Amazing how much fun and depth 1mb can hold... Then again, there has always Elite...

Great find! Nice write-up!

Surprisingly fun, surprisingly easy. I won the game on my fifth try with a good 400 kills. I'm sure there are higher scores to be had, but basically once you crack the key gameplay fact (that the game is just about resource management and the only resource at issue is food), the rest flows pretty easily.

The best load-out is defense heavy, since even w/o the longsword you'll kill most enemies in one or two hits. That means taking the chainmail, the shield, extra food, and the bag of keys.

The key enemies to kill are the rat/dog things and the bat/bird things, both of which drop food. The slime monsters drop treasure chests, which makes them desirable targets.

Demons are never worth killing except for points, since they only drop keys, and you don't ever really need keys. They're also the toughest enemies.

If you get your food in the 300-500 range, camping near an alcove and racking up kills is a decent strategy.

Drink every potion you find. Even though most are poison, you can always get the health back in alcoves and sometimes you get +DEF or +ATT potions, which are critical for later on.

Avoid fights with anything bigger than a rat/bat when your HP is below 7, unless you have to keep pushing on b/c of a food shortage.

Anyway, it's pretty fun, I guess, but I doubt I'll replay.

Great review baptistry, I agree with all of that.

Thanks a lot baptistry,
I only started to enjoy that game after reading your hints with the dogs and birds. But then I really, really enjoyed it :-)

FYI, the new WIP is radically different and the old strategy no longer works as well. It now looks like the best load-out might be longsword, buckler, crossbow, and two extra bags of food. But I still haven't won.

Among the things added are searchable corpses, which have never done anything other than lower my MHP or HP; I suspect, though, that they have a low probability of some very good reward.

I just got a +5 HP from one of the corpses, so they do in fact give good things occasionally.