Lost Labyrinth FAQ

What do the special fields do?
What are our attributes good for?
How does the combat system work?
What do the curses do?
How does sneaking work?
What is auto-toggle?
How do I score points for the Highscore?
Fullscreen/Windowed Mode?
How much damage do the attack spells do?
What spells do the monsters cast?
What abilities do the monsters have?
What rooms exist in the labyrinth?
What special levels exist in the labyrinth?
What is the difference between common, elder and ancient Staffs?
What is lore good for?
How do ranged weapons work?
What different fighting styles exist?
Why is it impossible to get stolen items back?
Is it possible to get new skills in the game?
What are the staff pieces good for?
Compiling Lost Labyrinth
Rewriting Lost Labyrinth in another programming language
What are the differences between the new and the classic version?


What do the special fields do?
The sanktum regenerates your lifepoints. 
It has 3 charges.
When you are an akolyth it will also cure poison, break curses and replenish your mana.
If we have auto-toggle turned off we need to press space to use it!

The pentagram regenerates your mana. 
It has 3 charges.
If we have auto-toggle turned off we need to press space to use it!

This field leads to the next level
Thats what we have to find in each level!

This field leads one level up
If we have auto-toggle turned off we need to press space to use it!

This field leads to the next level too
When the next level is a special outdoor level!
From how it looks like you can tell to what level it leads!

When you use the shovel on this field you will 
find some treasure. Can be everything from Weapons/Armor/Light/Gold to magical Items.

When you use the pickaxe on this field you destroy it and get a passage. Sometimes very helpful!

This is a room. There are a lot of different ones.
Most of them are useful but there are some dangerous ones too!

When you use the shovel on this field you will 
find some treasure. Can be everything from Weapons/Armor/Light/Gold to magical Items.


Leads to the next level but you can only use it when you have a rope,
the skill climbing or the spell featherfall.

The black magician needs bones for a lot of his spells. There are 9 different ones
and they all work the same. Sometimes an undead will wake up when you walk over it!

Here you can sacrifice items from your inventory to the gods. But they are selective 
of what they like. Basically we can say everthing of high value can be accepted.
When accepted you receive an experience gain as reward!

This rune will destroy all summoned creatures that walk over it!

This rune will harm all summoned creatures that walk over it

This rune will not allow summoned creatures to pass!

Here you get 10 thirstpoints back!
If we have auto-toggle turned off we need to press space to use it!


What are our attributes good for?
Attack - We need this to hit opponents in combat.
  It counts towards melee and ranged combat but not for spells.
Dexterity - We need this to avoid getting hit by opponents and to dodge traps.
  Can never be higher than 15!
Strength - The damage we do in closed combat depends mainly on this and on the weapon we are using.
  Can never be higher than 15!
Lifepoints - We have an actual and a maximum value. When the actual value reaches zero we are dead.
  When we enter the sanctum our Lifepoints get filled up to maximum value. We can never have more
  Lifepoints than the maximum value. Can never be higher than 150!
Speed - Every turn we have that many steps. When our turn ends the monsters attack,
  light burns a bit and poison does damage. And new monsters enter the labyrinth. 
  Can never be higher than 25!
Perception - With this we find traps, secret doors and hidden treasure.
  Can never be higher than 15!
Luck - Helps to find traps, secret doors and hidden treasure. Helps doing critical hits.
  Also modifies the amount of gold we find. Can never be higher than 15!
Mana - We need this energy to cast spells. Every spell costs mana. 
  The pentagam (nexus) recharges our mana to the maximum value.
  We can never have more than our maximum. Can never be higher than 150!
Spellpower - This value says how strong our spells are. f.e. a spark does 2-(Spellpower+3) damage.
  Can never be higher than 15!
Spellcircle - The amount of spells we know depends on this rating. 
  Have a look into the "readme_spells" to know exactely, which spells you learn at which level.
  There are spells up to level 15.


