- Do you get emotionally attached to particularly promising characters?
Sort of. I don't fall in love with my characters or anything like that. But I do consider a promising character (e.g., a Spriggan that gets lucky and finds an Energy Staff early) valuable and I don't want him/her/it to die.
- Roughly how many games of Crawl have you played? About how many of those were wins?
Maybe 500 games since I found Crawl. Only 1 win so far.
- How do you feel when a character dies? Does it matter whether they're far along in the game or not?
Annoyed. Angry if the death is due to a stupid mistake. It matters how close they are to completing the game. A good character dying mid-game would be annoying. A good character dying on Zot 2 would make me use swear words.
- Do you consider your character an "avatar" for yourself, or are you playing a role? Do you have any formulas for naming your characters?
Nope, it's just a character. They are valuable because of their potential and entertainment level, but they are not "me." I name them based on whatever I feel like naming them at the time. My current troll is Glark. Made that up just because I thought it fit. Took like 1 second of thought, max. For really promising characters, I will sometimes spend time on Google trying to find a fitting image though.
- What's the feeling you get after you win a game of Crawl? Is it the same as the feeling you had when you won your first game?
Major sense of accomplishment. I can't answer the second question since I haven't won a second time yet. But if it helps, I feel most of the same sense of pleasure getting a rune now as when I did it the first time. Maybe like 80%. (Probably have obtained one or two dozen runes total.)
- In contrast, does dying frustrate you, or do you think it's a necessary to the pleasure of the game? Have you ever done anything drastic after a particularly brutal or noteworthy death?
Dying is frustrating but it is also necessary to the enjoyment of Crawl. If the rules permit reloading, then you can win the game all the time. Since Crawl is relatively simple, being able to beat it all the time would make the game boring, fast. By comparison, I can replay BG2 over and over (even though it permits reloading) because of the large number of quests, different sub-stories/sub-quests, and fan mods.
Most drastic thing I have done after losing a very good character was to swear. Alot.
- Do you think permadeath could become a popular concept in mainstream game design? Why or why not?
Nope. The general public wants things spoonfed to them. They do not want to work for it. To make a game successful commercially, you need to simplify it, make it pretty, add lots of music, and lower the difficulty so anyone can win the first time they pick up the game. Consider Final Fantasy.
- What originally drew you to roguelikes? What keeps you playing them?
Played the ascii version years ago. When I first started playing computer games. That left a mark. I keep playing today because it is fun. What makes it fun for me are the challenge and the diversity (RNGs, I love ya). The CSS tiles were a huge factor too. I just don't like the Nethack tile options.
- To you, what's one example of good game design in Crawl that makes permadeath more entertaining/interesting?
The turn based play works really well with permadeath. Crawl is not a test of my physical reflexes. It is a test of my mental reflexes. Can I think of a solution to problem X? In the last year, I've developed a habit of stopping play an after 1 hour or 2 of real time, doing a character file dump, and then studying the situation to see what else I should do. Crawl is the only game that makes me mull over a single key stroke for hours, if not days.
Good luck on your project, whelen.