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Anyone else playing Powder?

DrezDrez Registered User regular
edited July 2007 in Games and Technology
Ever since it was mentioned in the Nintendo DS homebrew thread, I haven't been able to put it down, except when I'm eating or sleeping or reviewing something or doing something else that requires hands.

Seriously, though, I find it very addictive. It's a roguelike that some dude created because he wanted a roguelike for the GBA. It has different tilesets, 25 randomly-generating levels, and a whole bunch of items, skills, spells, and whatnot. Nethack-y, I guess.

Version 0.86 just came out. You can get it from here: http://www.zincland.com/powder/

There are Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Windows, and Linux versions available. It's free, and obviously you need some kind of ROM device if you want to play it on your GBA or Nintendo DS.

Just so this OP isn't completely bereft of pictures:

classic_048.pngfightcavespider.gifadambolt_048.png

Different tilesets, lots to do, rather addictive.

Anyone else playing? I haven't been able to get below level 6 and it's driving me mad.

Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
Drez on

Posts

  • DaedalusDaedalus Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Bumping an old-ish thread.

    Holy shit, I just started to play it and it's awesome.

    I'm kinda new to rougelikes (never quite got "into" Nethack), so I don't quite get some things, but still it's been great fun so far.

    It would be nice if there were sound effects or background music, but I'm guessing that's one of those "doesn't belong in a rougelike" things, right?

    Anyway, a couple of questions, if anyone knows the answers:

    1) How do you tell if an item is cursed, and while I'm at it, how do you remove a cursed item?

    2) What do you do if there's no ladder down and you don't have the Dig spell or anything?

    Daedalus on
  • OrogogusOrogogus San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited July 2007
    I started playing this this weekend. It seems kind of unfair, but I guess that's par for the course for Roguelikes. Still, I think it's kind of crappy that you can start with nothing but cursed equipment.
    1) How do you tell if an item is cursed, and while I'm at it, how do you remove a cursed item?
    There's a scroll of Detect Curse, which will make holy items glow white, evil items glow black and everything else glow grey.

    You can also cast the spell if you have a book of divining or divinations or something like that. I haven't been able to cast it more than like twice without Hruth or someone getting mad and poisoning me to death, though. It seems brutally hard to get started as a spellcaster in this game. The starting spells don't seem to kill jack, and you end up just building up points with the melee gods.

    And I have to say, this game seems to spit out way the hell more than the usual proportion of cursed items. It's kind of ridiculous considering how hard it is to detect or uncurse. 100% of the necklaces I've tried on have been of strangulation. I haven't really put on any necklaces or rings because of this.
    2) What do you do if there's no ladder down and you don't have the Dig spell or anything?
    Search for secret passages. Either at the end of passages that don't seem to go anywhere, alongside walls that don't belong to any known rooms, or failing that, just near places on the minimap where it looks like a room could easily fit.

    Some questions of my own:

    3. Can you fill water bottles?

    4. What do gods other than the warrior god or wizard god do for you? The warrior god gives you skills, free loot, heals and unpoisons you, randomly blesses your weapons/armor, and uncurses your bad equipment; the wizard god gives you free spells. I think the cultist god poisoned me once and was in general a cock. And I've seen a lot of douchebaggery from H'ruth, who I think is the barbarian god, but I haven't tried going down his path.

    5. How do the special skills work? Is there a special command to activate them after you've gotten the appropriate skill and are wielding a corresponding weapon?

    6. Do the holy or evil flags have effects on items other than weapons and armor?

    7. Why do I keep hitting myself with the Acid Splash spell? The spell only has a range of 1 square, and it keeps hitting me as well as the target.

    Orogogus on
  • DrezDrez Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    1) How do you tell if an item is cursed, and while I'm at it, how do you remove a cursed item?

    2) What do you do if there's no ladder down and you don't have the Dig spell or anything?

    1) Multiple ways:
    • To tell: Equip it. If it's "chills you," it is evil, or cursed. The item description will also now have the prefix "evil."
    • To tell: Cast "Detect Curse" or use a scroll of "Detect Curse."
    • To tell: Identify the item via scroll, spell, or potion. (You can identify items by dipping them in a Potion of Enlightenment.)
    • To remove: Use a scroll of "Remove Curse"
    • To remove: Equip the item and eventually one of the "good" gods, if you are aligned with them, will remove the curse.

    2) As Orogogus said, search for doors. What I do is hit START or X to go into the game's command list. I then map the "search" command to the NDS's left bumper button. Just hover over "search" and press the L-button on your NDS or GBA. I'm not sure how to do this on the PC, but I'm sure there is a way. It makes life a lot easier. With the NDS/GBA version, it shows you what you have mapped to the L-button and R-button on the lower right of the screen. It should say "MM" at first. If you remap the L-button to search, it will say "sM."
    Orogogus wrote: »
    3. Can you fill water bottles?

