's a surprise to me as well.

That doesn't mean I approve of the removal of now standard play-styles.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2017 06:49

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

If chunks are removed as a food source, please let them still generate when things explode. Gibbing would be much less satisfying without them.

I agree it's tedious to butcher and eat three times a floor as a game mechanic. On the other hand, eating your enemies is cool and funny and should stay at least for the more monstrous races.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 06:56

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Packs of Golden Eyes are probably responsible for more of my slime deaths than anything else. MR+++ is super important (to me).

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 01:16

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:06

lizardhunt: Feb 7, 2010; agreed ->

Kaedric posted:

Yeah but by the time I would actually be able to clear slime I'd have already gotten enough runes to ascend so it's kinda like :|

The other day I got a TrMo to Slime:6 for Jiyva. I didn't clear every floor, just get to stairs ASAP and stair-dance anything that's unavoidable. Then I just blink-scrolled past TRJ and some other baddies to Jiyva's altar.

It sucks but it's doable.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 01:58

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