How does the combat system work?
Your chance to hit an opponent is like:
  20% + Your attack rating * 10 + weapon attack rating * 10 + magical items and spells 
  minus the defence rating of the monster * 10


How much damage do I cause? You score a pointvalue between a minimum and a maximum rating,
  that is calculated like this:
  Minimum = Your strength/2 + weapon min rating 
    + Spells(f.e. Strength) and Magical Items
  Maximum = Your strength + weapon max rating
    + Spells(f.e. Strength) and Magical Items
If you fight unarmed, and do not have the bare hand combat feat, all this
damage is halved.
Sometimes the scored value can be 0. This means that you sucessfully hitted
 your opponent, but you couldn't penetrate his armor!

And there is a chance to kill a monster instantly with a critical hit.
The chances to score this one is calculated like:
(Your dexterity rating + Your luck rating) * 2 + Weapon critical rating
The Maximum you can have is 30%. With Assassination its 45%.



What do the curses do?
Nameless Curse - (No Experience Gain)
Curse of Tiamat - (One Point Damage per Round)
Curse of Hekate - (Your Power is 1)
Curse of Ares - (Your Attack is 1)
Curse of Paralysis - (Your Movement is 1)
Curse of Artemis - (Your Dexetrity is 1)
Curse of Achilles - (Monsters do double Damage)
Curse of Blindness - (Sight is 1)
Curse of Hephaistos - (Armor is useless)
Curse of Hades - (All skeletons wake up)
Curse of Seth - (You can't use pentagrams
Curse of Apophis - (Poison lasts endless)
Curse of Dagda - (You starve twice as fast - hunger)
Curse of Naiaden - (You starve twice as fast - thirst)
Curse of Osiris - (You can't use the sanktum)
Curse of Leprechaun - (You can't pick up gold)
Curse of Marduk - (Ambushes twice as often)
Curse of Astarte - (All chests are empty) 
Curse of Poseidon - (Double damage from drowning)
Curse of Tanis - (Duration of all spells halfed)
Curse of Athene - (Monsters hit better in Close Combat)
Curse of Morrigu - (Monsters hit better in ranged combat)
Curse of Chicken - (Very bad attributes)
Curse of Magneto - (Weight counts twice)
Curse of Gaia - (Weapons and Armor break twice as often)
Curse of Nosferatu - (Merchants and Trainers flee from you)


How does sneaking work?With sneaking you can pass monsters without fighting them.
Your chance for that is:
With skill sneaking:
Luck * 5% + Dexterity * 10% + 25%
Without:
Luck * 5% + Dexterity * 5%
In Bat + Bird + Catform you got 70%
Invisiblity gives you another + 40%
Minus the Awareness of the Monster
Maximum is 80%
Additionally sometimes monsters do not notice you and do not attack then.
The chance for this is:
With skill sneaking:
(Luck + Dexterity) * 2%
Without:
Luck + Dexterity


What is auto-toggle?Normally this mode is disabled. That means 
 you have to press the spacebar to pickup items or to use altars, stairs and the like.
In the options you can turn it on which means all items are picked up automatically
 and stairs and the like are used automatically.


How do I score points for the Highscore?Every level gives you 10 points.
Gold coins / 10 (you cannot get more points for monsters then for levels!)
Killed Monsters / 5 (you cannot get more points for killed monsters then for levels!)



Fullscreen/Windowed Mode? This works different in Windows and Linux. 
 In Windows the setting gets saved to disk. And we have to restart the game to change the mode.
 In Linux the mode is directely changed.
The mouse will still be locked. So you have to press the Escape Key to release it.
To use it again for the game we have to activate the window:
 move the mouse over it and press Escape again.



How much damage do the attack spells do?Name Cost Damage 
Whirlwind: 1 Random(power() + 1) + 1 
Hurricane: 1 Random(power() * 2) + 1 
Spark: 1 Random(power() + 1) + 2 
Firebolt: 2 Random(power() * 2 + 5) + 5 
Flameburst: 2 Random(power() * 2 + 1) + 2 (On each field in a row!) 
Sea of Flames: 3 Random(power() + 1) + 2 (All fields on the screen!) 
Fireball: 3 Random(power() * 2 + 3) + 4 (On 9 Fields!) 
Dragonfire: 3 Random(power() * 3 + 8) + 8 
Desintegration: 3 Random(power() * 4 + 6) + 4 
Armageddon: 10 Random(power() + 1) + 2 (On all monsters in the level!) 
Pestilence: 10 Random(power() + 1) + 2 (On all non undead monsters in the level!) 
Drain Life: 3 Random(power() + 1) + 2 (You get these points!) 
Meteor: 4 Random(power() * 2 + 3) + 3 (On 9 Fields!) 
Mentalbolt: 2 Random(power() * 2 + 1) + 1 
Vortex: 3 Random(power() * 2 + 3) + 2 
Lightning Bolt: 2 Random(power() * 2 + 3) + 2 
Frostbolt: 2 Random(power() * 2 + 3) + 2 
Dehydration: 2 Random(power() * 2 + 4) + 3 
Arcane Bolt: 2 Random(power() * 2 + 1) + 2 
Starfire: 4 Random(power() + 2) + 3 (All fields on the screen!) 


