NPPAngband

No Pet Peeves Angband · the best ideas of the variants, rebalanced for vanilla

Date of birth2003 0.1.0 on 24 April 2003; this build 0.5.1 (March 2011)

CreatorsJeff Greene, Diego González Greene from 0.1.0, González co-maintainer from 0.4.1

LanguageC ~203,000 lines in 128 files

PlatformWindows, Mac, Unix, Nintendo DS Win32, Carbon, X11, SDL, curses, RISC OS, NDS

Lineage

Moria → Umoria → Angband 2.x → Angband 3.0 → NPPAngband. Jeff Greene released 0.1.0 on 24 April 2003 as Angband 3.0.3 with patches (rod and wand stacking, screen dumps, auto-squelch, notes, new pits and vaults) and deliberately almost no changes to the edit files. From 0.3.0 it took in Leon Marrick’s Sangband/Demoband “4GAI” monster AI, later EyAngband-style quests, UnAngband’s terrain system (0.5.0) and a Druid class. 0.5.1 (2011, this build) moved the code base from Angband 3.0.6 to 3.1.2v2. Quickband is built on NPPAngband.

Development went on after 0.5.1: 0.5.x, then 6.x and 7.x, and a Qt version (last release 8.0.5, May 2016, per RogueBasin).

See the family tree. Sources: AUTHORS, lib/file/news.txt, the changelog, RogueBasin’s No Pet Peeves Angband (released Apr 24 2003, 0.1.0), the 0.2.0 announcement (September 2003, “based on Angband 3.0.3”), nppangband/NPPAngband (tag v0.5.1, 20 March 2011).

Credits

Greene	Jeff Greene, author (0.1.0 on) and co-maintainer
González	Diego González, source contributor in 0.4.0, co-maintainer from 0.4.1
Ramela	Anssi Ramela, gameplay and source changes, the 0.5.0 Mage spell set
Borrowed	Leon Marrick and Bahman Rabii (Oangband, Sangband, Demoband), Eytan Zweig (EyAngband), Andrew Doull (UnAngband)
Angband	Andrew Sidwell (3.0.7–3.1.2v2), Robert Rühlmann (2.8.6–3.0.6), Ben Harrison (2.7.0–2.8.5), Alex Cutler, Andy Astrand, Sean Marsh, Geoff Hill, Charles Teague, Charles Swiger (2.0–2.6.2)
Moria	Robert Alan Koeneke, Jimmey Wayne Todd Jr. (1985); Umoria: James E. Wilson (1989)
Shockbolt	Raymond Gaustadnes, the tiles used in this port

From AUTHORS, THANKS, lib/file/news.txt and the changelog.

Trivia

The name: RogueBasin files it as “No Pet Peeves Angband”; the game’s own files only ever say NPP. (RogueBasin)
Greene announced it as a look at what Angband might have become had it “evolved creatively over the last 10 years”. (0.2.0 announcement)
0.4.0 was called “Ghost on the Road” and added player ghosts; lib/bone/ holds 20 permanent ghost templates of Angband and NPP people, from Robert Alan Koeneke and Ben Harrison to Jeff Greene himself. (announcement, changelog, lib/bone)
Brother Steadfast, the first winner of NPP 0.3.x (Anssi Ramela’s), became a temple shopkeeper. (changelog)
Azathoth, Master of Darkness (level 64), changed in 0.5.0 from a demon U into a jelly J. (changelog)
The first version on purpose played almost exactly like Angband 3.0.3; the ogre pits were left “a little bland” for the next one. (changelog)

What's unique

Terrain that fights back: UnAngband’s feature system with 198 terrain kinds: lava, deep water, mud, ice, forests, burning oil, clouds that linger, runes, and monsters (and races) native to them.
Quests: the Adventurer’s Guild in town hands out monster, pit/nest, level, vault and themed-level quests for gold, fame and tailored rewards.
Themed levels (27 themes: dragons by breath, demons, undead, animals, “creeping coins” …) and wilderness and stronghold levels.
New classes: the Brigand (steals with P, sets monster traps with O, sling master) and the Druid (nature realm, weakest fighter); Rangers cast from druid books.
Smarter monsters: Sangband’s 4GAI (ranges, learning, evasion, arc breaths), true mimics, player ghosts, randarts, rod/wand stacking and auto-squelch.

