Kerkerkruip seeded challenge #1

Kerkerkruip 10 allows you to fill in a seed instead of letting the dungeon be generated at random. This allows multiple users to play the exact same dungeon, making it possible to do something that the Brogue community used to do: a seeded challenge! Anyone who wants to participate fills in the seed, plays the game, and then goes back to the forum to tell everyone else about their exploits. Did you achieve glorious victory or ignominous defeat? And how? A fun way to share your experiences and maybe learn from each other.

So, let’s try it out! Download this exact version of Kerkerkruip. Open it in your favourite interpreter. In the main menu, choose “S” for loading a specific dungeon seed. The fill in this seed:

20180724 (that is today’s date, at least, it has just become so where I live)

and for difficulty, choose 1. You should start the game with a pickaxe and a scroll of mapping, in an otherwise empty Entrance Hall with exits south and west. (If you start out in a different way, check the seed. Perhaps you types it in wrong, or perhaps our seeding system is bugged.) Play! And tell us about your game in this topic.

Note that Kerkerkruip 10 does not at this moment have a graphical interface available, so you can’t use the “map” command. The “remember”/“r” command can be a useful substitute.

Have fun! And now for some spoiler space.

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If you intend to play the seed, play before reading on!

The first thing to notice is that we start out with a pickaxe and a scroll of mapping. The pickaxe is a low accuracy weapon, and hence not very good in most fights. On the positive side, it allows us to dig. With this starting kit, we should begin by mapping out the entire dungeon: read the scroll; check out the rooms; retreat whenever we see a monster; then dig tunnels to any rooms we couldn’t access. Very often, this allows us to get some nice items that will help us in the fights to come. So I read the scroll and then use the ‘remember’ command to find out that there are no secret rooms and that the dungeon is completely horizontal. Ok. Let’s start exploring and digging.

We quickly stumble upon two items that allow us to identify scrolls (you can grab items in the room with the wisps of pain, since they won’t attack you in a normal way) as well as Mendele’s robe. It’s a bit of a risky item, but I like risk, so I’ll wear it. There’s a room we can’t dig into – I believe that must be the Bridge of Doom. Luckily, we can approach it from the south. A little later on we discover the overmind guarding the glass cannon. Now that is an item I want to have as soon as possible, and the overmind isn’t that fearsome as a combatant, so I’m going to grab it: take all, retreat… only 1 damage! Nice. Let’s ready it immediately. Yes, it’s a bit risky, but by equipping it now we lose a lot less health in the end. And we can always get more health by killing the wisps, if necessary. So, “ready cannon”. I’m now at 6 of 7 health and I’ve almost seen the entire dungeon.

Oops. Of course, now I can no longer dig. That was a mistake! I probably missed out on only one room, behind the angel of compassion, but still – I should have explored that before switching weapons. Of course, I can’t switch back, since the glass cannon halves your health every time you equip it.

Here is the plan. First, I want to take our Miranda. The wisps are easier, but you can get a better bonus from them later on. Then, I’ll try the overmind, first throwing my three frag grenades from above and then hopefully killing him quickly with the glass cannon. After that, the sky is the limit. Let’s go. (“Go to miranda.”)

That was my second mistake. You can’t parry with the glass cannon, and Miranda is in the Bridge of Doom, where you can’t dodge. So I have no defensive moves! I need to get lucky with my dice rolls, but alas, I miss twice and Miranda hits twice. Game over. That was truly ignominious defeat: killed by the first enemy I attempted to take on! But it was entirely deserved, since I made one small and one really big mistake. I hope other people fare better! It’s certainly hard to fare worse. :blush: :stuck_out_tongue: (Come to think of it, you can dodge once in the Bridge of Doom; I should have tried that. Mistake number three.)

Lessons learned:

  • When you equip the glass cannon, it will be your only weapon for the rest of the game. So before equipping the glass cannon, check your other weapons to see whether you need to use one of them – especially if you have the pickaxe!
  • Remember that the glass cannon is relatively bad in the Bridge of Doom. Only use it there if you can comfortably defeat the enemy.
  • Remember that you can make one successful dodge on the Bridge of Doom before you’ll fall off. Use that when necessary.

I haven’t read your account yet.

I started up with the scroll and the pickaxe (which I forgot to try out!). I went south and saw an angelic figure. Identifying ‘angel’ with powerful, I ran to the next room (taking massive damage as I ran) where I fought the wisps of pain in a long, drawn out battle. I looted that room and the one to the north.

I wanted to avoid the angel, but I found myself blocked in every direction. I accidentally ran into the angel and fled again, taking damage again. The map was only one floor, which was nice, but I had found a bottleneck. So I had to go through the angel. I threw my frag grenade, both of us were hit for 2 damage, then one swing and I was gone.

I had played Kerkerkruip a lot before, but it’s been a while. It was a fun experience, even if it was short. If anyone else tries it, I hope they do better than me!