My next character – Mexico Shooter – didn’t do too badly, either, before dying stupidly. (He read a random scroll he’d found and it turned out to be a scroll of summon monsters, so found himself surrounded by dragons and bees without a way out.) However, he only ended up with 24 points, which is about as many points as I normally ever get.

So where did these hundreds and hundreds of extra points come from for Your Mam’s Face? I wish I could find a scoring guide somewhere.

I wish this ran on OSX.

Then came Giles VIII. He didn’t seem to be any stronger or wiser than the rest, but somehow he won a few fights and found himself progressing to level two. That small step seemed to make things easier and he grew in strength and confidence, gaining new powers.

He could send psychic attacks across thin air, wiping out the fragile minds of lesser beasts.

He could stop and sense the enemies around him.

He could open his mouth, bare his fangs and launch himself at the monsters in the dungeon, clamp on to their necks and drink their blood.

He could even teleport himself across thin air. He couldn’t choose where to go, but the power saved him on a number of occasions.

That was until he met the novice warriors. He was a level four character on level two of the dungeon. He was being careful, because he knew there were dangers. Entering a room, bruised and bleeding after a fight with a monster, he saw a sleeping priest. He crept up, ready to pounce, ready to feed. Which was when the novice fighters entered from his left. Knowing he couldn’t take them on, he teleported himself away. It wasn’t far, just behind them in the room they’d obviously just left. He started to run… and slammed straight into a dead end. The two novice warriors approached…

Giles VIII tried teleporting again. He didn’t have enough SP left for the task, but he tried anyway. It was a desperate final act and it failed. He fell to the floor, paralysed, his mind damaged beyond repair. One novice warrior got within striking distance and showed no mercy to his fallen foe. The other warrior was now also close enough to attack. Their weapons flashed in the half-light of the tunnel as they came down and cut through the flesh of the vampire’s neck.

It was over.

Giles VIII the Vampire Mindcrafter, Level 4
Killed by a Novice warrior on Dungeon Level 2
(User 0, Date 07/06/06, Gold 421, Turn 142830).

(There’s not many games that make me write such utter rubbish. Let’s see if, say, Chrome Hounds leads me to write such painful prose about painful deaths.)

He did well up to level eight, his bare fists and feet making mincemeat of foes… until he got swarmed by several thousand (ish) cave spiders and succumbed to their bites while trying to run.

I need to learn how recall spells work. I tried a recall scroll, but nothing seemed to happen, except the word “Recall” came and stayed on the screen.

I was doing so well. I’d been sensible, I was up to level seven and back in town, selling stuff and buying new supplies. I was doing really well. Then I decided to try my unidentified scrolls in the relative safety of town. One of blessing… good… one of strength…. good… one of summon monster… eek!

It’s name is a LIE. A dirty, filthy LIE. It doesn’t summon monster, it summons monsters. Lots and lots of horrible monsters. Well, at least three. More than I could handle, at any rate. My health diminishing rapidly, I read a phase door scroll and found myself halfway across town.

I tried to run, but I wasn’t fast enough, and so Nigel the Skeleton Chaos Warrior dies, killed by a Culverin in the town.