Linley's Dungeon Crawl
fetch the Orb of Zot · the game Stone Soup grew from
> Enter the dungeonLineage
Linley Henzell, then at the University of Adelaide, started Crawl in 1995 as new code, not a fork; its quick-start guide calls it “one of the descendants of Rogue”. The goal, the Orb of Zot, comes from Wizard's Castle, a BASIC game. From version 3.40 (2000) the Crawl DevTeam carried on; 4.0 beta 26 (2003) was their last release. In 2006 Darshan Shaligram and Erik Piper restarted development as Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, still developed today. See the family tree.
Played here: 4.00b26 with Mitsuhiro Itakura's tile version e070 (2005), RLTiles graphics, compiled to WebAssembly.
Credits
| Linley Henzell | Creator (1995–1999) |
| Crawl DevTeam | 3.40–4.0b26 (2000–2003) |
| Mitsuhiro Itakura | Tile version (2003–2005) |
| Denzi, Alex Korol, Nullpodoh | Tiles and title art |
| Darshan Shaligram | Patches; later co-founded Stone Soup |
Screenshots
Trivia
- The Orb of Zot was taken from Wizard's Castle, a BASIC text adventure. (crawl.txt)
- You cannot call your character “bones”: “That's a silly name!” Its save files would collide with the ghost (bones) files. (
newgame.cc) - Version 3.40 removed three “silly” monsters: the dorgi, the sword and the guardian robot. (versions.txt)
- Henzell lost most of the source code of the early versions. (crawl.txt)
- The tile version comes from Japan and has the full game translated: the monster table carries Japanese names next to the English ones. (
mon-data.h) - Stone Soup, its successor, was voted Roguelike of the Year 2008 by ASCII Dreams readers. (Wikipedia)
What's unique
- Skills instead of classes: you gain skills by using them; the class only sets the start.
- Gods with their own conduct rules and gifts, e.g. Trog hates magic, Xom is random.
- Branches: Orc Mines, Elven Halls, Lair, Swamp, Hive, Vaults, Hells, the Abyss and Pandemonium; runes open the Realm of Zot.
- Many unusual species: Nagas, Centaurs, Mummies, Ghouls, Kenku, Demigods, nine colours of Draconian.
Code dive
- C++, written first for DOS (DJGPP), then Unix curses and Windows.
- Monster and spell data are big C tables (
mon-data.h,mon-spll.h); aWIZARDbuild flag adds debug commands. - Itakura's tile version adds an X11/Windows window layer (
winclass.cc,libtile.cc) and paper-doll player graphics. - This port: Emscripten, the window layer redirected to the page. Source: memmaker/crawl-linley.
Stats
| Thing | Count | Notable ones |
|---|---|---|
| Species | 34 | 26 in the menu; the Draconian becomes one of nine colours. |
| Classes | 29 | Fighter, Wizard, Priest, Thief, Gladiator, Necromancer, Paladin, Assassin, Berserker, Hunter, Conjurer, Enchanter, four Elementalists, Summoner, Crusader, Death Knight, Venom Mage, Chaos Knight, Transmuter, Healer, Reaver, Stalker, Monk, Warper, Wanderer… |
| Gods | 12 | Zin, the Shining One, Kikubaaqudgha, Yredelemnul, Xom, Vehumet, Okawaru, Makhleb, Sif Muna, Trog, Nemelex Xobeh, Elyvilon. |
| Monsters | ~330 | Uniques like Sigmund, Blork the Orc, Psyche, Norbert; Pandemonium lords Mnoleg, Lom Lobon, Cerebov, Gloorx Vloq; hell lords Geryon, Dispater, Asmodeus, Antaeus, Ereshkigal; the Serpent of Hell. |
| Spells | ~190 | |
| Runes needed | 3 | To enter the Realm of Zot, since 3.40. |
Manual
The full manual, crawl.txt, and Linley’s quick-start guide.
Getting started
- Open the game, type a name, pick a species and class. The guide recommends a dwarf, orc, ogre or troll Fighter.
- Move with the arrows or hjklyubn; walk into monsters to attack.
- Ctrl+O explores; > walks to the stairs down.
- Enter opens all commands; ? is help.
Help
No walkthrough for this version. The quick-start guide covers the first games. Tips:
- Pray (p) at an altar to join a god early; Trog and Okawaru suit fighters.
- Train few skills, not all of them.
- Rest to full HP before exploring further.
- Much advice for Stone Soup still applies: CrawlWiki.
Cheats
Crawl has a wizard mode (&), but only in builds compiled with WIZARD; this browser build is not. Export save / Import save keeps backups.