Angband (game)
Angband is a roguelike game derived from Moria and enhanced successively by Alex Cutler, Andy Astrand, Charles Swiger, Ben Harrison and Robert Ruehlmann. It is based on the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. The adventurer is presented with 100 levels of the title dungeon, in which he or she seeks to amass enough power and equipment to ultimately defeat Morgoth. A new level is randomly generated each time the player changes levels, which gives Angband great replay value: no two games will be the same.A veritable family tree of around sixty variants of Angband exist, each greatly differing in purpose and depth of changes. The most known variants are EyAngband, Hengband, OAngband, ToME, and ZAngband.
The Usenet group rec.games.roguelike.angband is a place to discuss all the aspects of the game. An IRC channel, #angband exists on the WorldIRC network (irc.worldirc.org).
Angband is open source but not strictly free software because it is licensed under "non commercial use" terms, as was its ancestor Moria. However, there is an effort ongoing to re-license Angband under the GNU GPL.
Vanilla (the *bandish term for unmodified) Angband gameplay is most often compared to Nethack, though in reality the games are almost polar opposites. Angband adopts a more serious tone than Nethack, and the focus of the game is more on combat tactics, inventory management and risk minimalisation than Nethackish puzzle solving and special casing. This has been the source of mild conflicts between the two communities.
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