Questions from a reviewer...

[Lizard]

Greetings!

I am a freelance reviewer w/PC World, assigned to review DCSS. I have a few questions:
a)What versions of Windows does DCSS run on, and are there any issues w/32 vs. 64 bit versions?
b)What minimum hardware requirements (disk space, RAM, processor speed, graphics) are there?

PC World would like to include the current version in their download section, and needs permission to do so.

(Normally, I'd just do this by email and not clutter up a public forum, but the "Contact" information mostly pointed here, so, there you are...)

[snow]

I play on Windows 7 and the game runs fine for me. I don't think there are any minimum requirements as you could always play console and have the screen drawn less frequently (there's an option in the settings).

[galehar]

First, thanks for reviewing DCSS
An update to our stable version is going to be released very soon (0.8.1)

a) Crawl runs on all windows versions from w2k to 7. There was a bug which prevented it running under w2k, but it's been fixed in 0.8.1. We provide 32 bits binaries, so they can run on both 32 and 64 bits windows. No issue specific to 64 bits windows has ever been reported.
b) Since the game is turn based, we don't really have any strict hardware requirement. The tiles version should run fine on any PC with 256 MB RAM and a GPU with OpenGL drivers. The full install takes about 32MB of hard disk space. The console version needs even less and has been reported to run fine on a 700Mhz PIII with 128MB and VESA graphics. It's also possible to play the console version online with just an ssh client, or the tiles version with a very recent browser (websocket compatible).

The game is GPL, so you're free to put in on your download section, as long as you leave all the docs with it which provide license information and points to where and how to get the source.

The best way to contact all devs is through to crawl-ref-discuss mailing list. Its address is in the README.txt. But posting here is fine too

Let us know when the review is out, and don't hesitate to come here for advices if you need any.

[mageykun]

Well that sounds pretty fantastic! Welcome to the forums, and I hope you have a fun time exploring crawl for your review.

Edit: removed advice, since Gahelar beat me to it with more complete and official information. :p

[Shade]

Since the game is turn based, we don't really have any strict hardware requirement. The tiles version should run fine on any PC with 256 MB RAM and a GPU with OpenGL drivers. The full install takes about 32MB of hard disk space. The console version needs even less and has been reported to run fine on a 700Mhz PIII with 128MB and VESA graphics. It's also possible to play the console version online with just an ssh client, or the tiles version with a very recent browser (websocket compatible).

A had a full KDE 4 Debian install on a 600 Mhz PIII (EB) with 384 MB of RAM and a Radeon 7000. It ran the full on Tiles version of Crawl fine. (This install had had any service that could be disabled disabled, and pretty much all effects, file indexers, and animations turned off. The Tiles version of Crawl (.7.x) played fine without modification.) The only reason why it's still not running Crawl is that I set the box up in my Parents' rec-room to keep younger members of the extended family from messing up other computers, and it finally melted after many years of loyal service.

I'm currently running Crawl Tiles on a 1.5 Ghz Thinkpad at my Girlfriend's place, with the world's slowest hard drive, 512MB of RAM, and an integrated Intel graphics. Once again with a full KDE 4 Debian based desktop, but with more services and some of the effects and animations turned on, but with the file indexers turned off.

There is no reason to believe that if it's x86, under 6 - 8 years old, and boots into a GUI, that it won't run Tiles unless there is something very wrong in your graphics stack. (AFAIK, there were some performance regressions many versions ago with the tiles re-write but that's well in the past.)

[Lizard]

Thanks to all of you for your prompt replies! That ought to be sufficient; my editor wants "official" replies on compatibility, etc, but also understands that when dealing with projects such as this (non commercial, small dev team), that there isn't extensive, formal, testing, but more of "Hey, it works on these machines, it probably works on those". I can toss in a line to the effect of "For support questions or issues, go to link_here".

I played Rogue back in college on green-screen IBM PCs in 1985 or so, and I've done reviews of ADOM and Dwarf Fortress for PC World as well. It's great to see the genre flourishing. I will post a link to the review here when it's published.

Edit/Addendum: I am crediting the "Author" as "Stone Soup Team". Is that acceptable, or should I use something else? (Listing every individual contributor is not feasible, so a team/company/etc name is preferred.)

[XuaXua]

I have all sorts of trouble playing Tiles DCSS on my laptop in a docking station; I have to set

tiles_options.txt

UNCOMMENT
# tile_update_rate = 1000
# tile_window_width = 1024
# tile_window_height = 768

Sometimes I set the 1000 to 5000 and other times I use 800x640, but I lose visual real estate.

Even with these options, the game is a bit laggy and gets laggier the more the map is revealed.

When the laptop is sitting on its own without the docking station, it plays normally (read: quite fast) without those options.

I noticed this change take place in one of the later releases in .8 and mentioned it as a bug in Mantis.

[galehar]

Edit/Addendum: I am crediting the "Author" as "Stone Soup Team". Is that acceptable, or should I use something else? (Listing every individual contributor is not feasible, so a team/company/etc name is preferred.)

Yes, Stone Soup Team is good. Listing individuals is not worth it, and there has been a lot of turn-over. You could just put a special note to Linley, the creator of the original game.

[Shade]

Yes, Stone Soup Team is good. Listing individuals is not worth it, and there has been a lot of turn-over.

That would be the stone soup part of Stone Soup. :p

[mrbobbyg]

Thanks to all of you for your prompt replies! That ought to be sufficient; my editor wants "official" replies on compatibility, etc, but also understands that when dealing with projects such as this (non commercial, small dev team), that there isn't extensive, formal, testing, but more of "Hey, it works on these machines, it probably works on those". I can toss in a line to the effect of "For support questions or issues, go to link_here".

I played Rogue back in college on green-screen IBM PCs in 1985 or so, and I've done reviews of ADOM and Dwarf Fortress for PC World as well. It's great to see the genre flourishing. I will post a link to the review here when it's published.

Edit/Addendum: I am crediting the "Author" as "Stone Soup Team". Is that acceptable, or should I use something else? (Listing every individual contributor is not feasible, so a team/company/etc name is preferred.)

Your review of Dwarf Fortress was amazing! I'm a huge fan of the game and you totally did it justice!

[dolphin]

Here's the review, I believe.

[slowcar]

You must still battle any monsters you encounter, of course.

Actually, you don't have to, and it would be better not to from time to time.
One of the first things you have to learn to get a better survival rate is to leave some monsters alone, starting with an early Sigmund (most of the time).

[galehar]

The goal of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is simple: [...] find the magic amulet and escape.

This one made me tick badly

[Regnix]

You've not been going all the way down to Zot 5 for the Orb have you? You can escape and win once you've found the magic amulet of the guardian spirit!

[Lizard]

The goal of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is simple: [...] find the magic amulet and escape.

This one made me tick badly

And you are right for doing so. I will contact my editor on that immediately.

EDIT: Uhm, to be clear, I'm not blaming my editor. That was my fault entirely, not hers; I will contact her to get it fixed.

[Lizard]

You must still battle any monsters you encounter, of course.

Actually, you don't have to, and it would be better not to from time to time.
One of the first things you have to learn to get a better survival rate is to leave some monsters alone, starting with an early Sigmund (most of the time).

My allotted word count is very limited; my intent in that sentence was to emphasize you couldn't simply map the entire level risk free by hitting a key; if you stumbled on something, you would have to deal with it, and "battle" seemed a better verb than "deal".

[dpeg]

Lizard: thanks for the review!

[slowcar]

Yeah, i didn't want to come over all guns blazing, it is a very good review, thanks for writing it, and especially for doing good research beforehand!