Sunday, October 13th, 2002
I’ve had more fun than I’d like to admit playing this OSX port of the classic ASCII-dungeon game Moria (Angband). This totally brings back memories of when I was teaching in the wilderness of Izard Co., and would spend hours in the evenings (after long motorcycle rides through the splendid scenery) plodding away at this seemingly simple little game on my Mac Classic II.
I’ve always had a strong prejudice against the whole Fantasy genre, and particularly resent its intrusion, nay contamination, of Science Fiction (or SciFi, whatever). With the noted exception of the Classics (Tolkein, C.S. lewis) Fantasy requires less skill than wild imagination, and few writers are able to craft universes that are both moral and magical. To my taste, true SciFi is superior because it is about normal people interacting with technology, or its natural conclusion.
But I digress. Angband is a fun game. It has a rigid rule structure that discourages cheating (other than the backup save *natch*). It requires a lot of imagination to make it work. But after a while, those little colored ASCII letters and numbers start to come to life and it’s a blast.
I still remember the day I killed the Balrog. Took me about three months, I think.