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Ten Thousand Lifetimes with Roguelikes

Angband When I was a kid, a few factors combined to give me what I suspect will be a lifelong neurosis about video games: my basic respect for my parents’ authority and opinions, my mother’s extreme disdain (it seemed to me, at least, at the time) for any and all electronic gaming, and my borderline obsession with same. My brother and I weren’t allowed a game system until, after much parental deliberation, I gather, we received a Super Nintendo for the Christmas of what I think was one of my middle school years.

Unfortunately, Mom’s yielding on this issue didn’t mean her suspicion of video games had abated, and I can still remember pretty vividly the discomfort I felt whenever I was playing and she was around, radiating a high-intensity aura of disapproval that made me feel somewhat ashamed to be wasting my time like this. Usually this would result in my character’s grisly death and another copy of the save file, but on the rare occasions when it turned the monster into e.g. something slower than me (though probably quite dangerous if you let it catch or corner you), I could pick it off easily if tediously and reap a preposterous bounty of experience points and treasure. There’s a flaming tower where the heat is so intense you take damage every turn you’re inside it unless you have some fire resistance; an underwater cavern you need air to navigate; an infinitely deep dungeon, as though someone had taken Angband, removed the boss, and dropped it into the ADOM world; an ancient tomb with a piranha-infested moat; and a forge that’s home to a dwarven artificer who might be a bit crazy due to the powers of chaos slowly creeping over the land.

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