    4. What do gods other than the warrior god or wizard god do for you? The warrior god gives you skills, free loot, heals and unpoisons you, randomly blesses your weapons/armor, and uncurses your bad equipment; the wizard god gives you free spells. I think the cultist god poisoned me once and was in general a cock. And I've seen a lot of douchebaggery from H'ruth, who I think is the barbarian god, but I haven't tried going down his path.

    5. How do the special skills work? Is there a special command to activate them after you've gotten the appropriate skill and are wielding a corresponding weapon?

    6. Do the holy or evil flags have effects on items other than weapons and armor?

    7. Why do I keep hitting myself with the Acid Splash spell? The spell only has a range of 1 square, and it keeps hitting me as well as the target.


    3) I am not sure, but I will check next time I find a water source.


    4) On gods...

    Klaskov = Warrior God
    Belweir = Wizard God
    H'ruth = Barbarian God

    I forget what the others are.

    Klaskov will grant you a free skill point every two times you worship him. You also get free warrior-like skills now and then. Belweir will grant you a free spell point every two times you worship him, as well as a spell now and then - I'm not sure how frequently, possibly every level? H'ruth gives you a free skill point every time you worship him and a new H'ruth-y skill too.

    Here's the thing. The game is, as you say, very unforgiving. If you want to go melee, the only spells worth knowing are Detect Curse, Identify, Heal, Major Heal, and maybe Regeneration (but you can find accessories with permanent Regeneration).

    If you worship Klaskov, you will get a fair amount of skill points and you will not be penalized for some minor spellcasting. You will not get mana, but you will get a nice HP bump now and then.

    If you worship Belweir, you will get a decent mana pool, but no HP. If you want to get and be able to cast Identify, you need at least two, and possibly three levels of worshipping Belweir. This is dangerous, because you will be very physically weak. And if you don't do this from the get go, and you start off by worshipping Klaskov or H'ruth, you will find it hard to gain enough favor with Belweir to even ALLOW you to worship him upon level up. So worshipping him to get Identify is dangerous.

    My suggestion? Eschew spells completely and go with H'ruth.

    Reasons:
    • You will get the most HP. Anywhere from 10-20 max HP per level.
    • You will gain new skills every level, and a new skill point every level which comes in handy when you start finding a lot of books.
    • You will STILL raise your piety with Klaskov. If you don't care about spells, there's really no reason to worship Klaskov at all. Worshipping H'ruth and engaging primarily in melee combat will still gain you favor with Klaskov. In fact, upon worshipping the crap out of H'ruth for 20 levels, I still had MORE favor with Klaskov.

    If you go with Klaskov and cast spells now and then, or engage in ranged combat, H'ruth will become your enemy. If you go with H'ruth and engage primarily in melee combat, you will have H'ruth AND Klaskov on your side.

    When you get deeper into the game, this is important. The gods that hate you - the ones with negative piety toward you (you can check by praying via the command menu) - will start to serious mess with you. They will curse you. They will disenchant your weapons. They will poison you or immolate you. They will polymorph you.

    H'ruth and Klaskov, though, will often BLOCK their meddling if you have enough piety with them. They will also do the following at random:
    • Remove the curse on certain items.
    • Make uncursed items holy.
    • Enchant weapons.
    • Give you free equipment (usually weapons) by just spawning it at your feet.
    • Mend your wounds (i.e. heal you to full).
    • Cure an affliction, like poison or hardening (hardening = petrification, and is an insta-lose. You meet cockatrices way too early here.)

    Having two godly friends is a good idea, and makes life a lot easier. I highly recommend going H'ruth-only, and melee-combat only. In fact, I usually just throw my spellbook away without learning anything now.

    As far as detect curse goes - once you have +200 or more piety with Klaskov, it doesn't matter. Cursed items are irrelevant. Some gods that hate you will try cursing your items. And Klaskov will remove curses for you. So will H'ruth. You may want to avoid it in the beginning, but once you start gaining a lot of favor from Klaskov, wearing cursed items is unimportant. It IS annoying to not have Identify, but you can still use potions and scrolls without incurring H'ruth's wrath, and eventually you'll find potions of enlightenment or scrolls of identification. Hopefully even more as the game progresses.


    5) Not that I know of. It just makes you "better" at using the weapon or wearing the armor. Most skills are passive.


    6) Not that I've seen. Gaining a skill or spell from an evil book doesn't seem to matter. It only matters if you equip it.


    7) I noticed that too. It might only happen at low mental levels.

    Drez on
    Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
  • AchtungBabyAchtungBaby Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Whoa, thank you Drez, my R4 should be arriving sometime next week, and I was looking for some good roguelikes as a homebrew application.

    AchtungBaby on
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