''Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup'' (''DCSS'') is a

free and open source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

roguelike Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a subgenre of role-playing computer games traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player characte ...

computer game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

and the community-developed successor to the 1997

game ''Linley's Dungeon Crawl'', originally programmed by Linley Henzell. It has been identified as one of the "major roguelikes" by John Harris. ''Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup'' polled first in a 2008 poll of 371 roguelike players, and later polled second in 2009 (behind ''

DoomRL ''DRL'' (formerly ''DoomRL''), short for ''Doom, the Roguelike'', is a roguelike video game developed by ChaosForge based on the first-person shooters ''Doom (1993 video game), Doom'' and ''Doom II''. It has been in development since 2002, and w ...

'') and 2010 (behind '' ToME 4''), and third in 2011 (behind ''ToME 4'' and ''

Dungeons of Dredmor ''Dungeons of Dredmor'' is a roguelike indie video game released on July 13, 2011, by Gaslamp Games. A downloadable content (DLC) pack, "Realm of the Diggle Gods", was released later that year. A second DLC, "You Have To Name The Expansion Pack", ...

''). The game is released under the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later. The latest release is version 0.29
0.29
, released on August 25th, 2022. "Stone Soup" refers to the European folk story in which hungry strangers convince the people of a town to each share a small amount of their food in order to make a meal that everyone enjoys.

Gameplay

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is a

game where the player creates a character and guides it through a dungeon, mostly consisting of persistent levels, full of monsters and items, with the goal of retrieving the "Orb of Zot" (a

MacGuffin In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself. The term was originated by Angus MacPhail for ...

) located there, and escaping alive. To enter the Realm of Zot where the Orb is located, the player must first obtain at least three "runes of Zot" of the 15 available; these are located at the ends of diverse dungeon branches such as the Spider Nest, Tomb, and Slime Pits. The game has an explicit design philosophy intended to provide interesting strategic and tactical choices within a balanced game; to offer replayability based on random dungeon generation; to make the game accessible and enjoyable without deep knowledge of its internal mechanics; and to present a friendly user interface that can optionally automate several tasks like exploration and searching for previously seen items. Conversely, the developer team seeks to avoid providing incentives for repeating boring actions without consideration, or providing illusory gameplay choices where one alternative is always superior. Most levels are randomly generated to maximize variety, while the levels containing the objective items are randomly chosen between several manually-designed layouts, which usually contain random elements, and which are authored in a Crawl-specific language incorporating

Lua Lua or LUA may refer to: Science and technology * Lua (programming language) * Latvia University of Agriculture * Last universal ancestor, in evolution Ethnicity and language * Lua people, of Laos * Lawa people, of Thailand sometimes referred t ...

scripting. Randomly generated levels may contain randomly chosen manually designed fragments called "vaults", as well as portals to special manually designed mini-levels called "portal vaults" such as volcanoes and wizard's laboratories. Characters are initially defined by their species and their background. Character advancement is based on experience points gained by defeating monsters, which increase both an experience level and a set of skills including melee weapons, ranged weapons and magic. The player determines which skills to increase. The species choice determines the aptitudes of the character for each of the skills, which represent how much experience is needed to raise the skill to higher levels and adds species-specific abilities. In the 0.28 version, 27 species are available, from those with little deviation from the common mechanics such as humans and hill orcs, to species such as mummies and octopodes which have unusual gameplay mechanics. The background choice determines the starting skills and equipment, with 24 choices as of 0.28 such as fighters, necromancers, and berserkers; unlike species choice, background choice only affects the start of the game – the player is not prevented from pursuing any skills and using any equipment. The game also offers a pantheon of 26 gods. The player can choose to worship one of the gods once the appropriate altar is found. A few backgrounds even start the game already worshipping a specific god. The choice of the deity significantly impacts gameplay. Favor with gods is earned in different ways. Some appreciate the player exploring or killing enemies, but there are also more whimsical gods like Ru, who expects sacrifices of his worshippers. Favor with one's god is rewarded with widely different benefits, ranging from passive enhancements to occasional gifts to the player to powerful activated abilities. Some gods' enhancements are tailored to specific play styles, such as Okawaru's gifts of weapons and combat boosts supporting fighter types; and Sif Muna's gifts of spell books and increases to MP regeneration, which are more beneficial to sorcerer types. A player can also choose to abandon their god in favor of another. However, this will usually cause the deity to become angry at the player. Consequently they will harass the player for a time with actions like summoning powerful monsters against the player, inflicting nasty status effects like slowing, or simply dealing large amounts of damage on the player.

