I continued my last character and couldn’t see much difference in the game, but then I started a new game after he died and – woah! It’s all different!

I can be a lady!

I'm a lady-girl! My name is Ladybump.

I can choose a difficulty level! (Though anyone who chooses to have infinite lives in a roguelike needs beating with the flat edge of a broadsword.)

There are vaults and grates and barrels and millions of new enemies and levers and tables and wow! Unfortunately poor Ladybump got incinerated on level two, so the game may have got harder, too. Either that or I’ve forgotten how to play it properly.

Anyway, if you haven’t given Fargoal a look for a while, you might want to look again. And if you never bought it in the first place, shame on you. SHAME. RIGHT ON YOUR FACE.

One change I did notice was the introduction of shields, which I don’t think were in the last version I played. A small change, but anything that helps me survive is welcome.

Look! I've got a shield!

Also, all the passages I found to other maps on the same level as me seemed to be blocked – not sure what’s that around. Bad luck, glitch, new design? I must investigate further.

Anyway, it’s still probably the best introductory roguelike on the iPhone. (And it is a roguelike, as far as I’m concerned. It’s got randomly-generated dungeons, loot to find, monsters to fight and, crucially, permadeath.)

He was cautious at first, but impatience got the better of him as he neared the twentieth level of the dungeon, where the Sword of Fargoal was said to reside.

He made it down to level twenty, but couldn’t find the sword. Puzzled, he went down to level twenty-one, then came back up by a different staircase and found himself in a maze-like level unlike anything he’d seen before. In the middle of the maze, he found it. The Sword of Fargoal, just sitting there, waiting to be picked up.

So he grabbed it and started running for the dungeon exit. Unfortunately, a pesky mage stole the sword from him and teleported away. He saw the mage a couple of other times, but couldn’t get to him before he teleported again. Then… he found him, he cornered him, he beat his brains in and grabbed the sword. After that, it was relatively easy. The sword got stolen a couple more times, but not by anyone with the means to teleport away, so it was retrieved easily enough.

Up and up Sir Jelly went, his heart beating faster with every floor… and then… freedom!

Roll credits.

So, yes, I have beaten the current version of Sword of Fargoal. But not only are the developers promising more to come, but I’ve already started another game with a new character.

I still haven’t died. I’m exploring every level very carefully before going down and I’ve not yet been in any obvious danger. I had a stressful time when I spent far too long confused after wandering through a toadstool patch, but it’s been pretty good. Well, except for that time a dark warrior stole my restoration potions and used all but one of them when I fought him to try and get them back. That was pretty awful.

Anyway, here are my current stats:

Not sure why I’m posting them, probably just because I can.

The longer a character lasts the more tense things gets, because a single mistake can destroy hours of progress and send you right back to the beginning. I’m not sure I’ll ever retrieve the Sword of Fargoal from the depths of the dungeon, but I’m definitely going to try my best.

I just hope it doesn’t get too tense and I stop playing because I’m too scared of letting my character die. That’s a real possibility, you know.

You waited five minutes for the game to load, then about two minutes for it to generate a level (showing only a blank screen during that time, as the level generation was done in the ZX81′s fast mode, which stopped the computer showing any graphics) and then you were in an amazing world of adventure.

Behold!

Have you ever seen such glory? Back then, I actually hadn’t. Not in terms of the graphics – obviously, they were basic even for the time, but there were random dungeons to uncover, monsters to fight, treasure to collect and walls to tunnel through.

Back then, I didn’t know it was based on a game called Rogue. (Though I think Catacombs may have been real time, rather than turn-based.) I never forgot it, though, and it was only really when I started playing ZangbandTK a few years ago that I made the connection.

So that was then. And a couple of years later, unbeknownst to me, a very similar but far superior game called Sword of Fargoal was released on various Commodore machines. (I was a Spectrum kid, Commodore was the enemy. No fanboy console wars can compete with the intensity of the Sinclair/Commodore wars of the early eighties. Thank goodness we didn’t have the Internet back then.)

And now Sword of Fargoal is back, in a gorgeous version I can play in the palm of my hand.

Okay, so you can’t tunnel like you could in Catacombs, but nobody’s perfect.

I didn’t play too much last night, as Song Summoner took up a lot of my time, but I started a new character and managed not to die stupidly, which is a victory of sorts after yesterday.

I saw my health get low, but you auto-use healing potions when necessary, so that’s fine… or would have been, if I’d not already used them all. I had a ton of options left that could have saved me, but I just decided to keep slashing away, secure in the knowledge that I was safe from death. Except, as I said, I wasn’t.

I was shocked when the death screen came up, then once I’d recovered I gave myself a good kicking. No matter how simple the roguelike, you really, really can’t take things for granted like that.

I’m an idiot.

Stop. Pause for a moment. In the App Store, over two pounds for a game seems expensive. Meditate on that for a while.

Right, let’s carry on. Sword of Fargoal is based on a simple early-eighties roguelike, full of monsters, treasure, traps and spells. The dungeons are randomly generated and once you’re dead, you’re dead.

Pretty standard, really, but there a few wrinkles. The combat is slightly different to normal – once in a fight you can sit back and watch if you simply want to carry on hitting the enemy with your sword. It’s not quite turn-based meaning if you put the game down without pressing the pause button, you’re in danger. You can see what items and spells are when you pick them up. No need for a scroll of identity here. (You might not know what they do, but playing around is always put of the fun.) There are a few other little wrinkles, but overall it’s simpler than even Rogue, while not being watered down enough to be boring. At least, not yet – I’ve only played half an hour or so.

(Remember, none of these blog posts are reviews, just my current impressions.)

So, it’s a slightly more casual roguelike than usual. What really sets it apart from other games of this nature is the loving presentation. It simply oozes style, with a gorgeous look that seems to effortlessly skip along the tightrope between retro and modern. It’s gorgeous and screenshots don’t really do it justice – which is odd, given the rather static nature of the thing.

If you want it you should probably grab it now, before the price goes up.