Might have to try that. I like the idea of innately getting lots of cool mutations over time, but being an ogre would probably help my early-game survivability more. :)

Also good to play while listening to music or a podcast (especially since the game completely lacks music).

I'm sorta curious as to how many of those who've played it before did so primarily online, as opposed to downloading and playing one of the standalone versions.

Right, and due to the low requirements, it should also run on nearly any device, no matter how old or low-spec.

I played the offline/ non-browser version myself. And I preferred the pixel art sprite version, since full on ASCII "visuals" are a touch too old school for my tastes. :P

I came within a hairsbreadth of registering and trying out webtiles the other day, but, when it came down to it, I just couldn't see much of an upshot. (Unless you count dying to someone else's 27th-level ghost on D:3 to be an upshot. :P )

Bump to attack. :)

There's gotta be others who've played (or are curious about) this game!

I gave this combo a try. I'll say this, I got a lot further with it than with most of my other AK characters, but man, was it a slog. (To be fair, I suspect I play the class entirely wrong, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna "cheat" and look up recommended strategies on a wiki. :) ) He wound up making it to level 11 (both the experience lvl. and the dungeon lvl. :P ), where he almost died to a swarm of killer bees; at this point, I thought I'd better play it safe, and I backed up to try the lair (which I thought would be comparatively safe for him by that point). Poor guy got torn apart by a pack of wolves on L:1. :(
Two problems with this in my situation: First, I had a hell of a time finding very many scrolls for much of this playthrough. I don't think I found any enchant weapon scrolls at all in the last several dungeon levels I went through...nor very many other useful ones in general (same with jewelry, potions to some extent, and -- playing an ogre -- bits of armor he could actually wear). Second, even with the help of an amulet of faith, I only managed to get his piety with Lugonu up to 5 stars, and that, only toward the end of the playthrough. (I take it that branding ability is only granted with 6 stars?) Most of the game, his piety was hovering around 3-4 stars.

I'm more partial to SLASH'EM.

url= http:// SLASH'EM XD

But isn't SLASH'EM basically a variant of NetHack, only with more "stuff"? I'm fond of NetHack, but the last thing that game needs is more cruft. =D

I don't even know how that happened, I could have sworn I copied & pasted the URL. Yes; it's an enhanced, NetHack variant; I suppose one could describe it that way if one wanted to use loaded terminology. I would say it has more variety & therefore more varied gameplay. Are you next going to express the thought that extra "stuff" like Falcon's Eye & Vulture's Eye are in your opinion unnecessary?...

Uh oh... the Great Variant Wars of '16.

Happens sometimes on those late-night posts. :D

Not what I'm talking about -- Vulture doesn't really add anything to the gameplay, it "merely" makes the presentation somewhat more pleasant and user-friendly (Vulture happens to be virtually the only way I've played NetHack since I first tried the former). When I said "stuff", I meant items and features within the game itself. NetHack already has lots (and lots and lots) of built-up layers of legacy "cruft" (in this case, items, game mechanics and conventions from previous/other Roguelikes and which are of dubious gameplay value) that don't necessarily make the game fun -- and in some cases, actively hinder the fun for many players -- but that are basically "grandfathered in" at this point.
(If you want to get technical, <i>SLASH'EM</i> is a <i>direct descendant</i> of a variant of <i>NetHack</i>, but I'm still not sure where any "loaded terminology" comes into play, either with that part or with my query about it containing more stuff. For god's sake, the title is an acronym for "Super Lotsa Added Stuff Hack - Extended Magic", so I'm not sure why you're confused or offended by my statement. At any rate, [url=http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~eva/slashem/]this page[/url], while probably somewhat out of date, still illustrates the "let's add a ton of stuff, change a few things, and drop almost nothing" design mentality that makes me avoid this variant.)

One of the things that's impressed me most about the people developing Stone Soup is their restraint -- part of making a good game (or most any creative work, really) is knowing when to leave something out, when to remove something that was previously in the game, but doesn't really serve a purpose any longer (or that the devs can't figure out how to implement effectively). It still kinda blows my mind that DCSS has a section in the manual devoted to their design philosophy for the game. There are professional game development houses who could probably learn some things about game design from these guys.

HunchBluntley, have you played ADOM at all? 'cause, like, you should.

I'm rather fond of Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol. It finally got rerelased a while back, unfortunately, it's a 16bit game, so you'll be playing it in a VM, but Gamersgate has it for a very reasonable price. For years it was listed at the original price, but with the rerelease it's something a bit more affordable.

It's totally the kind of game that we should have here.