History

''Linley's Dungeon Crawl''

''Linley's Dungeon Crawl'' (or just ''Dungeon Crawl'' or ''Crawl'') was a

originally programmed by Linley Henzell in

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

, and first released to the general public on October 2, 1997. The game had a quirky license based on

Bison Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'', found only in North Ame ...

's license and the NetHack License; Stone Soup has contacted every past contributor and relicensed to GPL-2.0-or-later.

Original gameplay

''Crawl'' starts with the player's choice of one of over twenty races: several different types of

elves An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He distinguishes "ligh ...

, dwarves,

humans Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

ogres An ogre (feminine: ogress) is a legendary monster depicted as a large, hideous, man-like being that eats ordinary human beings, especially infants and children. Ogres frequently feature in mythology, folklore, and fiction throughout the world ...

tengu are a type of legendary creature found in Japanese folk religion (Shinto). They are considered a type of ''yōkai'' (supernatural beings) or Shinto ''kami'' (gods). The ''Tengu'' were originally thought to take the forms of birds of prey and a ...

centaurs A centaur ( ; grc, κένταυρος, kéntauros; ), or occasionally hippocentaur, is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse. Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as being ...

merfolk Merfolk or merpeople are legendary water-dwelling human-like beings. They are attested in folklore and mythology throughout the ages in various parts of the world. Female merfolk may be referred to as mermaids, although in a strict sense mermaid ...

, and other fantasy beings. Racial selection sets base attributes, future skill advancement, and physical characteristics such as movement, resistances, and special abilities. Subject to racial exclusions, the player next chooses a

character class In tabletop games and video games, a character class is a job or profession commonly used to differentiate the abilities of different game characters. In role-playing games (RPGs), character classes aggregate several abilities and aptitudes, ...

from among over twenty selections. Classes include the traditional roles of fighter, wizard, and

thief Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for some ...

as well as specialty roles, among them

monks A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedicat ...

berserker In the Old Norse written corpus, berserker were those who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English word '' berserk'' (meaning "furiously violent or out of control"). Berserkers ...

assassins An assassin is a person who commits targeted murder. Assassin may also refer to: Origin of term * Someone belonging to the medieval Persian Ismaili order of Assassins Animals and insects * Assassin bugs, a genus in the family ''Reduviida ...

crusade The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were i ...

rs, and elemental spellcasters. Wanderers represent an atypical option and receive a random skill set. Together, class and race determine base equipment and skill training, though characters may later attempt to acquire any in-game skill. The ''Crawl'' skill system covers many abilities, including the ability to move freely in

armor Armour (British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or fr ...

or silently, mount effective attacks with different categories of weapons (

polearm A polearm or pole weapon is a close combat weapon in which the main fighting part of the weapon is fitted to the end of a long shaft, typically of wood, thereby extending the user's effective range and striking power. Polearms are predominantly ...

long Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...

short Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as ...

blades, maces,

axe An axe ( sometimes ax in American English; see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has ma ...

s, and staves), master

spells Spell(s) or The Spell(s) may refer to: Processes * Spell (paranormal), an incantation * Spell (ritual), a magical ritual * Spelling, the writing of words Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Spell'' (1977 film), an American ...

from different magical colleges (the elements,

necromancy Necromancy () is the practice of magic or black magic involving communication with the dead by summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions, or by resurrection for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future events; ...

, conjuration, enchantments, summoning, etc.), utilize magical artifacts, and pray to divinities. Training occurs through repetition of skill-related actions (e.g., hitting a monster with a longsword trains long blades and fighting skills), using experience from a pool refilled as the player defeats monsters. John Harris, in his "@Play" column states that the experience pool system "deftly avoids the many problems of a skill-based development system", mainly praising the need to move on through the course of the game to further improve a PC's skills. In the same article, John Harris states that this experience system "is probably the best skill system yet seen in any roguelike; it could make a claim at being one of the best in any CRPG."

Religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

within ''Crawl'' is a central game mechanic. Its diverse pantheon of gods reward character conformance to particular codes of conduct. Trog, the berserker god, expects abstinence from casting spells and offers aid in battle, whereas Sif Muna expects frequent spellcraft in exchange for magical assistance and gifts of spellbooks. Some deities campaign against

evil Evil, in a general sense, is defined as the opposite or absence of good. It can be an extremely broad concept, although in everyday usage it is often more narrowly used to talk about profound wickedness and against common good. It is general ...

