Difference between revisions of "Angband"

Angband
Developer	Alex Cutler, Andy Astrand, and many, many others
Theme	fantasy
Influences	Moria
Status	Stable 3.0.6
Released	1990
Updated	June 18, 2005
Licensing	see article
P. Language	C
Platforms	Windows, Windows CE, MS-DOS, Macintosh, Amiga, RISC OS, OS/2, Linux, BeOS, Atari, SiliconGraphics, Solaris
Interface	ASCII, Graphical Tiles, Optional multiple console windows, keyboard input
Game Length	{{{length}}}
	Official site of Angband

Revision as of 13:22, 21 December 2005

Angband was created by Alex Cutler and Andy Astrand (with other students) at Warwick University in 1990, and is influenced by the works of J.R.R.Tolkien, and is named after the fortress of Morgoth. The latest version is 3.0.6, released June 18, 2005, which is available for a wide variety of platforms.

It's a freeware computer dungeon exploration game based (loosely) on the books of J. R. R. Tolkien. You explore a very deep dungeon, kill monsters, try to equip yourself with the best weapons and armor you can find, and finally face Morgoth - "The Dark Enemy". - Angband official site, description page

Overview

The player may choose a character from several classic Dungeons and Dragons classes and races. The player starts in a town with different kinds of shops, a house of your own and an entrance to a dungeon. The player must explore the 100-level dungeon, and become strong enough to finally face Sauron and Morgoth.

An Angband game usually takes longer but is easier than NetHack, if you have the patience.

The levels are non persistant, and that means that everytime you get into one, it is randomly generated. The levels are large and are composed of halls and passages of different shapes.

History

Angband has a very long history. It started 1990 as an improved and more "Tolkienized" variant of UMoria 5.2.1. Moria itself was created in 1985 and was inspired by Rogue (from the late 70s). Countless changes have been made by a large number of programmers since.

The name Angband refers to a fortress of evil in works of J. R. R. Tolkien, and literally means "Iron Prison" in one of his languages.

Variants

The Angband source code was massively cleaned up by Ben Harrison, ending up as a release of Angband 2.7 in January 1995. This was a massive and very buggy rewrite which brought very easy porting to multiple platforms, and by Angband 2.7.4, there were ports to Windows, various IBM machines, OS/2, Linux and the Amiga (at least).

The resulting relatively clean and thoroughly-commented source code of Angband made it very easy for coders (even those who did not have a good understanding of C) to create variants of the original game. There have been many variants, before and after Angband 2.7, but the first major variant was Zangband, which remains maintained today, and other variants include ToME, NPPAngband, Posband and Hengband, amonst others.

Angband is the origin of one of two major lines of roguelikes, the other being Hack. The tendency of variants of Angband to name themselves as things suffixed with "band" has resulted in the genre characterized by Angband being refered to as the "*bands".

Licencing

The traditional Angband licence is as follows:

This software may be copied and distributed for educational, research, and not for profit purposes provided that this copyright and statement are included in all such copies. Other copyrights may also apply.

This licence places Angband squarely out of the realm of "open source" or "free software", as the licence was first written before such concepts had become widespread. As a result, there are issues with Angband being placed in Linux distributions, being hosted on sites such as SourceForge, and with use of GPL code within Angband.

Robert Rühlmann, in 2000, created the Angband OpenSource Initiative to try and have Angband placed dually under the traditional Angband licence and the GPL. This requires getting everyone whose code is in Angband to agree to it being used under the GPL, and for those who don't agree (or cannot be contacted), removing or rewriting it.

Notable developers who have allowed their code to be dual-licenced include Jim Wilson, the UMoria author, and Robert Koeneke, author of VMS Moria.