What spells do the monsters cast?
Fireball Does damage Random(Spellpower+1)+2 
Curse We get a random curse that lasts for Random(Spellpower*2)+5. 
 If we already have a curse the duration of it is increased by this amount 
Steal This spell robs one item from our inventory. 
 When it hits a stacked item only one item is stolen. 
 When it hits our moneybag only a certain amount of money is stolen 
Steal Mana Steals Random(Spellpower+1)+2 manapoints 
Drain Life Steals us Random(Spellpower+1)+2 Lifepoints which are added to the monsters life. 
 But it can not have more than its maximum 
Frostball Does damage Random(Spellpower+1)+2 
Teleport Moves us back to the entry of the level 
Dispel Terminates all our active spells 


What abilities do the monsters have?
Flying: The monster cannot be damaged by earthquakes, but is affected by air spells.
Ambushes: You can only be ambushed by monsters with this skill.
Poison: This monster will poison you when it deals damage in close combat. 
 Its unaffected by poison.
Robable: You can steal from this monster 
Ranged: This monster fires arrows. Distance depends on the ranged score of the monster.
Backup: This monster calls for backup when you attack it but not destroy it.
Dry: Is immune to dehydration (Water Magic) 
Fear: Is affected by the spell Fear (Black Magic). 
Charm: Is affected by the spell Charm (Witchcraft)) 
Thievery: It will steal you an item instead of attacking. 
Burns: Gets twice the amount of damage from fire spells. 
Fire resistance: Is immune to damage from fire. 
Stone resistance: Cannot be turned to stone. 
Lightning: Throws lightning bolts. 
Dispel: Will counter 50% of your attack spells. 
Regeneration: Each round gets 1-6 Kifepoints back. 
Unvulnerable: No effect yet! 
Ice resistance: Immune to damage from Ice. 
Invisible: Only visible during attacking. 
  Without the ability to view invisible you only attack with 20%
Firebreath: Will throw fireballs. 
Poisonbreath: Throws poison. 
Turn to stone: Can kill you instantely.
Frostbreath: Will throw ice. 
View of Death: Can kill you instantely. 
Lightning resistance: Immune to lightning bolts. 
Treasure: Sometimes has a normal, non-magical items. 
Magical Treasure: Sometimes carrys a magical item. 
Critical resistance: You cannot deal critical hits to this monster. 
Sleeps: Sometimes the monster sleeps. Can be put to sleep (Witchcraft) 
Water: Exists only in water. 
Unique: Can only exist once in every level. 
Spider: Gets the bonus from spiderqueen.
Goblin: Gets the bonus from goblin king. 
Undead: Gets the bonus from lord of the undead. 
Rat: In catshape you get an attack/damage bonus. 
Wolf: In wolf form you befriend this monster. 
Bat: In bat form you befriend this monster. 
Cat: In cat form you befriend this monster. 
Breaks weapons: The chance that your weapon breaks when you attack this monster is 5 times as high.
Breaks armor: The chance that your armor breaks is 5 times as high when this monster hits you.
Stones: This monster will throw stones.