Code dive

Language: C, 203,333 lines in 128 .c/.h files in src/ (tag v0.5.1), Angband 3.1 structure: game-cmd.c, ui-menu.c, cmd-obj.c; spells as code in x-spell.c, the huge generate.c for terrain and themed levels.
Data: text files in lib/edit/ (monster.txt, terrain.txt, quest.txt, limits.txt…) parsed at start; player ghost templates in lib/bone/.
Frontends: Windows, Mac Carbon, X11, SDL, curses, RISC OS and a Nintendo DS port (nds/).
History: upstream git on GitHub (tags v0.5.1 … v7.1.0); the changelog NPPchanges.txt goes back to 0.1.0.
This port: WebAssembly build with a canvas z-term frontend, Shockbolt tiles, sub-windows, sound and music, auto-explore (H), an Enter command menu and item menus. Source: memmaker/nppangband (our changes).

Stats

Thing	Count	Notable ones
Races	11	the eleven of Angband 3.0, Kobold included
Classes	8	Brigand, Druid, plus Warrior, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Ranger, Paladin
Spells	184	three realms (mage, priest, druid); Druid: Sterilize, Lava Nativity, Call Huorns, Ulmo’s Wrath
Monsters	686	116 uniques; Azathoth, Master of Darkness; the Greater Servants of the Valar
Object kinds	450
Artifacts	136	plus random artifacts
Ego types	116
Terrain	198	crest of a wave over water, cracked wall over lava, inertia cloud, shimmering violet rune
Vaults	58
Quests	2 fixed	Sauron and Morgoth; the Guild’s quests are random
Levels	127	Morgoth on 100 (5000 ft)

Counted in lib/edit/*.txt (without index-0 entries), src/x-spell.c, src/defines.h (MAX_DEPTH 128).

Manual

The full in-game help (?, all 29 files of lib/help/: basics, tutorial, character, races and classes, town, dungeon, quests, commands, options, combat and magic) is here: manual. Also the changelog (NPPchanges.txt: 0.5.1 back to 0.1.0) and the licence (COPYING: GPL 2 or the Angband licence).

Getting started

Open the game and make a character: a Dwarf or Half-Troll Warrior is forgiving; a Brigand is the stealthy option.
Your torch is already wielded; wear the rest of your kit and buy Cure Light Wounds potions and Phase Door scrolls.
Visit the Adventurer’s Guild once you have gone a bit deeper: quests pay in gold and fame.
Go down: > walks to known stairs, H explores for you, Enter lists every command, i and e open item menus.
Read the game’s help page for keys and saving.

Help

We found no walkthrough: the dungeon is random. The goal is to kill Sauron at 4950 ft and Morgoth at 5000 ft. Rules of thumb:

Terrain matters: don’t fight in deep water or next to lava you are not native to; burning a forest is a weapon.
Always carry an escape (Phase Door, Teleportation) and Word of Recall; take quests only a few levels below your comfort depth.
Read the tutorial and quests in the manual.
More: RogueBasin’s NPPAngband page, the NPPAngband ladder and the angband.live forums.

Cheats

All in this build; each marks the character, and marked characters get no high score.

Wizard mode Ctrl+W: asks for confirmation first.
Debug mode Ctrl+A, then a key: create objects, summon monsters, jump levels, map the level (tested: Ctrl+A z).
Cheat options (=): peek into object and monster creation, know all lore, and “cheat death” (cheat_live), which counts your deaths in your age.
Save scumming: Export save / Import save on the game page.