Sunday, August 10, 2014

Episode 89: Interview with the Angband devteam part 1

This is episode 89 of Roguelike Radio, where we interview the Angband devteam. 

You can download the mp3 of the podcast, play it in the embedded player below, or you can follow us on iTunes.




Devteam members present:
  • Aaron Bader (fizzix) - Developer for about five years and the release manager for 3.4, the previous version released.
  • Chris Carr (magnate) - Involved in Angband development for about 10 years. He was responsible for a ton of recent gameplay changes, and was release manager for 3.3 and possibly some other versions as well.
  • Robert Au (myshkin) - Player since the mid-90s, and on the devteam for 4 years. Worked on the Macport and code infrastructure.
  • Nick McConnell - Involved in Angband for about 10 years. He is the author of the variant FAAngband (First Age Angband) and has recently stepped up to be the new Angband maintainer after the release of version 3.5.

Topics discussed:

  • History of Angband, how it sprouted from Moria
  • Distinctive elements of *bands compared to other roguelikes
  • The important developments of Ben Harrison and tekaria as Angband maintainers
  • The direction of current development
  • Maintaining tradition whilst instigating change, and how the community reacts to that
  • The Angband forums
  • The change to the way people play Angband, with a new focus on fast diving instead of slow scumming
  • How the dev team works together, stays working, and avoids arguments
  • Tolkien vs D&D vs fresh inspiration
  • The android port, and what works and what doesn't
  • Pacing, vaults, bosses and potential changes in future



Join us next time on Roguelike Radio for part two of the Angband devteam interview, which focuses mostly on the many many variants.

4 comments:

  1. Will be looking to see Part 2 - hopefully sooner then 2 months from now.

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  2. Can anyone sum up/point me too the current direction of Angband development?

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  3. The official home page is here; you can see the code for the restructure discussed in the episode on github. There's also discussion at the forums linked above, and on the freenode IRC channel #angband-dev

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  4. Android port needs 1 of 2 things (Or both... I wouldn't complain)

    1. Ability to use a Android native touch keyboard. I am used to my phone and tablets keyboard. Being forced to use the port's built in keyboard is killing me.

    2. Ability to scale the keyboard. If I could scale up the port keyboard it would suck it up and learn a new keyboard for the Roguelikes that have been ported to this system, but I'm petite and I fat finger all over it.

    Been playing Angband since it was Moria. Thanks for keeping the torch lit!

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