Frequently Asked Questions

The best way to get answers to your questions is to post them on the Angband forum.

Issues and problems

How do I report a bug?

Post on the Angband forum.

Bug reports should include:

  • your current operating system (e.g. Windows 10)

  • what version the problem appeared in

  • the best steps you can figure out to reproduce the bug.

Savefiles that show the problem might be requested, because they help tracking bugs down.

Dark monsters are hard to see

Fix (reduce) the alpha on your screen, or use the “Interact with colors” screen under the options (=) menu. Navigate to the 8 using n and increase the color intensity with r(ed)/g(reen)/b(lue).

How do I avoid the “Couldn’t load the requested X11 font (10x20)” message?

The X11 frontend requires legacy bitmap fonts. Many modern systems no longer install those fonts by default, or install them in locations that X11 does not search automatically.

Common ways to resolve this include:

  • Install legacy X11 bitmap font packages provided by your operating system (package names vary by distribution).

  • Explicitly select an installed bitmap font by setting the ANGBAND_X11_FONT environment variable.

  • Use a different frontend (SDL, SDL2, Windows, macOS) that does not rely on X11 bitmap fonts.

On Linux, the required font is typically provided as 10x20.pcf.gz. If your distribution allows searching packages by installed files, look for a package that provides that file. Common examples include:

  • Debian/Ubuntu and derivatives: xfonts-base

  • Red Hat–derived distributions: xorg-x11-fonts-misc

  • Arch Linux: xorg-fonts-misc

Depending on the distribution and configuration, installing these packages may not be sufficient if X11 is not configured to search the installed font paths.

If none of the above works, please check the forums for distribution-specific advice or post a question including your OS, distribution, and Angband version.

Is there a way to disable that thing that pops up when you hit the enter key?

Go into the options menu, choose “Edit keymaps”, then “Create a keymap”. Press Enter at the “Key” prompt and a single space as the “Action”.

And then you’ll probably want to choose to “Save keymaps to a file”, and either choose the file name so that it is one automatically loaded when a character is loaded or combine the contents of the saved file with one of the automatically loaded preference files. That allows the change to stay in effect the next time you load the game.

This just replaces the default action of Enter with a “do nothing but don’t tell me about help” action. If you want to keep the menu available, say on the ‘Tab’ key, you can also remap the Tab keypress to the \n action.

Development

What are the current plans for the game?

Ever-changing and subject to U-turning with public dissent. Discussion typically happens in the Vanilla section of the forums.

How do I suggest an idea/feature?

Post it on the forums. If people think it’s a good idea, it will generally get some discussion; if they don’t, it won’t. The developers keep an eye on the forums, and ideas deemed OK will get filed for future implementation.

Sometimes a suggestion may not be right for the game, though. Some suggestions would change aspects of Angband that are essential to its nature; Angband has a long history, and so has developed a certain character over the years. Some suggestions might make a good game, perhaps even a better game than Angband, but would make a game that is not Angband. To some extent, variants exist to address this, but even so they tend to adhere to the core Angband principles.

How do I get a copy of the source code?

Go to the GitHub page, where you can find the bleeding edge as well as all previous versions.

How do I compile the game?

Please see the compiling section of the manual.

How do I contribute to the game?

You have two options:

  • Write your patch and submit it as a pull request on GitHub.

  • Post about it on the forum.

All contributions are accepted as dual-licenced with both the Angband and GPLv2 licences.

There are contribution guidelines in CONTRIBUTING.md in the top level directory of the source code.

If the patch is a bugfix, then you can reasonably expect it to be integrated into the development tree. If it’s more involved, and the feature is not one that the next version is planned to have, the patch may go through several reviews before being incorporated. It may also just be unsuitable for Angband - in which case, please don’t take rejection badly; you may just be better off writing a variant.

Non-code activities are different. Documentation can be written on the wiki, or if you’re a graphics designer (and they’re always welcome) then please talk on the mailing list about your work.