[Crawl] More on program bugs. (Oh, dear...)

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

An interesting sequence of events:

Cast which spell ([?*] list)?
Which direction ([*+-] to target)?
Aim (move cursor or -/+/=, change mode with CTRL-F, select with . or >)
A grey snake skeleton.
Floor.
A program bug.
Floor.
A rakshasa.
Floor.
A midge.
Floor.
A midge.
Floor.

# Around here I noticed that the cursor had gone to a spot where
nothing seemed to be (it takes a while to register <g> ■), so I
went backwards again...

A midge.
Floor.
A rakshasa.
Floor.
A program bug.
Floor.

# Didn't quite know what to do with it, so I hit '.', completely
forgetting that I was actually targetting a spell (originally
planned for the rakshasa ■), oh well...

The iron bolt hits the program bug.
You kill the program bug!

# If it only were that easy, eh?

The grey snake skeleton misses you.
The grey snake skeleton hits you!

.. ..
.... ....
....{ .....
...... ......
....... .......
....... ..R....
........#........
...........5.....
........@........
.........z.......
.................
..........5z...
...........5...
..........#.x
..........
.........
.....

Searar the Hellbinder (Sludge Elf)

# Yay!

[...]

You are in the Abyss.

[...]

Vanquished Creatures
[...]
30 giant newts (D:1 D:2 D:4 D:3 D:7)
A program bug (Abyss)
18 fungi (Swamp:4 Elf:1 Elf:2 Elf:4 Elf:5)
24 plants (D:10 Lair:2 Hive:2 Hive:3 Hive:4)

(The others are only mentioned to show where it's listed...)

<brightly naive> Is it gone now?

Ok, trying to stop the giggling, I wonder what I have to fear for my
game. Should I just run for Zot before it dissolves in the Mother of
all Program Bugs' embrace? (I've got a few nifty runes, and a neat
title, shame about the other skills I wanted to raise, but there are
always other games...)

■ That has one wonder how I get anywhere, no? Just luck.

--
Tina the Chiller - the Champion of the Radical Necromantic Grief

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Tina Hall wrote:
> An interesting sequence of events:


> The iron bolt hits the program bug.
> You kill the program bug!
>
> # If it only were that easy, eh?

The 'program bug' is a dummy monster. IIRTSC the monster generation
routine first creates a program bug and then replaces it with an
appropriate monster. This replacement somehow (memory issues? index
problems?) went wrong so the program bug escaped.

As the PB's description pits it:

"If this monster is a \"program bug\", then it's "
"recommended that you save your game and reload. Please report "
"monsters who masquerade as program bugs or run around the "
"dungeon without a proper description to the authorities.";

> You are in the Abyss.

I _think_ the game has some problems freeing memory for the
monsters/items that are lost when you teleport to another part of the
Abyss but I'm not really into debugging.

> <brightly naive> Is it gone now?

It is gone after your next reload but too many of them in one session
might crash the program.

> Ok, trying to stop the giggling, I wonder what I have to fear for my
> game. Should I just run for Zot before it dissolves in the Mother of
> all Program Bugs' embrace? (I've got a few nifty runes, and a neat
> title, shame about the other skills I wanted to raise, but there are
> always other games...)

As I see below you went fot Zot.

Lars