Build Date: Tue Oct 27 21:40:30 2026 UTC
If I ever need to get rescued by a group of toddlers and a man with a yellow purse whose only extraction plan is to quickly eat Tootsie Rolls, just let me explode with the god damn plane.
-- Sean Baby
Keep Your Quake III; I'll Just Play Zangband
1999-11-02 11:06:10
Yeah, I know, I know. First-person shooters and real-time strategy games are big, Big, BIG! But I've got ADD and I get bored easy. Walking around a maze and shooting at the same 4 monsters over and over gets old quick. To keep me challenged, interested, and excited, man, I GOT to have a good Rogue-like game. And Zangband is the best.
Folks who are used to ultra-realistic 3-D Voodoo-Hoodoo graphics and spectacular explosions of pixellated gore probably don't quite GROK why roguelike games are so popular. I mean, instead of a GUN and a ROCKET LAUNCHER you get the "@" symbol. This is you, in your fear-inspiring glory! And instead of a bunch of DROOLING MUMMIES, you get attacked by "O" and "T" and the VERY DREADED "p." ASCII characters that inspire INCREDIBLE FEAR! What the FUCK?
But the thing about rogue-like games that makes them worth playing is the incredible DEPTH of the game world. Zangband, for example, has >1000 types of monsters to fight, 100 levels, 50+ quests, and an unending array of fascinating game situations.
The other thing that's cool is that you develop a CHARACTER. Your character is a work of ART, not just based on what you HAVE or what Pacman level-route you follow, but on all the choices you make from the minute you start the game. It's TOTALLY COOL.
Like I said, Zangband is the connoisseur's roguelike game (nethack coming in a close second or third, maybe). There's a kajillion ports to practically every platform under the sun (Acorn RISC OS?!) and lots of cool sites about it. You should start playing Zangband TODAY. Go! Now!
T O P S T O R I E S
John Dvorak has passed. I’m of mixed emotions. First off I’m more positive about his contribution to the overall technology journalism of the early PC days through the 90s, despite how many things he got wrong. He was a firebrand and commanded attention. (More...)
America's National Recording Registry Inducts Culturally Significant Artist - Weezer!
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California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
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Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
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Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
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C L A S S I C P I G D O G
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The Deep Dark Underbelly of the Star Wars Myth, or Ramayana Remembered
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During a magnificent sunny day in a fast receding autumn, the Spock Science Monitor reporters once again blew the playa dust off of their computers and covered the 2002 Burning Man Decompression – held every year just east of Portola Hill in beautiful San Francisco. Both an afternoon and evening issues were released to the unsuspecting crowd of freaks attempting to in some small way experience the euphoria of the playa – if but for a brief afternoon far from the desolation of Northern Nevada. (More...)
A Blast from the Past! Pao Tzu goes over and under the crucial variables in the production and consumption of Salvia Divinorum. A must read for psychonauts of all stripes. (More...)
The Liquidation of Hobo Junction
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A Day in the Life of a Beverotologist
It was starting to look like a very boring Saturday, trapped as I was in the suburban wastelands of the outer Bay Area, so I called my Able Assistant (AA) and proposed that we perform some Spocktail field tests. For some time I've been working on creating the quintessential cinematic beverage and even tho' SMRL does most of its testing during nocturnal hours, this seemed an opportune time to roll up the sleeves of our labcoats and get some science done. While the beverotology creation tested this day (The Neurotoxin) must be deemed a success, this article focuses more the journey of the experimenters, rather then the science of beverotology. (More...)
