The 0.28 tournament is over. On behalf of the Dev Team, many thanks to all the server admins, outside contributors, bug reporters, and to the many DCSS players who made the 0.28 release and tournament possible!

For 16 days, players could compete for tournament points and banners by playing 0.28 games on the public servers. This was the fourth tournament held after the major revision of the tournament rules done for 0.25. There were changes based on previous input, and once again we’ve collected the feedback posted on tavern and reddit.

Congratulations to Yermak, perennial champion, for once again taking first place in the individual competition, with a spectacular 111,412 points! Over the course of the tournament, Yermak won 43 games, including a streak of 13 games (second-best in tournament), an 76M high score run (first in tournament), 30 Nemelex’ Choice combos, 4 species high scores, 3 background high scores, and 19 tier 3 banners.

Other big winners:

• Acrobat2: 2nd place overall (101,150 points, 34 wins), longest streak (18 games), 4 species high scores & 1 background high score, tied for lowest XL win at 16, all level 3 banners completed.
• Fagentul: 3rd place overall (89,909 points, 21 wins), 5 species and background high scores, tied for lowest XL win at 16, 16 level 3 banners completed, 8-win streak.
• p0werm0de: Fastest realtime win (an auspicious 27 minutes 44 seconds), 2nd place low turncount, 8th place overall.
• Caminho: Lowest turncount win in a scanty 8,492 turns.
• sweetandcool: A third tie for lowest XL win at XL 16; 14th place overall.
• Lici The Crawler (alias Borgnjor’s Vile Crotch): First win of the tournament.
• Ge0ff, RubberyChicken and NoScrollMutBadDesign all tied for most ziggurats completed at 27 apiece.

The clan competition was won by Gozig or Gozag (captained by Ge0ff) with 105,656 points, sealing their victory by winning 40 Nemelex Choice combos to second place’s 30. In a close 2nd place was That felt unstrangely rewarding (captained by acrobat2) with 98,434 points, and first place in the Clan Combo Highscores and Streak Length leaderboards. 3rd place was held by Team Splat (captained by shummie) with 85,513, following up on last year’s 2nd place ranking by maxing out the Clan Low Turncount Win leaderboard.

Thank you to everyone for playing! I hope you all had fun.

To close out, here are some overall tournament statistics (with the 0.27 numbers in brackets for comparison). 2,559 players started a game at some point during the tournament; of those 2,504 completed a game without quitting or leaving the dungeon sadly orbless. This definition of “player” (players who completed a non-boring game) is used for subsequent calculations and was used for the 0.27 statistics.

• Players: 2,504 (0.27: 2,474)
• Total player time: 28,008 hrs (0.27: 27,502 hrs)
• Average player time: 11.2 hrs (0.27: 11.2 hrs)
• Games played: 69,201 (0.27: 67,203)
• Players who got a rune: 742 (0.27: 734)
• 357 winners and 1160 wins (0.27: 404 winners and 1571 wins)
• Win rate: 1.68% (0.27: 2.34%)
• Proportion of players using WebTiles: 96.6% (0.27: 94.4%)

The 0.29 season has begun, and changes are already in motion. Watch this space for further information as the 0.29 trunk update posts begin to flow. Until next time, happy crawling!

We are pleased to announce the release of Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup 0.28 “The Rise and Fall of Ignis Zotdust and the Spiders from Hell”!

DCSS 0.28 features a new Cinder Acolyte zealot background that begins the game worshiping a new god, Ignis, the Dying Flame. Cinder Acolytes start with the new Scorch spell, a -1 flaming branded weapon of choice, and five stars of piety. Ignis worshipers cannot gain piety, losing it only when using Ignis’ abilities. The abilities are Fiery Armour, which grants AC and retaliation flame damage, Foxfire Swarm, which summons many foxfires, and Rising Flame, a one-time ability sends the player one level above. Once all piety is spent, players will typically abandon for another god, and Ignis dies forever when wrath is over.

The Hell branches have been revised to offer substantially more challenge. Each branch features a distinct and persistent negative effects that applies while in the branch along with timed effects common to all Hells. The branches all have revised monster set with many new monsters and smaller layouts for the first six levels, each of which has only one downward staircase. The Spider branch has likewise been retooled with a roster of new creepy-crawlies, new and revised end maps, and updates to the existing layouts and vaults.

A new magical orb item type exists for the shield slot. Each orb type grants an ego with a powerful passive effect, such as a 3-radius halo or a reduction of monster willpower at the expense of your own. The god Yredelemnul has been completely redesigned, granting passive reaping and accepting the reaped zombies as payment for its dark abilities. Okawaru and Jiyva have also seen significant, though not quite as sweeping, changes.

A batch of new spells have been added, As always, there are dozens of new deadly vaults, and many more changes small and large alike!

Download DCSS 0.28 here or play it online on one of many servers across the world! Packages for Windows and OS X are available now. Linux debs are coming soon. See the full list of changes on the release page here.

The tournament starts on Friday February 4th 8pm UTC and runs through Sunday February 20th 8pm UTC, with all online 0.28 games counting towards your score. See the tournament page for more details, including how to join or setup a clan. Clans membership can be changed until Friday February 11th 8pm UTC.

Many thanks to all those who have contributed to DCSS over the years. Thanks especially to the DCSS development team, whose contributions made 0.28 possible, and to the admins who run and maintain the official servers. A special thanks to the following community members who contributed to 0.28 and a warm welcome to the first-time contributors, listed in italics. (Let us know if someone is missing, this data is tricky to collect in bulk!)

AdamPG, Alex Jurkiewicz, Aliscans, ArmiesAndCastles, Brian Power, Chris Landry, Justin Clark Ong, David Damerell, DreamDust, Ed Dewey, Elliott Bernstein, Gopall, Goratrix, Implojin, Jonathan Klabunde Tomer, Kiëd Llaentenn, MainiacJoe, Hurricos, Matthew Daley, Monkooky, Nikolai Lavsky, Oneirical, Perry Fraser, RojjaCebolla, Santiago Acosta, Zachary Chandler, Zhang Kai, amcnicky, dilly, floraline, John Stahara, Beargit, mgdelmonte, Nikolai Lavsky, Robert Gray, Paul Pollack, sdynet