Reading the dungeon
A few marks are enough to show a difficult situation. The exact symbols and rules vary between games.
---------
|..@....| @ player
|....!..| ! potion
|..d....+## d creature
|.....>.| # > down
--------- # + door
# # corridor
This is an illustrative map, not a captured game. A symbol key belongs to a particular game and display mode. In another dungeon, the same mark may mean something else.
Turn and action cost
The world advances when the player takes an action. A turn is not necessarily one equal move for every creature. Speed and different action costs can let something act sooner or more often than expected.
Permanent death
Losing a character ends that character’s ordinary run. Saving to stop for the night is compatible with permanent death; restoring an earlier state to undo a fatal decision changes the rules of the attempt.
Procedural generation and seed
A program assembles some of the world. It may combine authored rooms with generated connections, objects and inhabitants. A seed fixes the starting state of a random generator. Replaying it reliably usually also requires the same game version and settings.
Identification
An item’s appearance may not reveal its effect. Experimentation, observation and identification tools reduce uncertainty. The practical question is often when it is safe enough to learn what something does.
Line of sight and field of view
What the character can see. This may differ from what a projectile can reach. Corners, lighting and remembered terrain all complicate the picture.
Chokepoint
A narrow space that limits how many opponents can approach. It is useful only while there is still a way out and the enemy cannot exploit it better.
Build
The collection of abilities, equipment and other choices that make a character work. Some games ask for a plan early. Others make adaptation to found equipment central.
Variant and fork
A related implementation developed from an existing game or its source. A spiritual successor borrows a design direction without necessarily sharing code. A source port primarily moves a game to another environment.
Vault
An authored room or arrangement placed inside a larger generated level. Procedural generation does not require every tile to be independently random.
Bones and morgue
Bones are remains of an earlier dead character that can appear in a later game, particularly associated with NetHack. A morgue file is a record of a finished character or run. It is evidence of a game, not usually a playable save.
Traditional does not mean monochrome
Tiles, colour, sound or a three-dimensional renderer say little by themselves about the timing of decisions. This archive follows the underlying play. Where a game has several modes, the entry identifies the relevant one.