FrogComposband

Lineage

Moria → Umoria → Angband → Zangband → Hengband → Chengband → PosChengband → ComPosband → FrogComposband. Hengband is the Japanese Zangband variant; Chris Kousky, Dave Zhang and Andrew Levy forked it as Chengband (betas from 2010). Chris Kousky then rebuilt it as PosChengband (born December 2012, 1.0.0 in January 2013), merging in ideas from Posband: play as a monster race. Gwilim Owen (Gwarl, who runs angband.live) made ComPosband from it in late 2017, with new races, classes, quests and towns; Antero Sulka forked that as FrogComposband in March 2018, and the two went separate ways.

See the family tree. Sources: lib/file/credits.txt (credits), the “PosChengband is born” post, the Chengband mailing list, RogueBasin, the Angband variants table and the Composband 7.1.0 announcement.

Credits

From lib/file/credits.txt.

Trivia

• Chengband’s beta 0.0.12 came out in November 2010 with “a handful of new monsters”. (Chengband mailing list)
• Chris Kousky called PosChengband “basically a complete overhaul of Chengband”. (PosChengband site, 26 Dec 2012)
• Frog’s first release was an “initial unofficial beta” on 9 March 2018; the repo still carries PosChengband’s history back to 2013. (sulkasormi/frogcomposband history)
• When Frog appeared, Gwarl kept most of its changes but steered ComPosband “in its own direction”. (Composband 7.1.0 announcement)
• The newbie guide says one would-be hero was slain by a sheep. (Newbie Guide)
• 7.1.salmiak brought back the Greater Cyber Wyrm Angel Daemon Lich, now as a postgame-only monster. (changelog)
• The readme’s disclaimer refuses to owe you a new keyboard. (readme.txt)

What's unique

• Monster mode: 27 monster races that evolve as they level (hound, hydra, dragon, lich …), possessors that take over the bodies of what they kill, living swords, rings and armour that eat items to grow.
• Sheer choice: 74 races, 52 classes and 21 personalities, from Lawyer and Ninja-Lawyer to Politician, Alchemist and Time Lord, plus 18 magic realms.
• Coffee-break mode: Beginner mode gives a shorter game with faster levelling and no wilderness; Normal mode keeps the Zangband-style wilderness with many towns.
• Randomised world: since 7.1 the set of side dungeons changes from game to game; many quests and towns came with ComPosband.
• Frog’s polish: 32-colour palette, many bug fixes, and help files full of dry jokes.

Code dive

• Language: C, about 365,000 lines in 265 files under src/. Each class has its own file (paladin.c, rogue.c …) and each monster race too (r_dragon.c, r_poss.c, r_pump.c …), a PosChengband refactor.
• Data: text files in lib/edit/: monsters (r_info), objects (k_info), artifacts, egos, dungeons (d_info), 85 quest files (q_*.txt), rooms and vaults.
• Help: lib/help/*.txt with its own markup (<topic:…>, <color:…>, <link:…>).
• This port: a WebAssembly build with a canvas z-term frontend, Shockbolt tiles, eight sub-windows, sound, auto-explore (X), an Enter command menu and item menus. Source: memmaker/frogcomposband, upstream sulkasormi/frogcomposband.

Stats

Manual

The full in-game help (?, all of lib/help/*.txt, colours kept) is here: manual, including the Newbie Guide and the FAQ. Also: the changelog (version.txt for FrogComposband, vers_old.txt for PosChengband and Hengband), the credits and the licence (the Angband/Moria “not for profit” notice; a few newer files are dual GPL 2 / Angband).

Getting started

1. Open the game and pick b Beginner: a short coffee-break game without wilderness. Klackon or Half-Troll Warrior, or a Rogue with Burglary, are easy starts.
2. Wear and wield your gear (w), then shop in town: Cure Light Wounds potions, Phase Door scrolls, flasks of oil to throw.
3. Walk into the dungeon (> walks to known stairs); X explores for you.
4. The Enter key lists every command; i and e open item menus; C shows your character.
5. Read the game’s help page for keys and saving.

Help

We found no walkthrough: the dungeons are random. The goal is to kill Oberon and then the Serpent of Chaos. Rules of thumb:

• Get Free Action, See Invisible and resist confusion and poison early; new players die to confusion a lot.
• Always carry an escape (Phase Door, Teleportation) and Word of Recall; do not fight what you do not know.
• Read the in-game Newbie Guide, the common mistakes and the FAQ.
• More: the newbie assistance thread and the rest of the angband.live forums, the help files online, and winners’ dumps on the ladder.

Cheats

Both modes are built into this port (ALLOW_WIZARD in src/z-config.h) but locked by an option: first turn on allow_debug_opts (= options, or ! then Y:allow_debug_opts). Either mode marks the savefile: no score.

• Wizard mode Ctrl+W: asks once, then shows “Wizard” on the sidebar; on death the game asks “Die?”.
• Debug mode Ctrl+A, then a key: c create object, j jump to a dungeon and level, e edit stats, a cure all, m map the level, " write spoiler files. Tested in the browser: both work.
• Cheat options (with allow_debug_opts): peek into object, monster and dungeon creation (cheat_peek, cheat_hear, cheat_room), avoid death (cheat_live).
• Save scumming: Export save / Import save on the game page.