> To be fair, I've never really liked Angband. I've tried to like it, honest, but the amount of town- and level- scumming it seems to require always turned me off. It's probably that I don't appreciate the game fully, but any game where a bot (the borg) can win seems to lack some depth.
> Crawl and Nethack have been more my taste, and having recently ascended Nethack (first time in ten years, yay) I've tried *bands again.
> MINI REVIEWS:
> Ironband
> To me, this seems very much inspired by the original /Rogue/. Antoine (developer) has done a masterful job of turning Angband into a much shorter and more random game - its randomness is almost Crawl-esque in its pique and seeming maliciousness.
> Like Rogue, Ironband has you only descending (no returning to safety!), until you reach the MacGuffin (in this case, slay the WItch-King of Angmar). There are no classes, your character can fight, sneak, shoot bows, use magic items, and cast magic spells. Abilities in each are determined by your current statistics (9 in total), which are semi-random at the start, and then grow and shrink randomly in the early game.
> To balance this, at each level up you can select a statistic to increase. Increase your Strength, or increase your Luck, the choice is yours.
> Ironband reminds me very much of Rogue, Crawl, and POWDER in some of its design choices - deterministic character growth (POWDER); you can stay a generalist or specialise (Crawl); simplistic but well designed (Rogue).
> If you enjoy any of these games, you should give Ironband a shot!
I have to admit that I've never played Rogue or POWDER. I have played
a tiny bit of Crawl and there is no doubt that it was an influence on
Iron. Another influence was Larn, which some here will have played.
in upping it...
A.
