r/angband

I’ve been quietly working on an Angband project, and I figured this was probably the right place to finally share it.

I’ve been playing Moria and Angband since the early days and have put thousands of hours into them over the years. Angband is one of those games that has followed me through several computers and phases of life.

So when I started this project, I was pretty determined not to “fix” the game I already loved.

It’s called Neo Angband, and it’s a TypeScript port of Angband 4.2.6. Technically, it is Angband 4.2.6, just with mods.

The goal for the unmodded game is straightforward: be Angband exactly. This isn’t intended to be a rebalance or a modern reinterpretation.

What has changed is the technology around it:

• It runs directly in a browser.
• It can be installed as a Progressive Web App.
• There are desktop builds for Windows, macOS, and Linux (via Electron).
• It’s completely open source.
• It has a first-class mod system.

Mods live separately from the core game and can be installed from a repository URL or ZIP, and desktop users also get a normal mods folder.

I’ve made four example mods so far covering bug fixes, a few quality-of-life additions, a new graphical tile system, and a Borg player (WIP).

But the larger reason I built the mod system is that I’d really like this to become something others can play around with and create new stuff, not just something I maintain by myself.

I’d love to see other longtime Angband players, modders, and developers start experimenting with it. New content, different mechanics, interface ideas, graphics, automation, weird variants… whatever somebody feels inspired to make.

I don’t know what all of those mods would be, and that’s exactly the part that excites me. I’d love to be blown away by the things people come up with.

The nice thing is that we don’t have to choose between preservation and experimentation. The unmodded game can stay Angband 4.2.6 while mods are free to go wandering off into the depths.

It’s currently an alpha, so there are still some minor bugs and rough edges. I’m sure I’ve missed a few subtle differences from the original too. If you try it and notice something odd, or just have an idea about how something could work better, I’d really like to hear it.

And if you’ve ever wanted to change or add something to Angband yourself, I’d love to know how the modding side feels to you.

You can reach me here or on Discord (aragorn_son_of_arathorn).

Try it out:
https://neostryder.github.io/neo-angband/

Source / downloads / docs:
https://github.com/neostryder/neo-angband

Mostly, this has been a labor of love for a game I’ve been playing for a very long time. I’m hoping some other people who love it will find something here worth building on.

Hi everybody,

We are finally ready to release version 0.9.7. And I must say that is the most difficult one we have had up to date.
After we were done with 0.9.6, we looked into it to decide which way to go, and the most important thing to work on seemed to be UI/UX.
Gameplay was already quite good, we still had some ideas visually but apart from that UI looked like the main destination to embark on.
But it was tough to even start with. What do we want to change? What is the style we are looking for? How should we approach the mobile version?

Anyway, we decided to figure it all out step by step. Tuning menus one by one, playing, and then getting back to tuning again. We didn’t want to erase it all and make everything anew, but rather keep the DNA of Sil and Angband and build on it.
To give the game that modern look, we had to rework all onscreen menus into overlays, breaking them into smaller pieces to make it flexible, adaptable for different platforms, screen sizes, and resolutions. Then we handcrafted current layouts piece by piece, but players can still tweak everything themselves!
So in the end our style was split into two, some menus retained the old school, terminal monospaced font style, and others got that drawn pixel-based style.
The game starts as a book, and tries to carry this style through the storytelling with multiple effects and fonts.

For the mobile design we tried to approach everything contextually with floating buttons and menus. The most difficult part was to figure out movement. In roguelikes players can move diagonally, but just putting an arrow pad on the screen looked bad, and it was easy to mistap, so we invented the ButtonWheel. You can tap it just like an arrow pad but you can also press and drag it to make sure your aim lands precisely where you intend it to. And it also looks cool!

As we decided to go with book style, at some point it became obvious that we should also do the portrait mode. And our modular overlay design helped us a lot. We just reordered it and the game already became playable! We still had to rework all menus to support a narrow layout, but the original idea made it possible in the first place. We also tested everything on tablets and handcrafted layouts there too!

Finally, we decided to make the game more approachable for new players. We tried to create multiple hovers to describe what controls do, both in touch and mouse mode.

Of course we have also introduced gameplay changes. This time:
- New abilities: Warden, Power Throw, Skirmishing, and Rewire Traps (guess what they do, or better just try it!);
- an “active weapon selection”, where you should actually choose what you wield, instead of being able to use everything equipped; 
- harness and pack inventory system. Feel like a real person that can carry three great axes at once! (no);
- traps and chests “throw the dice” mini-games;

Also visual updates! Now the player and monster tiles flip depending on the direction they move. Monsters’ icons are simply mirrored, however character tiles are handcrafted to look different sides!

And finally, we have launched google play closed betatest. If you want to participate, dm me for a link!

https://k0rtess.itch.io/sil-mor-shining-darkness
https://github.com/k0rtesss/Sil-More/