What rooms exist in the labyrinth?
Trader: There are 5 different traders in the game. Each one has a unique list of items in stock.
Underground Forest: In the Trees you can find apples.
Pentagram: Additional source to replenish your mana.
Altar: Additional source to replenish your lifepoints.
Library: In the bookshelves you can find scrolls.
Laboratory: Here you can find potions.
Statue: When you offer expensive goods to the gods they will reward you with an experience gain.
  Only once per player. Not for the godless.
Monstertrap: This room is filled with monsters and you are trapped right in their middle.
Chests: 3 unlocked chests. 
Gold: Filled with a lot of gold. 
Cemetary: In the graves you can find various items.
Pond: Watersource. All your waterskins get filled up and your thirst is set to 0.
Treasure: Two locked and one unlocked green treasure chests
  (they always contain something magical!) 
Firedemon: You have to kill him and his followers to escape 
Trainer: For an amount of money depending on your rating you can train an attribute here. 
Dragon: You have to kill him to escape. He is poisenous! 
Lavatreasure: A green treasure chest surrounded by lava fields. 
  Those do 5 points of fire damage.
Piece of the Staff: One of the 9 pieces of the staff of the last covenant. 
  When you collect all, the game ends and your game is marked as "survived"! 
Tavern: Here you can hire a companion. He will act like a summoned creature. 
  The better fighters are more expensive. And you can only have one companion. 
Hydra: She is dangerous! Most people die here! How strong she is depends on the dungeon level. 
  She has 9 heads and when you destroy all of them she dies, but if you do not deal enough damage,
  she grows 1-2 new heads! Its not important which one of the fields you attack! 
Protected treasure: The door is blocked by a young red dragon. Do not underestimate him! 
Wizard: He can help you in 3 different ways: He can destroy all monsters in the level,
  he can cure you totally or he can remove all traps in the level.
Undergound lake: In the water you can find sunken treasures.
Forgotten forge: Everytime you use the forge you have a chance 
  that you sucessfully forge a random weapon.
Empty: This room is filled with traps and you right between them. 
Throneroom: There are 3 different kings: Goblinking, Spiderqueen and Lord of the Undead. 
  These monsters are unique per dungeon level and as long as they live, 
  their followers are stronger and fight better. 
  They also summon one follower in the level each round.
Prison: There are 2 cells with a monster and a chest each and a guard. 
Traps+Treasure: This room contains a green chest but its protected by a lot of traps.
Orc Village: A lot of Huts and Orcs.
Witch Garden: A Witch, a Hut and a lot of Mushrooms and Healing Herbs. 


What special levels exist in the labyrinth?
Cavern of Ice: A level filled with a lot of iceblocks and creatures that like cold temperatures.
Cavern of Lava: A level made out of lava and a lot of creatures that like hot temperatures.
Hall of the Undead: Consists of tombstones and there are only undead here.
Goblin Lair: A cave filled with only goblinlike Monsters. Well and red dragons  
Thieves Fen: A cave filled with only thieves, assassins and fallen heroes. 
Centauer Forest: Outdoor level. Consists of trees and there are a lot of centaurs
  and animals that like to live in forests. 
Hall of Illusions: This level consists of stars and teleporters. And a lot of spellcasters.
Spiderlair: A cave filled with tons of spiders and a spiderqueen somewhere. 
Desert: Outdoor level. A lot of open space filled with sand, djinns and snakes. 
  One gets thirsty very fast here.
Archipel of the Ancients: Outdoor level. Consists of water and small islands,
  and a lot of treasure and watermonsters.
Swamp: The swamp of loneliness is filled with poisenous plants and snakes and other swamp dwellers.


What is the difference between common, elder and ancient Staffs?
  Common Staffs break with 20% probability
  Elder with 10%
  Ancient with 5%


What is lore good for? 
Creaturelores: add their double value to attack, minimum and maximum damage
Poisonlore: There is a change of twice its value that poison lasts one turn less each turn
Traplore: Adds its double value to the chance to prevent a trap


How do ranged weapons work?
The chance to hit an opponent is the same as with a closed ranged weapon.
Means your attack rating multiplied by 10 minus the defence of the monster multiplied by 10.
(Modified by your items and active spells)
The chance to do a critical hit is: Dexterity+Luck in Percent (modified by used bow and arrows).
The amount of damage you cause is: 2-12 (modified by used bow and arrows)


