Zangband

Lineage

Moria → Umoria → Angband → Zangband. Topi Ylinen started with Angband--, a DOS variant of PC Angband 1.31 with monsters from Roger Zelazny’s Amber books, then wrote the DOS-only PC Zangband 1.0 (1994). Zangband 2.x is a new start on Ben Harrison’s portable Angband 2.8.1 sources, with a new magic system.

After 2.1.0c Topi handed over to Robert Rühlmann (2.1.0d); later versions came from the Zangband DevTeam led by Steven Fuerst, up to 2.7.5pre1 (June 2005), after which development stopped. JJ Mifsud’s 2.7.6 (2012–2013, on GitHub) fixes it for modern compilers; that is what plays here. Children: XAngband and TinyAngband, Hengband and its descendants, and PernAngband, which became ToME. See the family tree. Sources: the history file (lib/help/version.txt), RogueBasin, Wikipedia.

Credits

Trivia

• The name is short for “Zelazny Angband”. (RogueBasin)
• Its ancestor Angband-- was written by a Moria winner “bored with the standard monsters”, on the PC Angband 1.31 sources. (history file, by Topi Ylinen)
• The magic system came from Topi’s addiction to the strategy game Master of Magic. (history file)
• Topi found the standard monsters too easy, hence Death swords, Cyberdemons and Great Wyrms of Power. (history file)
• PC Zangband 1.0 was the first PC Angband with (font-based) graphics, later reused by PC Angband 1.40. (history file)
• Topi stopped after 2.1.0c because “he has got a job”, as Robert Rühlmann put it. (history file)
• The official site went defunct in 2022; an archived copy remains. (RogueBasin)

What's unique

• A wilderness: a large random overland map that scrolls seamlessly, with towns of different sizes and many dungeons, not just one town and one pit.
• Amber and Chaos: the princes of Amber (Oberon, Brand, Gerard …) as uniques, the Serpent of Chaos as the final foe, and Chaos Warriors who serve one of 16 chaos patrons for gifts or punishment.
• Seven magic realms: Life, Sorcery, Nature, Chaos, Death, Trump and Arcane; spellcasters pick one or two.
• Mutations (96 of them), pets, talking uniques, rumours, warrants, over 100 kinds of shops and buildings.
• Lua scripting for spells, objects and fields, and an Oangband-style combat system from 2.3.5 on.

Code dive

• Language: C, about 286,000 lines in 142 files under src/ (34,000 of them the “borg”, an AI that plays the game), plus Lua 4 embedded for scripts in lib/script/.
• Data: text files in lib/edit/: monsters (r_info), objects (k_info), artifacts, ego items, vaults, fields, town types and wilderness (t_info, w_info).
• Frontends: z-term with main-*.c ports for X11, curses, Windows, Mac, DOS, Amiga and more; Tim Baker’s ZAngbandTk was a separate Tk interface.
• This port: a WebAssembly build with a canvas z-term frontend, Shockbolt tiles, sub-windows, sound, auto-explore (H), an Enter command menu and item menus. Source: memmaker/zangband, upstream jjnoo/Zangband.

Stats

Manual

The full in-game help (?, all of lib/help/*.txt) is here: manual. Also: the history (version.txt, including Topi Ylinen’s own account), the changelog against Angband 2.8.1 (z_update.txt, down to 2.7.5pre1), Steven Fuerst’s official FAQ (2000) and the licence (the Angband/Moria “not for profit” notice). The tree ships no spoiler files; debug mode writes them (see Cheats).

Getting started

1. Open the game and make a character: a Half-Troll or Dwarf Warrior is the easiest start; a High-Elf Mage with Sorcery is the classic caster.
2. Wear and wield your gear (w), then visit the shops in town: buy Cure Light Wounds potions, Phase Door scrolls, flasks of oil to throw and a Word of Recall scroll.
3. Find the dungeon entrance (> walks to known stairs) or step out into the wilderness; H explores for you.
4. The Enter key lists every command; i and e open item menus; m casts, C shows your character.
5. Read the game’s help page for keys and saving.

Help

We found no walkthrough for Zangband: the world and dungeons are random. The goal is to kill Oberon on level 99 and the Serpent of Chaos on level 100. Rules of thumb:

• Get Free Action, See Invisible and resistance to poison and confusion before going deep: the deep monsters paralyse, confuse and breathe hard.
• Always carry an escape (Phase Door, Teleport) and Word of Recall; flee what you do not know.
• Clear the easy wilderness dungeons and town quests first: they pay well.
• More: Steven Fuerst’s official FAQ, RogueBasin, the archived zangband.org and the Angband forums.

Cheats

Both modes are built into this port (USE_DEBUG in src/z-config.h) and mark the savefile: no high score.

• Wizard mode Ctrl+W: keeps you alive and shows the damage you deal.
• Debug mode Ctrl+A, then a key: c create object, j jump to level, e edit stats, a cure all, m map, q complete quests, r patron gift, " write spoiler files. Full list: Wizard and Debugging Modes.
• The borg Ctrl+Z: the built-in automatic player is compiled in, but untested in the browser.
• Save scumming: Export save / Import save on the game page.