You can download the mp3 of the podcast, play it in the embedded player below, or you can follow us on iTunes.
Devteam members present:
- Aaron Bader (fizzix) - Developer for about five years and the release manager for 3.4, the previous version released.
- Chris Carr (magnate) - Involved in Angband development for about 10 years. He was responsible for a ton of recent gameplay changes, and was release manager for 3.3 and possibly some other versions as well.
- Robert Au (myshkin) - Player since the mid-90s, and on the devteam for 4 years. Worked on the Macport and code infrastructure.
- Nick McConnell - Involved in Angband for about 10 years. He is the author of the variant FAAngband (First Age Angband) and has recently stepped up to be the new Angband maintainer after the release of version 3.5.
Topics discussed:
- The many variants - NPPAngband, OAngband, Sil, FAAngband, ZAngband, PernAngband (which became ToME), SteamBand and more
- Angband as the original and most successful roguelike game engine
- The Angband community, and the active forums
- Diablo!
- Lessons from spin-offs, especially Sil and Tales of Maj'Eyal
- Borgs - automated bots that can play and even win the game, and the value of these for testing
Join us next time on Roguelike Radio as several known developers talk about the first roguelike they ever made.
Just a few clarifications on ToME: the current ToME, aka Tales of Maj'Eyal is neither a variant or a spinoff angband, it shares no code and mostly none of the key gameplay features ;)
ReplyDeleteToME as in Tales of Middle Earth was indeed the continuation of Pernangband though.
As for the tileset in ToME & Angband, angband uses a part of ToME's one that is free to use; all the rest is specific (and restricted to) ToME.
And great episode, go team angband go!
Links to a couple of the sites mentioned in this episode:
ReplyDeleteThe Angband development wiki
The Angband variant repository
it's unfortunate that angband moves forward by changing the balance of the game so much, because i think people mostly play it for nostalgic purposes.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, it's not an either or proposition. If people want to play for nostalgic purposes, the old versions still exist; there are, though, plenty of people who find the latest releases to be the best.
ReplyDeleteThanks to all who took the time to make this great episode! Really enjoying RLR and am now looking forward to trying Angband...yet another addition to my list of roguelikes (thanks to the podcast)! Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteI'd like to correct one thing - Draebor the imp was definately *not* Geoffs character! He was named after a particularly annoying student whos username was 'rebroad'.
ReplyDeleteOn another topic, the discussion of how variants tend to start by editting item config files amused me.. because there was a FilmSoc allnighter with a particularly unpopular mystery film which we all skipped out on. During that time, Andy was playing Moria and said "I want a Chaos Blade in this game". And so it began..
tamsinj - that's wonderful! Any more stories? The Angband community would love to hear...
ReplyDelete