, matched by a god of death who revels in indiscriminate killing, while others prove unpredictable objects of worship. Xom, an example of the latter, toys with followers, meting out punishments and showering gifts on inscrutable whims. The goal of ''Crawl'' is to recover the "Orb of Zot" hidden deep within a

dungeon A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period. An oubliette (from ...

complex. To achieve this objective, characters must visit various dungeon branches, such as the Orcish Mines or The Lair of Beasts, which often branch further in to additional areas, like the Elven Halls or The Swamp, and obtain at least three "Runes of Zot" with which to gain access to the Orb. Fifteen different runes can be obtained in any particular game, and obtaining all of them is generally considered an extra feat. While all the possible 654 race/class combinations have been won on the online servers, only 186 of them were ever played online as an all-rune win (as of 2010-08-24). Dungeon maps in ''Crawl'' persist, as in ''

NetHack ''NetHack'' is an open source single-player roguelike video game, first released in 1987 and maintained by the NetHack DevTeam. The game is a fork of the 1982 game ''Hack'', itself inspired by the 1980 game '' Rogue''. The player takes the role a ...

''.

Versions

The last official versions of ''Linley's Dungeon Crawl'' were 4.0.0 beta 26, from March 24, 2003, and a later alpha release, version 4.1.0, dating from July 2005. Version 400b26e070t, a popular last community release, includes the 2003–2004 Patches (Darshan Shaligram) and updates the game to the standard tile version (M. Itakura, Denzi, Alex Korol, Nullpodoh). The game has been ported to the

Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tan ...

as ''DSCrawl''.

''DCSS''

''Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup'' was begun in 2006 by Darshan "greensnark" Shaligram and Erik Piper as an attempt to restart ''Crawl'' development, which had progressed slowly in the years since Linley Henzell, creator of the original ''Linley's Dungeon Crawl'', had retired from developing the game. Several patches had been made to the game, particularly one by Shaligram known as the "Travel patch", which borrowed the implementation of

Dijkstra's algorithm Dijkstra's algorithm ( ) is an algorithm for finding the shortest paths between nodes in a graph, which may represent, for example, road networks. It was conceived by computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra in 1956 and published three years ...

from ''

'' to provide an auto-exploration ability in game. These patches were compiled into the ''Stone Soup'' project, which eventually released publicly on

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirrorin ...

. ''Stone Soup'' has since then developed an unprecedented variety of extensions which fit into this general vein of "play aid", such as allowing searching through every item ever discovered by

regular expression A regular expression (shortened as regex or regexp; sometimes referred to as rational expression) is a sequence of characters that specifies a search pattern in text. Usually such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for "find" or ...

. Additionally, ''Stone Soup'' has made a number of

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

improvements, such as mouse interaction and an optional

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

. To avoid featuritis, ''Stone Soup'' has pruned gameplay elements which they considered superfluous, including several races, backgrounds, magical schools, and most recently the food system. The development team has also expressed a desire to maintain the current total length of the game, and so as new areas are added to the dungeon, old ones have been shortened or even removed to compensate.

Graphical tile version

One notable addition of the ''Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup'' branch is the ability to play (locally or in a

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

) using a

graphical Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture ...

tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or o ...

version of the game. Players unfamiliar with the genre may find the tile version more accessible.

Android versions

There are two Android ports of the game available. An unofficial port of the console version was developed and released on

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...

. There is also a port of the tile version that is under development. The latest unstable builds can be downloaded from the official website.

Online play

Several public servers support online play through an

SSH The Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) is a cryptographic network protocol for operating network services securely over an unsecured network. Its most notable applications are remote login and command-line execution. SSH applications are based on ...

client and some of these also allow graphical play in web browser (referred to as ''webtiles''). Features of online play include automated high-score tracking and real-time recording of online play for later viewing. Also, ghosts of other players' characters are frequently encountered on a player's journey, providing an additional challenge. A biannual tournament for all ''Stone Soup'' players is held after each major release on the servers (usually in September and April). Additionally, players may test experimental game modes, races, and gods, that are not yet ready to be added to the main version.

References

External links

* {{official website, http://crawl.develz.org/
Public Stone Soup server
(requires a

Telnet Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet control i ...

client)
Source code

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