Resources

thangorodrim.net, the main Angband site.
angband.oook.cz, the home of Angband ladder, Vanilla CVS and much more.
A specific newsgroup, rec.games.roguelike.angband, is dedicated to Angband. It can be accessed through Google Groups.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''Angband''' was created by [[Alex Cutler]] and [[Andy Astrand]] in [[1990]]. The latest version is v. 3.0.6, dating from June 18, 2005. It is influenced by the works of [[J.R.R.Tolkien]], and is named after the fortress of Morgoth. Angband is open source, and is available under virtually every platform.
+'''Angband''' was created by [[Alex Cutler]] and [[Andy Astrand]] (with other students) at Warwick University in [[1990]], and is influenced by the works of [[J.R.R.Tolkien]], and is named after the fortress of Morgoth.  The latest version is 3.0.6, released June 18, 2005, which is available for a wide variety of platforms.
-:''It's a freeware computer dungeon exploration game based (loosely) on the books of J.R.R.Tolkien. You explore a very deep dungeon, kill monsters, try to equip yourself with the best weapons and armor you can find, and finally face Morgoth - "The Dark Enemy". - [http://www.thangorodrim.net/what_is_angband.html Angband official site, description page]
+:''It's a freeware computer dungeon exploration game based (loosely) on the books of J. R. R. Tolkien. You explore a very deep dungeon, kill monsters, try to equip yourself with the best weapons and armor you can find, and finally face Morgoth - "The Dark Enemy". - [http://www.thangorodrim.net/what_is_angband.html Angband official site, description page]
 {{gameinfo| name = Angband
-|developer = [[Alex Cutler]], [[Andy Astrand]]
+|developer = [[Alex Cutler]], [[Andy Astrand]], and many, many others
 |theme = fantasy
 |influences = [[Moria]]
@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 |updated = June 18, 2005
 |status = [[Stable]] 3.0.6
-|licensing = open source
+|licensing = see article
 |language = [[C]]
 |platforms = Windows, Windows CE, MS-DOS, Macintosh, Amiga, RISC OS, OS/2, Linux, BeOS, Atari, SiliconGraphics, Solaris
@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 }}
-== Description ==
+== Overview ==
-The player may choose a character from several classic DnD [[Class|classes]] and [[Race|races]]. The player starts in a town with different kinds of shops, a house of your own and an entrance to a [[Dungeon|dungeon]]. The player must explore the 100-level dungeon, and become strong enough to finally face Sauron and Morgoth.
+The player may choose a character from several classic Dungeons and Dragons [[Class|classes]] and [[Race|races]]. The player starts in a town with different kinds of shops, a house of your own and an entrance to a [[Dungeon|dungeon]]. The player must explore the 100-level dungeon, and become strong enough to finally face Sauron and Morgoth.
 An Angband game usually takes longer but is easier than [[NetHack]], if you have the patience.
@@ Line 26: / Line 26: @@
 == History ==
+Angband has a very long history. It started [[1990]] as an improved and more "Tolkienized" variant of U[[Moria]] 5.2.1.  Moria itself was created in [[1985]] and was inspired by [[Rogue]] (from the late 70s).  Countless changes have been made by a large number of programmers since.
-Angband has a very long history. It started [[1990]] as an improved and more "Tolkienized" variant of [[Moria]]. Moria itself was created in [[1985]] and was inspired by [[Rogue]] (from the late 70s). Countless changes were introduced by many programmers on the way to the current versions of Angband.
+The name Angband refers to a fortress of evil in works of J. R. R. Tolkien, and literally means "Iron Prison" in one of his languages.
-The name Angband refers to a fortress of evil in works of J.R.R.Tolkien, and literally means "Iron Prison" in one of his elfish languages.
+=== Variants ===
+The Angband source code was massively cleaned up by [[Ben Harrison]], ending up as a release of Angband 2.7 in January 1995.  This was a massive and very buggy rewrite which brought very easy porting to multiple platforms, and by Angband 2.7.4, there were ports to Windows, various IBM machines, OS/2, Linux and the Amiga (at least).
+The resulting relatively clean and thoroughly-commented source code of Angband made it very easy for coders (even those who did not have a good understanding of C) to create variants of the original game.  There have been many variants, before and after Angband 2.7, but the first major variant was [[Zangband]], which remains maintained today, and other variants include [[ToME]], [[NPPAngband]], [[Posband]] and [[Hengband]], amonst others.
+Angband is the origin of one of two major lines of roguelikes, the other being [[Hack]]. The tendency of variants of Angband to name themselves as things suffixed with "band" has resulted in the genre characterized by Angband being refered to as the "[[Band|*bands]]".
+== Licencing ==
+The traditional Angband licence is as follows:
+:Copyright (c) 1997 Ben Harrison, James E. Wilson, Robert A. Koeneke
+:This software may be copied and distributed for educational, research, and not for profit purposes provided that this copyright and statement are included in all such copies.  Other copyrights may also apply.
+This licence places Angband squarely out of the realm of "open source" or "free software", as the licence was first written before such concepts had become widespread.  As a result, there are issues with Angband being placed in Linux distributions, being hosted on sites such as SourceForge, and with use of GPL code within Angband.
-=== Variants ===
+Robert Rühlmann, in 2000, created the Angband OpenSource Initiative to try and have Angband placed dually under the traditional Angband licence and the GPL.  This requires getting everyone whose code is in Angband to agree to it being used under the GPL, and for those who don't agree (or cannot be contacted), removing or rewriting it.
-The clean and modular source code of Angband made it a good start to create a roguelike. As a consequence, around sixty variants of Angband have been released. Some of them, like [[ToME]] or [[Zangband]], became as widely played as the original.
-Angband is the origin of one of two major lines of roguelikes, the other being [[Hack]]. The tendency of variants of Angband to name themselves as things suffixed with "band" has resulted in the genre characterized by Angband being refered to as the "[[Band|bands]]".
+Notable developers who have allowed their code to be dual-licenced include Jim Wilson, the UMoria author, and Robert Koeneke, author of VMS Moria.
 == Resources ==