What different fighting styles exist?  (Depending on type of used weapon)
Offensive combat stance: (all) +2 to attack and -2 to defense 
Defensive combat stance: (all) +2 to defense and -2 to attack 
Sunder hammer: -5 to attack; the armor of the opponent is ignored 
Impale spear: provides -2 to attack; the critical hit chance is doubled 
Whirling Blades: (sword) -25% to damage caused; the chance to miss an attack is halved 
Staff Defense: -25% to damage caused; the chance to get hit is halved 
  (works exactly like the trait Dodging, but is not cumulative with this trait) 
Swift Blade: (rapier) -2 to attack; if the character hits with his/her first attack,
  a second attack is immediately started 
  (works exactly like the trait Fast Attack, but is not cumulative with this trait) 
Hidden Blade: (dagger) damage caused by the first attack against a monster is doubled 
Sweeping Attack: (polearm) -2 to attack; all enemies near to the character are attacked at once
  (works exactly like the trait Surround Attack, but is not cumulative with this trait) 


Why is it impossible to get stolen items back? 
Remember this is an abstract roquelike.
We know it would make sense to just kill the thief and then pickup the stolen items. 
BUT it would make stealing pointless!
The thieves are very weak and everybody can kill them!
So it will NEVER be possible to get stolen items back!


Is it possible to get new skills in the game? 
No its not! Thats one of the traditions of this game.
The game is meant to last only very short not like other roquelikes,
 where you play the same character forever.
We want you to create a new character with different skills every time you play.
So to see all the skills you have to try around with them.
Thats all Lost Labyrinth is living from ... Combinations ...


What are the staff pieces good for?
When you collect all 9 parts of the staff of the last covenant you finish the game alive!
You can enter your name in the highscore as usual but get a sign that you survived!
The other way to finish the game is by completing level 150.


Compiling Lost Labyrinth? Lost Labyrinth is Open Source! 
This means you can download the sourcecode, the graphics and the sounds 
that we use to create the game.
BUT you will not be able to compile it until you own the Purebasic Compiler!
(Which you can get here: http://www.purebasic.com)
And this is a commercial program. We are sorry for that!
BUT if your idealism of only using selfcompiled code prevents you from playing the game,
 its your fault not ours!
On Linux and Open BSD, you can use Richard Braakman's converter elice.
With it you can convert and compile it. You need Ruby,Racc,Gcc and some SDL libraries
for that. Elice is available in the SVN repository.


Rewriting Lost Labyrinth in another programming language.
We (the programmers of this game) totally love purebasic!
Its fast, easy and cheap! And we already bought it.
And for us there is no reason to rewrite it in other languages!
If you like to do that you are welcome. You can use everything the game uses,
 we will answer all your questions to help you get started.
BUT we will not invest another hundreds of hours to just write it without any visible effect!


What are the differences between the new and the classic version?
The classic version is developed since years and development is still going on.
The programming is done by a friend of mine,
 with whom I studied information technology some years ago.
So why is there a need for a new version?
The classic one is written in blitzbasic which is not developed anymore.
And this compiler is only existing for windows.
Purebasic, the language the new version is written in, is still developed,
 and has a lot of nice features blitzbasic does not
 (Like an integrated packer for the resources).
We also can compile the game without changing one line of code 
 for windows and linux and maybe soon even mac os.

The game was programmed from scratch and did not use any code of the classic version.
So there will always be differences! Some skills are named differently or work a bit differently.
Both version have skills the other one does not have. (Or not have yet!)
I invested a lot of time to produce good and readable code. So its really well structured!
And its already totally modularized. So new functions can be integrated very easily,
 which makes sure we can continue development for the years to come!
Both versions follow the same traditions. So we use a lot of common elements but sometimes
in slightly different ways.
Advantages of the new version:

All old labyrinth levels are saved so we can walk up the stairs 
  (But we get the experience gain and the benefits from our skills only once!) 
The players can be in different levels. 
Summoned creatures act like players. 
  Means they have a movement rating and can really accompany their caster.
The inventory works "Diablo" like: We can rearrange our items with the mouse
   and stack them into piles. We can also drag&drop them to the character skeleton to use them.
We have a belt that works like a quickaccess inventory. We can move up to 10 items in there
  and access them in the mainscreen by clicking on them or pressing F1-F10.
The stairs can be in all 4 corners 


